Internet vigilantes going too far?

Check out the ethical dilemma presented in this episode of one of my favorite podcasts (This American Life) (the story entitled "hanging in Chad"), which involves the effort of a couple of self-appointed American Internet "vigilantes" who go after people trying to run e-mail/internet scams. The story begins innocently and humorously enough, but as the story unfolds, real questions arise as to the ethics of the actions involved.

"Evangelical Dominatrix...."

In case you missed it, check out Simpsons writer Dana Gould as he skewers Palin on Bill Maher's recent show (go to 9:00 if you're impatient or can't stand listening to Wall St Journal knucklehead Stephen Moore).

Assassination-in-training

Welcome to a sumptuous buffet of "love thy neighbor" Americans respectfully articulating their policy disagreements with Obama...

McCain: a "mean little f*cker"

That was the verdict of one of McCain's ($40,000 private) high school chums, as related in the Rolling Stone expose on McCain below. 'Seems like things haven't changed that much, as this video highlights. As much as I might otherwise kinda relish the idea of a US president flying into a rage at the craps table, I think I'll take a pass on that kind of temperment when we're talking nuke launch codes...

Palin = anti-intellectual "cancer"

A PF shout-out for conservative thinker/columnist David Brooks, somone I've disagreed with for years but respect because he is actually a conservative thinker rather than talking-points babbling political tool. In a recent exchange with Atlantic magazine, Brooks gushes over Obama and characterizes Palin as representing a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party." One can only hope other thoughtful conservatives agree...

Meant to provoke, not to be believed...

I think Bush speechwriter David Frum has got it right on this one--as much as I'd love to see Obama really take the gloves off and go after the bullshit McPalin are throwing his way... Slow and steady as she goes until the election...where hopefully the Stealth Racists won't be voting in significant enough numbers to make these pre-election polls unrealiable...

This emperor-to-be has no clothes...

Wow...talk about an eye-opening piece. This Rolling Stone expose of McCain leaves few stones unturned and lays bare this sham of a man with gems like this:

In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.

>>>>

"I enjoyed the off-duty life of a Navy flier more than I enjoyed the actual
flying," McCain writes. "I drove a Corvette, dated a lot, spent all my free
hours at bars and beach parties." McCain chased a lot of tail. He hit the dog
track. Developed a taste for poker and dice. He picked up models when he could,
screwed a stripper when he couldn't.

>>>

Dramesi says he has no desire to dishonor McCain's service, but he believes that celebrating the downed pilot's behavior as heroic — "he wasn't exceptional one way or the other" — has a corrosive effect on military discipline. "This business of my country before my life?" Dramesi says. "Well, he had that opportunity and failed miserably. If it really were country first, John McCain would probably be walking around without one or two arms or legs — or he'd be dead."

>>>

If heroism is defined by physical suffering, Carol McCain is every bit her ex husband's equal. Driving alone on Christmas Eve 1969, she skidded out on a patch of ice and crashed into a telephone pole. She would spend six months in the hospital and undergo 23 surgeries. The former model McCain bragged of to his buddies in the POW camp as his "long tall Sally" was now five inches shorter and walked with crutches.

By any standard, McCain treated her contemptibly. Whatever his dreams of getting laid in Rio, he got plenty of ass during his command post in Jacksonville. According to biographer Robert Timberg, McCain seduced his conquests on off-duty cross-country flights — even though adultery is a court-martial offense. He was also rumored to be romantically involved with a number of his subordinates.

As much as this tightly-written story is a searing microscoping of the McCain we don't know, it is a much more damning indictment of our McMedia that fails to produce even one hint of anything approaching journalism of this type. Here were are months (years?) into this election cycle. How much time and money have the McMedia spent on fixating on polls, phony-debates, phony-issues (lipstick on pigs) and informational landfills full of similar garbage. And yet here we have the real McCain. And of course its not like this information required a team of DeepThroats to extract. It was there for any "journalist" of moderate work-ethic, drive and curiosity to ferret out.

