My very brief statement about the Boston Bombing.

Mostly, What Patton Oswalt said.
Other than that, I have nothing to add right now.
There are some comments I could make about the Partisan Assholes who are trying to make hay about this tragedy. But unfortunately, the very act of pointing them out would make me a Partisan Asshole.  And frankly, I’ve got enough stains on my soul as it is.
(Although, I think I’d be on solid ground if I respectfully suggested that Alex Jones can go eat all the dicks in the world. Seriously, you guys cool with that?)
For now, all I can do is send kindly thoughts to everyone in Boston and let them know that they are not alone.
We are with you in spirit.
We stand aside you.
We will not yield or bend to madness.
We will link arms and walk into tomorrow, unafraid of whatever demented medievalist is responsible for this carnage.
We will endure.

And to the parties responsible for this carnage, I will just say this.
Of all the places in the world you had to hit, you hit Boston?
Motherfuckers, did you learn nothing from “The Boondock Saints”?

Greg Walden and the clash of cynicism against crazy.

Okay…First came this...(Via Politico.)

The top House Republican campaign official broke with other GOP leaders Wednesday in criticizing President Barack Obama over his “chained CPI” proposal.

During an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said Obama was “trying to balance this budget on the backs of seniors” with the plan, which would change the way Social Security cost-of-living adjustments are calculated.

Now, before Liberals start jumping up and down and scream “Fuck yeah, Walden”, let me remind you that he did vote for the Paul Ryan budget last year which had math fuzzier then a bucket of Tribbles and in the words of Paul Krugman…

After 2020, the main alleged saving would come from sharp cuts in Medicare, achieved by dismantling Medicare as we know it, and instead giving seniors vouchers and telling them to buy their own insurance. Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s the same plan Newt Gingrich tried to sell in 1995.

Translation, Walden was fine with the Republicans balancing the budget on the backs of Seniors. He’s just not crazy about Obama working their side of the street.
Walden isn’t an idiot.  He knows the Chained CPI isn’t playing well and and he’s smart enough to know the seniors in his district will rise up and start throwing jars of Metamucil and soiled Adult Diapers at any congress person stupid enough to back this thing.  And no Congress person wants to be pelted with soiled diapers. (Well, maybe David Vitter.  But still…)  It’s a cynical move by Walden but it’s not an incorrect one.  As Krugman points out, the point of this budget is for the Obama Adminstration to look like grownups.

Since the beginning, the Obama administration has seemed eager to gain the approval of the grownups — the sensible people who will reward efforts to be Serious, and eventually turn on those nasty, intransigent Republicans as long as Obama and co. don’t cater too much to the hippies.This is the latest, biggest version of that strategy. Unfortunately, it will almost surely fail. Why? Because there are no grownups — only people who try to sound like grownups, but are actually every bit as childish as anyone else.

After all, if whoever it is that Obama is trying to appeal to here — I guess it’s the Washington Post editorial page and various other self-proclaimed “centrist” pundits — were willing to admit the fundamental asymmetry in our political debate, willing to admit that if DC is broken, it’s because of GOP radicalism, they would have done it long ago. It’s not as if this reality was hard to see.

So Walden is being a cynical bastard.  But the bitch of it is that in this case, the cynical bastard is completely in the right.
Which is probably why what happened next, while not being totally unexpected, is sticking in his craw like a half chewed dinner roll.

The Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax, anti-spending group, said Thursday that it was looking for a primary challenger against Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, after he spoke out against President Barack Obama’s plan to cut social security benefits.

“We always knew Greg Walden had a liberal record, but he really cemented it with his public opposition to even modest entitlement reform,” Club for Growth president Chris Chocola said in a statement. “Greg Walden has voted for bailing out Wall Street, dozens of pork projects, and against cutting the spending from the Obama stimulus. He even voted against blocking taxpayer subsidies for Viagra. Greg Walden should be held accountable for his anti-growth voting record as well as his anti-growth rhetoric.”

So, Walden gets primaried by a Tea Party candidate.  At which point he’ll either lose or he’ll have to tack hard to the right to win.  And then possibly get clobbered in the General by the Democratic candidate for all the crazy right-wing stuff he had to say in the primary.
The question is how much he can get clobbered and survive? Greg Walden has had the seat since 1998 and in that time, No Democratic candidate has ever gotten above 35% of the vote against him.
But the thing is that Walden has always been a back bencher who’s kept his head down. It’s only been the last couple of years that he’s ventured out into the national stage because of his rise in the NRLC. And the question becomes can he handle the bigger audience. (However, anyone hoping for a Todd Akin moment from him should let that dream die now.  He’ll vote for crazy but he won’t speak crazy.)
The other big what if is what if the guy who primaries Walden actually manages to win the Seat.  Ashland is solid blue but we are a speck in a huge sea of red.  And while Walden is GOP, he’s nowhere near being the worst of the bunch. (Which at this point, mind you, is akin to being the leper with the most fingers.) And the odds are that we could end up with a “Michelle Bachman/Sharron Angle commingled in a transporter accident” lump of crazy.
On the other hand, if we are even to have a chance to pull out of the death spiral we are in now, we need to take back the House. And that means we have to fight for every possible seat.
And if that means we have to hope the the Club for Growth can loosen this particular jar, so be it.

On the passing of Margaret Thatcher…

If you can’t say anything nice…Let Elvis Costello speak for you.

Canonization is for Saints.
Margaret Thatcher was no saint.
That is all.

My brain is turning into a bag full of cats.

