420 Summit

Downpressor Man

I’m not big on self-pity and blaming others for personal problems. My general attitude has always been along the lines of: “Get a job,” “Stop doing drugs,” “Act civilized!”

I may not actually do any of this, certainly not all three at the same time, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t sound advice.

But, and it’s a big one, sometimes doing the right thing just isn’t good enough. Sometimes, people mess with you and yours, for no good reason. They do it because they are ignorant, feel threatened or are just plain mean. They do it because twelve bucks an hour is more important than a person. They do it because they don’t know any better. They do it because they have been taught that the best defense is a good offense and might makes right. They do it because they believe poor people are stupid, addicts lack self control, and homosexuality is a lifestyle choice. They do it because black kids don’t have fathers and Latino kids have three.

They do it because nobody tells them they can’t.

When this behavior becomes the norm, when it is accepted, embraced and institutionalized, rather than regarded as an aberration, you have… The Man.

You drink your big champagne and laugh
All along that day
I wouldn’t like to be a flea
Under your collar man

All along that day
You can run but you can’t hide
Telling you all along that day
You gonna run to the Lord
Beggin’ to hide you

You gonna run to Jah
Beggin’ to hide you
All, all along that day

And I said Downpresser Man
Where you gonna run to
Where you gonna run to Downpresser man
Where you gonna run to

I said all along
All along, along that day Downpresser man

Right now, The Man, is fucking with the wrong people.

46 days ago

Seeing red

The Supreme Court is the least of our problems. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

46 days ago

War without end

After thirty-five years and $500 billion, drugs are as cheap and plentiful as ever: an anatomy of a failure.

264 days ago

Rude and reckless

How wonder how long it will take someone to cook up a Giuliani ad using the Clash’s, “Rudie Can’t Fail”.

Okay, it probably won’t happen, but I can’t get the song out my head whenever I see the guy. Then I have to spend the day imagining a power pop trio of ferrets playing the same three chords over and over and over.

We hear them sayin’
How you get a rude and a-reckless?
Don’t you be so crude and a feckless
You been drinking brew for breakfast
Rudie can’t fail, no, no

So we reply
I know that my life make you nervous
But I tell you that I can’t live in service
Like the doctor who was born for a purpose
Rudie can’t fail

Okay, I went to the market to realise my soul
Cos what I need I just don’t have, oh no
First they cursed then they pressed me ‘till I hurt
We say Rudie can’t fail

Woah, first you must cure your temper
Then you find a job in a paper
You need someone for a saviour
Then Rudie can’t fail, oh no

265 days ago

Sittin' in a circle

Kevin Drum, who I generally like, has decided to run a contest to determine the all-time most wingnuttiest blog post. With superhuman discernment he has managed to narrow the field to fourteen. All neo-cons and all quite… uh, wingnutty.

The posts themselves are, for the most part, unremarkable and what you would expect from their respective authors. More interesting is the way the various ‘nominees’ are reacting, or, not reacting.

Kim DuToit, who is actually coherent, blusters:

Actually, Drum’s post just highlights what a pathetic bunch of losers our modern-day liberals really are, that they would create a silly poll like this one. It is, as they say, to laugh.

Reaction on his blog is negligible but maybe he can gather a few more links for his Pussification masterpiece. Everyone has to be known for something.

Den Beste, an old school geek loon, has made no response at all. He has bravely decided to drop his post down the memory hole.

Someone with his geek cred should have learned that the web has a long memory and there is a copy of his bizarre essay readily available. Then again, Den Beste’s stardates are really cute and his grasp of history and foreign policy is unmatched by any of the other anime fans in his D&D group.

Ann Althouse couldn’t care less. The new meds must be kicking in and she is busy taking pretty pictures and rehashing some squabble with John (or Juan, I can never tell them apart) Cole.

John Hinderaker makes no mention of Drum’s ‘contest’ on Power Line, but if I had to pick a winner, it’s all John. It doesn’t get much crazier than:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

Malkin, Reynolds, Derbyshire, and Hewitt are also, so far, silent.

My eyes have started to bleed and I can’t look at any more of these sites — maybe someone can study why right-wing sites are almost universally ugly — but I don’t think Drum is getting the reaction he wanted.

Hang in there, Kevin. Some right-wing weblog will copy this and cherry pick examples of left-wing lunacy for us to laugh at and generate the traffic and ham-fisted commenting that you, for some unfathomable reason, seem to want.