And (again), much more needs to be said about excellence (oops I mean elitism), mediocrity and failure. The author of this piece somewhat kindly characterizes McCain as "mediocre" for his graduating 894th of 899 at the Naval Academy. That isn't mediocrity, that's a fucking failure. And the only reason McCain isn't in his own personal dustbin of history is becasue--like George W. Bush--he relied upon and beneffited from the only kind of affirmative action conservative whites love....the long-thrown shadow of family legacy, power and influence. "Legacy" programs at otherwise respectable schools like Harvard and Yale are the welfare trains for spoiled fuckups like Bush and McCain. And they provide a undeserved teflon coating for future fuckups as well.

Imagine what folks like McCain and his followers would have to say about some minority who lived the life of McCain: academic failure, gambler, fighter, womaziner, crashes several Navy planes, etc. "Another failure of family values in the __________ [insert minority group here] family." But oh no...not Johnny McCain. Through a combination of egoist ambition and our lazy McMedia, McCain is able to spin and sell a tale of a modern steely-eyed George Washington.

Or consider if Obama had even one or two "chapters" out of McCain's generally piss-poor Book of Life. Can we even imagine him in the running today?

'A shocking but enjoyable read...

PF

Damn it Sam...(a defense of elitism)

...you stole my fire on a blog I was going to do on elitism....oh well...saved me an hour :)

But isn't this so true? His example of neurosurgery is brilliant, but could be applied to any one of hundreds of other instances of daily life where we not only tolerate elites--people who are "better" than us in certain respects--but we demand them. Who on earth would seek out a mecahnic, lawyer, preacher, accountant, doctor or pilot based on the same ridiculous "standards" some of us use to determine a president (an "average person who relates to me" or "someone I'd like to have a beer with"). I WANT something who thinks they are better than me when it comes to me deciding where to put trust in them to do a job I can't/won't do for myself.

I'm no Obama-worshipper. He's not nearly liberal/progressive/radical enough for me on most issues (I wish he WAS in fact the liberal bogeyman McPalin portrays him as...). But the guy was a constitutional law professor at one of the most prestigious colleges in the world for 12 years. Hmmmm...the Constitution....doesn't that factor into the presidency somewhere. Oh yeah I remember...you gotta SWEAR to uphold and defend it before taking office. So being one of the most knowledgeable people about the Constitution might, it would be seem, be relevant in a president right? Yet have we even heard this factor discussed? If at all, it is more evidence of his "elitism" and difficulty relating to the "average American." Well guess what folks, I don't want the "average American" with nuclear launch codes and trying to tackle complex problems from energy independence to market collapse to bioterrorism. I WANT someone who is a lot smarter than me rather than someone who graduated 4th from the bottom of his class (McCain) or took 4 different colleges to earn a fluff degree in communications/journalism (Palin) while instead focusing on winning "Ms. Congeniality" and who now is proud of the fact that her ignorance somehow represents a "fresh perspective" in politics. Since when did we decide that intelligence was somehow a liability in people we choose to run the country....? I thought "Idiocracy" the movie was fun fantasy....now I'm not quite so sure...

Christian outside the box

'Listened to this podcast the other day...very interesting...talk about a Christian who defies easy-labeling...in some ways it's tough to see how he's a Christian in any familiar sense, but he has a number of thought-provoking observations worth listening to--including his assertion that the most important thing we have to do in the next 50-100 years is to convince religious people that environmental sustainability is a crisis that must be addressed (ie they aren't going to become Dawkins-loving atheists overnight...you're going to have sell religious believers largely on their own terms of the idea of global environmental sustainability). Dowd's home page is here; lots of interesting stuff there as well...

This "infidel guy's" podcast is pretty decent by the way. I particularly like his segments with the "Bible Geek" (Robert Price), who always has something interesting and very intelligent to say about Biblical history, issues, etc.

McMedia starts coming clean...

Now here's a shocker...in the wake of Scotty McClellan's tell-all screed...a mea culpa from reporter Jessica Yellin that

the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives to make sure the war was presented "in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings."

AP story here. She continues that her bosses bosses "would turn down critical stories about the administration and try to put on positive pieces," which of course the Bush/Rove/Rice/Rumsfeld/McClellan propaganda machine were more than happy to provide. Yellin goes on to express some shock/dismay that she is now "being reported on," which is "not the most comfortable position for a reporter..." Yellin seems as uncomfortable being asked tough questions as she was (not) asking them in the early chapters of the war-march.

Five years too late, and of course by now most of the American sheeple have moved on to more pressing concerns. 'Few Upton Sinclairs in this crowd...

PF