Three and Five.
That’s all I got done on the list for this week.
And I’ll be blunt with you, the actual taxes were already done. I just had to send them out.
I won’t lie.  I’m disappointed in myself.
Sure, the stedicam testing was out of the question because it was raining on both of my days off. But the last two…
…
I just have not been able to focus properly.
A lot of it has been depression. Partly the recent loss of mom which I’m still working though. (Which is why you haven’t seen a piece from me about Roger Ebert’s recent passing. I haven’t written about my mom yet and I didn’t want to write a piece about him while not writing about her.  It didn’t sit right.
And I’m not righting a piece about her because there’s a whole set of issues I’d rather get straight in my head before spilling them out on a public forum.)
But I’m also dealing with…Well, let’s just say that I’m looking at the sales figures for the book this quarter and I’m feeling like the opposite of success.
And you throw in the daily horror show of crap that passes by my eyes on a daily basis and…
…
…
The abyss has been glaring at me like I just banged his underaged daughter.
Later today, I’m shooting a concert for a friend at the Methodist Church and on the way back, I’m stopping at the herbalist and stocking up on St. John Wort.  Maybe that will get me back on the beam.
But at this point, I ain’t willing to make book on it.

Obama, Chained CPI and the War of Attrition.

Via Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon…

Today may mark a nadir in the often strained relations between President Obama and the “professional left,” as Robert Gibbs derisively called the progressive movement, which has been pushing for months to prevent Obama from endorsing cuts to the social safety net. When the White House released its budget today, it was clear the president hadn’t listened to the increasingly urgent threats and pleadings from the people who helped elect him, as his spending proposal includes a change to the way Social Security benefits are calculated, called the chained CPI, as well as changes to Medicare.

The cut is anathema to liberal activists and lawmakers, who have gone all in to oppose the cut, warning Obama would face a “huge backlash” from his own base if he endorsed it. Now they’re threatening primary challenges against any Democrats who vote for their president’s budget.

“You can’t call yourself a Democrat and support Social Security benefit cuts,” said Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a group which endorses liberals in primaries, sometimes against establishment picks. “The president is proposing to steal thousands of dollars from grandparents and veterans by cutting cost of living adjustments, and any congressional Democrat who votes for such a plan should be ready for a primary challenge. Social Security is the core of the progressive and Democratic legacy. The President has no mandate to cut these benefits, and progressives will do everything possible to stop him.”

This of course, was followed by Boehner rejecting the plan because the budget also includes tax hikes.
Needless to say, the push back on the left has begun and the Obama Administration has responded with it’s usual excuse for the hippie punching.

It’s the same dynamic the President has used for years. He throws out something that by all rights, the GOP should grab with both hands even though it pisses off his base…
No, scratch that.  Because it pisses off his base! So he can say, “See how reasonable I am that I’m willing to anger my core of support.  Now let’s make a deal.”
And the GOP, who can’t afford to piss off their base because…well.. the base is all they have left, declines the offer.  Thus making themselves look like a bunch of inflexible assholes.
It’s a war of attrition.
The more the President looks reasonable, the more people he has on his side. The more the GOP looks like a bunch of swinish jerks, the more their base will boil down to a pure broth of evil Randian crazy.
So you may be saying to yourself, “Richard, does this mean we shouldn’t be freaking out?”
Well..no.  You should.
Because one of these days, the GOP is going to realize what he’s doing. (Which granted, seems unlikely now since this current version of the GOP has a denseness that would make a diamond look like a cleaning sponge. But the possibility exists.) And they are going to take whatever cockamamy deal that Obama decides to throw out.
At which point, it would be a very good idea to make sure everybody on our side of the fence knows what a lousy idea it is.
I understand why the President is playing chicken.  I just wish he wouldn’t do it in our car!

 

The Exxon Oil Spill in Arkansas…

Or…
Why shouldn’t I just go ahead and blow the rest of my Mom’s Life Insurance money on hookers? (H/T to Lee Camp for the video.)

Via “Mother Jones”.

An ExxonMobil pipeline broke on Friday evening, dumping thousands of gallons of tar sands oil in Mayflower, Arkansas. The Pegasus pipeline starts in Illinois and carries 95,000-barrels of oil per day from Alberta’s tar sands to refineries in Texas.

At least 22 homes had to be evacuated after the spill, and local residents have posted some alarming photos and video of the mess in their streets and backyards. The group HAWK Center (Helping Arkansas Wild Kritters) is also posting photos of oiled birds that have been rescued and brought in.

We didn’t kill the dinosaurs but it’s sure as shit looking like they’re going to be the death of us.

Listmaking as a vehicle for self improvement-Yes, we’re doing this again.

All right.
I’ve been stumbling for the past month because of various personal issues.
But now, it’s a new month and I need to start getting shit done again.
So, here are the goals this week.

1. Calibrate and fully bench test the Stedicam rig.

No more excuses!  The weather is warming up and it needs to get done.

2. Finish a video project for HitRECord.

I actually have something keyed up in the editing bay.  It’s just a matter of cutting the footage and adding the music track.

3. Finish Taxes.

Already done.  I just have to send them out.

4. Writing a new short.

I actually have an idea for something involving Michael Meyer.  I just have to do some quick research on Ben Franklin and I can get started.

5. Blog.

No set number.  That always screws me up.  If I can get words out on a semi regular basis, I’m calling it a win.

All right. the Flying Spaghetti Monster willing and provided Kim Jong Un doesn’t start throwing around live ammo, I WILL GET SHIT DONE!