290 days ago

The Worst Mayor in America

“He once bulldozed an elderly woman’s house, promising to build her a better one. He then forgot to build it.”

303 days ago

Fascist America

“From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy…” Beneath the hyperbole and FUD, there is something worth paying attention to here.

304 days ago

Battling for hearts and minds

A self described mad scientist and disruptive technologist has whipped up an IP based tracker widget to trace anonymous Wikipedia edits.

Fox News and the New York Times are about even, as is the government of Cuba and Ft. Meade in Maryland. This is a curious convergence of the ‘net, the media and those who make policy. Even stranger is the prospect that groups as diverse as Diebold, the Vatican and the CIA care enough to pay someone to make anonymous postings to what is essentially a big ass web forum.

Most importantly, where does one apply for these jobs? I’ve been trolling web forums anonymously for a decade and nobody ever gave me a cent. I can be bought. Tainted baby food, not a problem. Crazy right/left – wing government, who cares, commies and fascists are one and the same on the web. Big oil, hey, I like to drive as much as the next guy. US Army, sure, somebodies gots to do my killing for me.

You guys write the checks and I’ll write the copy. Anonymously, of course, since I wouldn’t want to actually be held accountable for my words.

373 days ago

Rolling, rolling, rolling...

As long as I’m pissing everyone off, I may as well add that every single bridge in the entire United States did not suddenly get worse the day a single bridge broke in Minnesota.

They have been junk for a long time and infrastructure improvements are not on anybodies (except a few contractors and their union buddies) list. It isn’t sexy enough — we have a country to protect from terrorists — and we have limited resources.

However, it might be worth noting, that more people died as a result of a single bridge collapse than have died as a result of domestic terrorism in the last seven years. Our roads, electrical grids and hospitals are falling apart while we throw billions of dollars into the wind pretending to fix the same problems in another country.

It’s your money, what do you want to do with it?

380 days ago

Truth in politics

There seems to be an odd little meme circulating amongst our politicians: they have somehow gotten the idea that telling the truth is a good thing.

Myself, I’m not convinced.

When a desperate, soon to be an also ran, candidate’s wife speaks openly about sex and race, something isn’t right. This cycles favorite loose cannon, Elizabeth Edwards, has this explanation for her husband’s bad polling:

“We can’t make John black, we can’t make him a woman. Those things get you a lot of press, worth a certain amount of fundraising dollars.”

You know what, that is entirely true.

You know what else is true, she is Elizabeth Edwards and is working her way towards iconhood — the best thing that could happen to her husband’s campaign is an untimely cancer related death — following the Betty Ford model. She is golden. You can’t beat up on a sweet female cancer patient without looking like a bully.

The NAACP will scream about racism and the Republicans will gleefully point to it as another example of the Dems eating their own. Nonetheless, it’s entirely true and if you don’t think Clinton being a woman and Obama being black locks up a nice chunk of the Democratic primary vote your naive or not very bright.

Then we have Florida Representative Bob Allen a staunch conservative who was recently charged with soliciting sex from a male undercover police officer in a public restroom. Mr. Allen’s defense:

“In his statement Allen explained that Danny Kavanaugh, the Titusville police officer from whom he allegedly solicited sex, was a ‘pretty stocky black guy.’ And because ‘there was nothing but other black guys around in the park,’ he became intimidated and did whatever he could to survive.”

Now, I don’t know if this is true or not, but it’s not impossible. I don’t know how much time any of you have spent in the ‘hood, but it can be scary. If your a horny middle-aged fat gay white guy without a badge in a public restroom, it’s probably really scary. My point is, it’s an entirely plausible excuse and that, name calling aside, is the state of race relations in our cities.

To me, it has the ring of truth. It’s just too wacky not to be and even if it isn’t, what do I care. No minors, no drugs (I bet that’s what he was really there for) and from everything I can tell, no victim.

I have always considered diplomacy to be little more than knowing how to effectively tell “white lies” and, tact, along with the ability to compromise, is something I value in a politician. The more refined might describe this as being “pragmatic” but what it boils down to is I care far less about sound bites than I do about the nuts & bolts of legislating.

Ya’ll bang it out in the lobby, that’s what we pay you for.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about Mr. Allen’s legislative record but doubt that I would like it much. I do know something about John Edwards’ record and, despite his wife, Mr. Edwards has had my vote since he announced.

Did Dennis Kucinich just advocate the digging of a tunnel to China?

Probably not. If Kucinich said that then I just heard John Edwards say that he has stood in a “picket line on Saturn”.

380 days ago