The hour badly spent

Oil companies: as evil as the sweet black gold they pump from the deep, ancient heart of our planet, or just trying to make a buck in America like the rest of us? Earlier this week, Tim Hadachek weighed in on the issue, challenging us to put down our shrill, knee-jerk griping every time gas prices creep up a couple of bucks (what do you really need that for, anyway? You’re either giving it to Big Oil or Big Farm). We should examine this in terms of the basic principles of our economic system.

Oil companies want to make as much money as possible, and this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Our economy works best when everyone is free to make as much profit as their skills, intelligence and resources will allow them, as long as it is done fairly.

So why do Democrats want to punish oil companies for living out one of the greatest American ideals?

On average, the largest oil companies make only about 9.7 percent more than they spend each year, slightly above average for an S&P 500 company. Many companies have much larger profit margins.

Google, for instance, operates with a profit margin of about 25 percent, according to CNN on April 29.

I’ve always been disgusted with the way Google and their hegemonic “algorithms” rip us all off every chance they get, then use their leverage to choke the competition. Look what’s happened now! We have to pay whatever price the free search engine cartels wanna stick us with. They’re basically the internet’s warmongering Ritalin dealers. Who among us can honestly go without Ritalin? But, again: greedy as Google is, I can’t really fault them just for trying to make a buck in America.

Adding new taxes on oil companies essentially is punishing them for making money. But basic economics tells us they should make money. They produce a commodity that is of limited supply and in high demand.

Why penalize a company that is willing to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to bring us energy?

Blaming oil companies for high gas prices is like blaming farmers for high food prices.

In the future, we will just outsource the functions of our government’s legislative branch to Exxon’s board of directors. We will outsource our judicial branch to the Mob. The only decision left for President Palin will be whether to waterboard the Liberals in a vat of boiling crude oil or to extradite them to a detention facility in Saudi Arabia, where Blackwater will sodomize them with WMDs.

 [Source: K-State Collegian]

In yesterday’s Collegian, Tim Hadachek published a bold, crushing, trenchant takedown of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ career. The article was buffeted by information meticulously compiled from mounds of public documents through weeks of investigation. Just kidding. Hadachek was totally blowing smoke out of his ass.

"Sebelius was an early supporter of Sen. Barack Obama, endorsing his candidacy in January. Since then, our governor has made stops across the nation on behalf of the Democratic nominee.

"The governor should be reminded that she already has a job, one that doesn’t end for two more years. Her tenure in our state isn’t an extended job application for team Obama. This sort of opportunism is hardly surprising though, as Sebelius has been a politician her whole life.

"Sebelius has even used important issues to bolster her résumé. Under the guise of saving the environment, the governor vetoed legislation three times that would have allowed power plants to be built in western Kansas.

"These plants would have brought hundreds of jobs, helped the state’s sagging economy and increased our energy supply. Sebelius’ decision was hailed by national environmentalist groups and bolstered her reputation among Democrats. Our environment needs to be protected, but it doesn’t have to come at the cost of sacrificing our economy and shouldn’t be used as a tool for advancing a politician’s career.

Hadachek’s article uses 600 words to point out that Sebelius (1) is a Democrat who – wait for it — does things to promote other Democrats, (2) spends too much time on the runways of London and Paris showing off her sexy platform to the world to have any time left for Kansas residents, and (3) single-handedly keeps a nationwide recession going on the the strength of her ambition.

I challenge anyone to name a single governor who does not work to promote the party to which he or she belongs. And not that I particularly care about the environment in Kansas, but I’ve never heard anything about the state being in some huge energy crunch that they had to have these plants. How much ya wanna bet that the push for these power plants came from a large corporation AND NOT a coalition of middle-class citizens demanding more energy and more jobs?

Sure, I could come up with any number of arguments to refute everything else in Hadachek’s piece, but I’m lazy. Suffice it to say that his article is full of shit and Republicans suck. All I’ve seen them offer here is a church on every dirt road and a gun in every shopping mall. That and an end to the scourge of illegal immigration. "That right there should do wonders for the economy! They ruin our businesses by swamping us with pesos."

[Source: K-State Collegian]

Puzzling.

 

I thought They Hate Our Freedoms. So why would they exercise them?

So I tried to ponder some terrorists.

Yes, there was that business in New York. But there have been other things, too. Tim McVeigh, for instance, struck me as fairly wingnutty. So maybe it’s not traditional acts of terrorism that make you a terrorist. Maybe it’s just the state of being a Democrat. Maybe all Democrats are terrorists! John Edwards does kind of have a wild look in his eye. Perhaps the only way to prove your loyalty to the Constitution and your respect for the rule of law is to join a party with a non-violent platform, like the Communists.

Months ago, when Brett King first ran an article about Indiana requiring voters to produce valid ID at the polls, the issue seemed a bit strange, and I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. Requiring IDs to vote seemed like a benign enough idea, but why, exactly, was it necessary?

