Herman Cain's enigmatic ad/comedy extravaganza!!

I don't have anything too serious to share with this post but I have to comment on Herman Cain's ad which has become an almost viral sensation. I was trying to explain it to someone recently, and I found it difficult to speak through my laughter. Here it is:

                                                     

Okay, so did the campaign just suddenly decide "we need an ad, time to break out our secret weapon: Mark Block!"? And the smoking at the end. So perplexing. Is it supposed to be the smoking of the desperate down on their luck, lower class American? A symbol of America's need for a smoke break? Is it supposed to make Mark Block look somehow cooler? Is it a "screw you" to all those liberals and their anti-smoking laws? No campaign ad will top this for pure, almost avant garde, weirdness.

Obama and Steve Jobs: the significance of their meeting

  

    Recently people in the media have been poking fun at the Occupy Wall Street protesters for using iPhones and other products that are produced by corporate America. The implication being that they are hypocrites for protesting corporations while using their products for their own betterment. An example of this can be found in the picture below:

This of course ignores the real target of the protests, and the fact that most Americans can point to very few beneficial things that the average prop trading desk for a Wall Street firm does but they can hold an iPhone in their hands and find millions of uses for it. Which brings us to Steve Jobs.

   In excerpts from an upcoming biography of  Mr. Jobs there is a story of a meeting between President Obama and Mr. Jobs in which Jobs told Obama that he could be a one termer. You can read a little about it here.

   While there are some things Jobs said that I disagree with, like his scapegoating of teacher's unions for the failures of our country's education system, when he moves to the topic of business I'm all ears. Jobs said that regulations in our country had made it harder for companies to build factories in the U.S. This is something I'm accustomed to hearing from whatever generic Koch brothers mouthpiece you hear on FOX News, but coming from a Buddhist, acid dropping, lefty like Jobs it carries a little more weight with me.

  Political views aside, Jobs recognized that Obama wasn't doing a great job in aiding the growth of the economy. And he didn't parrot a call for more government intervention in the economy, he called for the opposite. If Jobs had made these statements public it could have been an "only Nixon can go to China" moment for a lot of liberal Apple loving citizens in our country (who, speaking of China, probably don't give much thought to the fact that their iPhones are made there). One can only hope that the release of this biography brings more attention to the business views of a man whose company has done so much to advance our country for the better.

 

Breitbart is no Taibbi.

  I just read this story from Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism about the alleged role of the "mainstream media" in working with the Wall Street protesters.


  I have to say that the concept of the piece is pretty flimsy. Dylan Ratigan doesn't have near enough of a following to influence hardly anyone. Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald aren't super mainstream either. Definitely not any more mainstream than Breitbart himself.

   My biggest gripe is the way Matt Taibbi is portrayed as being some sort of scheming journalist trying to influence the movement, even getting a mention on the Rush Limbaugh show. Here are two of his responses, here, and here. Taibbi is a journalist, but he's still opinionated.

   I fail to see a big difference between him giving suggestions to OWS protesters (if he was doing this) and Breitbart's speaking at numberous conservative/Tea Party gatherings. As it is, nothing that I've seen shows me that he is personally trying to relay anything to the OWS people that he hasn't written in his articles.

  The concept of Breitbart's website going after Matt Taibbi is hilarious. Breitbart fashions himself a "journalist" but he's really just a spastic kid who takes (often dubious) information from other people and gathers it together. Breitbart would be lucky if he had a person with even a drop of Taibbi's talent working for him.


UPDATE: Another article from Big Journalism does actually have some info on Dylan Ratigan possibly giving guidance David DeGraw who was actually going to be interviewed by Ratigan's fellow NBC employee  Brian Williams. That would cross a line in my mind, especially since they work for the same news network with Ratigan as more of an editorialist and Williams as a straight newsman. Still, I see no concrete info that Taibbi is nearly as involved as Ratigan. Even if he is, I don't have a problem with him trying to get his ideas out to people who could make a difference. If there were more conservatives and liberals raking up the same muck as him then this would probably be a better country.

