"Shut up," He explained.

Lanny Davis: Hey, we'll only have show trials for people with the temerity to fight back!

He reminds me of the little boy caught fighting by his mother, "It all started when Timmy hit me back!"

Randism

The wonderfully named Scott Galupo writes that conservatives should get over their fascination with Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

Best line:

"Indeed, Miss Rand's writings are catnip for those who seek to deflect any and all blame for the current economic crisis away from the private sector. Like the airtight religious belief system that it essentially is, Randian capitalism can never stumble or fail — it can only be betrayed."

Heh.

I first read The Fountainhead, then Atlas Shrugged when I was in my late 20s with a wife and two children to support. I found them an odd mix of stilted didactic text mixed with heaving-bosom "woman's fiction." I was entertained by how she walked her characters through their set pieces, but not swept up by thier wooden speechifying.

I guess you have to read Rand while in your teens to really be ruined by her books.

A Rogue Agency

Just sent:

The Honorable Rick Larsen

Sir;

I am very troubled about the statements by the House Speaker, the Honorable Nancy Pelosi, about whether or not the CIA mislead her during briefings about enhanced interrogation techniques. The issue is much deeper and more dangerous than any particular interrogation techniques by agents of the CIA, it is a claim that the CIA has slipped from the reigns of congressional oversight, that we have that most frightening of spectres: a rogue secret intelligence agency.

These claims must be investigated to clear either the CIA or Speaker Pelosi. Secret agencies are a regrettable necessity, so we allow them to operate only under the oversight of our elected representatives. I ask you to call for an investigation of these claims, and to join with other representatives in calling for this investigation.

I will watch in the next few months to see that the American people and their freedoms and safety are guarded.

Big Trek Theory

I can't remember which musician in Nirvana said it, but the quote went  something like: "How do you know that you have made it in the music business? When Al Yankovic writes a parody of one of your songs."

So the meta-narrative validates the narrative.

The new Star Trek reboot seems to be taking off, but I wonder: how is it going to be handled on Big Bang Theory? Ripe grounds for nerd contraversy!

Five Reasons the GOP Will Rebound

Over at CNN, John Feehery lists five reasons that the GOP will rebound. Numbers one and two of these reasons have been pretty well discussed, but three through five are (to me) fresher:

1. The party in power tends to overreach.


2. People want checks on power.


3. Crisis breeds renewal.


4. Talent senses opportunity.


5. The Republican Party is now the de facto Libertarian Party.

I think a lot of people on the left don't get number five and don't see how it is linked to number one.

Gripes

Todd posted this:


see more Funny Graphs

This makes me rant a bit about remembering when the A&E channel stood for "Arts & Entertainment." I remember getting basic cable and really enjoying a presentation of The Mikado in which the Lord High Executioner's song had an encore wherein he listed all of the modern annoyances that would call for his sword's work (people that talked loudly on cell phones in public places, etc..).

Or when MTV was about music...or when Discovery was about science...or...

Back in the 1990s, one of the big arguments against funding of PBS was that these new cable channels would provide diversity of programming and fill the econiche of public TV.

How I wish it were true. The only channel that has kept true to that kind of charter is CSPAN.

Twitter

A year after I was prodded by one of my sons-in-law, I signed up on Twitter.

O wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world! That has such people in't!

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film

It's not quite that bad. Not quite.


Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'