I can’t imagine Indiana has a huge turnout of illegal aliens sneaking by pollsters in droves, causing severe upsets in the makeup of school district boards or whatever. And most of the time, when I hear about election fraud, it’s less likely to be "Mr. Worthington paid 8,000 fake constituents to show up and vote" — which is properly called voter fraud — and more probably along the lines of "Mr. Worthington bribed a single official to toss out 8,000 ballots" — which is more properly called election fraud.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Justice John Paul Stevens said that Indiana’s desire to prevent fraud and to inspire voter confidence in the election system are important even though there have been no reports of the kind of fraud the law — backed overwhelmingly by Republicans — was designed to combat.

So I was kind of puzzled as to why we would focus the crackdown on the electorate, when the angle of entrenched-power cronyism seems more likely and more pernicious. Then I ran across some new information:

The Indiana law was challenged in separate suits filed by the Indiana Democratic Party and by another group of plaintiffs that included elected officials and community groups.The plaintiffs argued that the state had failed to justify a requirement they said would place a special burden on thousands of eligible voters in Indiana who lack driver’s licenses, a group that disproportionately includes the poor, the elderly and people with disabilities.

Writing for the 2-to-1 majority at the appeals court, Judge Richard A. Posner agreed with the plaintiffs that the law would have the greatest impact on people who were “low on the economic ladder and thus, if they do vote, are more likely to vote for Democratic than Republican candidates.”

I guess it always comes back to red vs. blue. Therefore, Brett’s column this week welcomes us to the New World Order; in which the poor and the undesirables don’t have a say, just like in the Old World Older. As long as we’re getting all regressey, why not just do it exactly the way we used to, where you had to be a property-owning white male in order to vote?

The problem with his argument, though, is the fact that Indiana provides free IDs to citizens who do not have a driver’s license.

Fair enough. I guess this is just like that time conservatives insisted that the government which governs best, governs least, except apparently under certain arbitrary conditions.

After the Democratic Party’s claims of voter fraud in many elections - including the 2000 presidential election - any individual with at least a small amount of common sense would think helping to curve voter fraud would be a good course of action.

Having eligible citizens voting in elections is essential to the progress of our republic, but to encourage participation, voters must feel their vote matters and won’t be canceled out by those attempting to commit voter fraud.

Yeah, a little perspective on that whole Y2K Florida debacle: the problem was NOT that non-citizens were voting. It’s that electoral authorities and the police were removing people from the poll lines and stopping them from voting, and that this took place only in overwhelmingly Democratic neighborhoods. It was pretty clearly NOT voter fraud and SO election fraud. And it wasn’t just the Democratic party making those claims: local newspapers told the stories of a pretty fair number of individuals who were there to witness democracy inaction. I can’t help but wonder if Brett King’s equivocation was accidental right-wing cluelessness or purposeful right-wing malice.

 

Jimmy Carter recently began an attempt to reach out to Hamas, an inveterate and influential foe of the Middle East peace process. The logic is that since Hamas has enough power to disrupt peace talks by blowing shit up, making them a party to peace negotiations might discourage them from blowing shit up, which would be smarter than ignoring them and hoping they go away. The talks failed, of course, but in his latest Collegian column, Brett King honored the elder statesman for his courageous idealism:

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of senile is "relating to, exhibiting or characteristic of old age: exhibiting a loss of cognitive abilities."

With this definition as the base of examination, it is time for the family of former president Jimmy Carter to call the men in white pants and jackets to escort grandpa back to the home.

In 1979, Carter was successful in orchestrating a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel that has since held strong, but even a blind kid hits a baseball every once in a while.

So there you have it. Old men are useless, so you probably shouldn’t vote for one in November! The blind, too; not much point in having them around, tripping over shit and bungling foreign policy the way they always do, unless it’s to the point when you reach the 8th inning and you’re really counting on a long flyball deep into right field, cuz the blind can swing those stripey canes like they’re bats, and even if it’s not a home run, you can have the runner on third tag up and score. Back to the point: a peace agreement? Not historic at all. In the scheme of things, really no big deal.

Due to the Bush Doctrine and years of commitment to Israel, the United States has avoided communication with the Hamas government. But have no fear, here comes President Carter with hopes of orchestrating a peace deal to fix the whole situation.

Khaled Mashaal, a top Hamas leader who met with Carter, said the group was prepared to offer a "10-year truce if [Israel] withdraws from all lands seized in the 1967 war." How gracious of the murderous thugs to offer peace for only 10 years as long as Israel gives up half the city of Jerusalem and other land holdings it acquired from a war it did not start.

