[ Posted Wednesday, July 24th, 2013 – 16:40 UTC ]
So the question is now: what will the big 2013 Silly Season issue be? Predicting such things is almost impossible, admittedly, due to the silliness factor itself -- if these things followed some sort of logical process, then we wouldn't call it Silly Season, would we? But that doesn't mean we can't have our own kind of silly fun guessing what it'll be, right? After setting the stage a bit, I'll offer up my own silly prediction at the end, and then we can all see who can manage to out-silly it in the comments.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Monday, July 22nd, 2013 – 17:36 UTC ]
[The Scene: A warm Philadelphia evening, 226 years ago. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention -- after a long and miserably-hot day of respectful debate (and quite a lot of just plain bickering) over the text of Article I, Section 10 of the proposed draft of the new United States Constitution -- take up the final item on the agenda. We join the Founding Fathers as they (somewhat-wearily) begin discussion of the final subject of the day. Since the debate was conducted behind closed doors, this re-creation uses no names for the participants, to protect their anonymity.]
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, July 19th, 2013 – 16:13 UTC ]
As usual this week, there were several stories the mainstream media was obsessing over which I am just largely going to ignore. The most inane of these was, of course: "This just in! It gets hot in the summer! Who knew?!?" The most ridiculous one was the foofaroo over Rolling Stone using a photograph on its cover which many other media outlets had used for front-page stuff, but which somehow Rolling Stone wasn't supposed to use, for some inexplicable reason. Even though -- on the same cover -- they called the guy "a monster." Lots of out-of-context outrage ensued, including one call to buy the magazine and then burn it. Um, yeah, that'll show them! Just hand over your money, in protest!
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Wednesday, July 17th, 2013 – 16:40 UTC ]
But what if it works reasonably well? What if (gasp!) people actually like it?
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, July 12th, 2013 – 17:19 UTC ]
OK, we've got somewhat of a backlog to take care of here, due to summertime laziness striking early this year. So we're just going to plow through the swirling storm of craziness as fast as possible. Insert your own "Sharknado" joke, if you feel so inclined.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, June 21st, 2013 – 16:00 UTC ]
Arizona is a truly beautiful state. It has many spectacular sights, of which the Grand Canyon is the most awe-inspiring. But Arizona is also a state of forbidding landscapes -- much of the state is desert or near-desert, where the heat of the midday sun is a force of nature to be heavily respected, if not downright feared. But what has put Arizona into the news recently is its "forbidding" political landscape. Specifically, on immigration.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Thursday, June 20th, 2013 – 16:00 UTC ]
Does comprehensive immigration reform have a chance of becoming law in 2013?
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 – 16:00 UTC ]
We stand at the beginning of a grand debate on immigration. America goes through these grand debates every generation or so, and what remains constant is that both sides in the fight can be counted upon to accuse the other side of "playing politics" with the immigration issue. This has, indeed already begun.
Republicans are offering up a splendid display of doublethink on the issue, in order to be able to say: "Hah! We were right all along," no matter what happens. Republicans make two accusations, which are completely contradictory (which doesn't seem to bother them at all), that the whole thing is just a cynical political game: (1) Obama and the Democrats want to legalize 11 million people who will then immediately become reliable Democratic voters, and/or (2) Obama and the Democrats will somehow find a way to scuttle the deal because they really don't want to pass any law, they just want to use the issue to beat up Republicans, in election after election. As I mentioned, no matter what happens, they'll be able to fall back on one of these tropes. Democrats, however, are using the second of these (with slight modification) to explain their own wariness: Republicans just want to be able to say: "We tried something" during the next election, and they will find a way to scuttle the deal in the end while blaming Democrats for the legislative failure.
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Friday, May 31st, 2013 – 16:25 UTC ]
"You know, after watching the popularity arc of such Tea Party favorites as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, I can't help but wonder why they don't just skip over what appears to be the hardest part of becoming famous for them -- the part about serving in office. Why not just go straight towards being a media darling on the Right? The Fox network could get in on the action in a big way, and broadcast a reality show once a year to search the nation for the next Tea Party superstar. They could call it 'So You Think You Can Rant?' and hire Palin, Bachmann, and Donald Trump to be judges. I bet it'd be a ratings smash, personally."
Read Complete Article »
[ Posted Thursday, May 30th, 2013 – 16:31 UTC ]
Michele Bachmann has announced her retirement from Congress. I consider this good news for a very selfish reason: her name is just too easy to misspell. You're typing along, and where there should be a double letter there isn't... and then a little later there is one where there shouldn't be. It's annoying.
Read Complete Article »