Perry, Bush, and Beer

It was said that when Dubya ran for president, he was the kind of guy that people felt they'd enjoy having a beer with. If that's the case, then does that make Rick Perry the loudmouth at the bar telling you how many beers he has had and maintaining that he still isn't drunk?

H.R. 1981 , and your online privacy

HR 1981 is a bill that is called the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act" but could be more accurately titled the "Internet Power Grab Act". It requires ISPs to store all their customers' information such as name, address, phone number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, websites visited etc. for 18 months. This is done under the pretense of catching child pornographers by basically treating everyone who has a computer like they could be one.

I'm hearing a fair amount of opposition from both sides of the aisle on this one, and sadly support for it as well. If this bill bothers you as much as it does me, call/write/email your representative and Senators and tell them how you feel.

Here's a video summary:

                           

The Democrat-Gazette disses Egypt (and Turkey too).

    Tuesday's issue of the Dem-Gaz had a stunningly pessimistic editorial about the trial of Mubarak in Egypt, and about Egypt's future as a whole. Of course it delved into their raging "Muslim Brotherhood is going to take over Egypt" hard-on that is seemingly shared by every right wing commentator in existence.

  They pointed to Mubarak's being in a cage as if that had some sort of inherent significance, ignoring the fact that the use of the cage in the courtroom is commonplace in the region (and even in Italy, France, and Germany when a particularly violent defendant is on trial). They even titled their piece "Lion in a cage: Hosni Mubarak on exhibit". References to the French Revolution were also made, and the whole thing was enough to make the reader believe that the writer expected guillotines in the street at any moment.


   Look, I don't dig the Muslim Brotherhood. Their presence in Egypt is unsettling. But they will have some sort of role in whatever government Egypt ends up having. We can deal with it, or we can freak out over it. If one reads the Economist the situation doesn't seem nearly as bleak as the Dem-Gaz's editorial would have you believe, but still very much up in the air.


  An article in the same issue dealt with Turkey as an example for the region. Of course if one read the Dem-Gaz's Mubarak LionMan editorial or whatever you want to call it, you would think that an Egypt headed in the direction of Turkey would be a scary prospect indeed. They described Turkey as a place that is is slowly heading the way of a theocracy. Meanwhile a poll in the aforementioned issue of the Economist addressed the percentages of Muslims that support harsh punishments like whipping for theft, stoning for adultery, and the death penalty for leaving Islam. Of all the Muslim countries mentioned Egypt had the highest percentages in favor of such punishments, hovering around 80% support. Turkey on the other hand saw the lowest percentages in favor of any Muslim country on the list, less than 20%.


  I understand 20% is still too much, but if Egypt were going to head any direction I would be pretty pleased if it was Turkey's.

Thoughts on Federal Charges for Abdulhakim Muhammad

A story in the Democrat Gazette dealt with the topic of federal charges being brought against Abdulhakim Muhammad for his murder of Pvt. William Andrew Long and wounding of Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula. Long's father Daris hoped that the filing of federal charges would help the case of his son and Ezeagwula being awarded Purple Hearts, which would in turn help Ezeagwula receive medical benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Listen, I'm all in favor of honoring Pvt. Ezeagwula and the memory of Pvt. Long. I'm also not opposed to some way being found for Ezeagwula to receive medical benefits. But filing federal charges against Muhammad, and even to a degree giving his victims Purple Hearts, would play right into what he wants. From the beginning, Muhammad has tried to make himself out to be something more than he is. As far as anyone can tell he's not a true terrorist, he's a wannabe. Instead of a wannabe gangster he chose to be a wannabe jihadist. Federal charges and giving his victims honors like those suggested would make Muhammad's day. The memory of Long should be honored and Ezeagwula should be taken care of, but Muhammad needs to disappear.