Palestinians didn’t start the war either, but that’s irrelevant to diplomacy. Continual suicide bombings is apparently better than 10 years of peace. Calling names and then leaving the room is the new "diplomacy." In a world where peace is insane, the Bush "Doctrine" is the only thing that makes sense. This is how you decide the future of nations:

Hamas: "American foreign policy has left our people destitute and angry. We will go to any lengths to get attention for our plight."

Bush: "Whatever. Hey Jeb, pull my finger. Heh."

 

The coming of Tax Day apparently brought me so much more happiness than I could ever put into words. So I’ll let Brett King do it for me:

Like the seven dwarfs skipping off to work, our representatives and senators on the state and national level believe every working-age individual should be singing this all the way to the post office: "I owe, I owe, to pay my taxes I go."
Yesterday marked the day when all the good little liberal boys and girls felt joy in their hearts because the "government" received more money to pay for social programs and pork spending.

Unlike normal people, liberals lrrrve paying taxes! Especially to bankroll a war they oppose! Especially if they can do it while skipping along, to a catchy song! Cue the Versificator!

Conservatives rightfully (get it?) hate these "social programs," like health care, public schools, public transportation, and law enforcement. Fuck the cops, eh Brett? So maybe we would be better off privatizing this stuff. Corporations don’t do "pork spending." There’s no waste or corruption in the private sector! All the legislative functions Congress does now should just be outsourced to Exxon’s board of directors. Outsource law enforcement to Blackwater. Do away with the school system; let schools be sponsored by Washington Mutual. In a recession, your monthly bank statement would read "Due to a poor third quarter performance, there will be no basic fucking science taught this year."

"The week passed for most citizens of the United States with little awareness of the powder keg ready to blow in Europe." And so begins this week’s issue of Neocon Weekly in the Collegian’s Op Ed page.

Brett King’s article focuses on the release of Fitna, a 15-minute documentary made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, that reportedly shows video segments of militant Muslims declaring war on Western civilization, in addition to Quran quotes encouraging violence.

(As if those particular soundbites are the entire Quran. Like they’re even put into context in their respective passages).

In 1984 (what, don’t you fucking read?), Orwell writes about a daily ritual called the two-minutes’ hate, in which the ruling political party gathers all of its members together in front of a bigscreen TV and makes them watch a video depicting an Enemy of the People maligning the nation. Whipped into senseless fury, the party members shout and throw shit at the screen, expressing their surging rage against whoever the authorities tell them to.

 

The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.

Sounds like their team is winning! So why, exactly, are they so pissed? Their authoritarian government has made almost every aspect of human nature illegal (especially fucking); the people come to the two-minutes’ hate so they can expel the violence and humanity simmering beneath their consciousness. That way no aggression will remain to direct against authoritarianism, the true enemy of humanity.

 

"The only hate speech which seems to be spread is coming from the radical Muslims themselves," wrote King, failing to grasp in the slightest how this film is patently offensive. That, presumably, is always the problem: willful ignorance.

The film is a one-sided portrayal of the Muslim world; a view that panders to racism and fear. Flyover-state neocons will see this and take this video to be the truth about all of Islam. They will write op-ed columns in newspapers across America that will marginalize all Muslims based on this small, vocal segment. I know how it works all too well; in L.A. we’ve all watched "Bowling for Columbine" ten thousand times. We think all Midwesterners are exactly like Tim McVeigh. Also: I learned all about women from 2 girls, 1 cup.

"Racial divides in Europe have increased substantially over the past decades as Muslims have immigrated to many European countries," writes Brett. "Refusing to integrate to European society and committing themselves to continue the practice of Sharia law within the borders of their host country has produced a difficult situation for many." Solution: strike down freedom of religion. Replace it with a border fence!

"Film should not be condemned but studied," reads the column’s headline, somewhat awkwardly. Yes, the video should be studied; but not in isolation, like a formula that purports to tell us exactly how all Muslims supposedly tick. Rather, it should — wait for it — be put into context with the rest of Islamic society.

An enormous portion of Muslim society has been quick to try to distance itself from the rhetoric on Arab TV stations. Yesterday, Radwan Abu Ayyash, deputy minister of culture in Ramallah, was quoted in the New York Times on this exact issue:

What is not fine is to build up children with a culture of hatred, of closed minds, a culture of sickness. I don’t think they always know what they are creating. People use one weapon, language, without realizing that they also use it against themselves.

Seriously man, front-page story. Don’t you fucking read? Of course you don’t. "The week passed for most citizens of the United States with little awareness…"

In Brett King’s latest neocon rant, he compares the presidential debate to a circus. No fucking kidding. A CIRCUS.

As we near the end of the state primaries leading up to the Republican and Democratic national conventions, many voters are beginning to realize how each party has put forth candidates who have no business or experience running this country.

With fun-house mirrors, candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., enters the tent showing people distorted images of his experience and the future.

Apparently the Collegian is phoning in its analogies these days. But what motivated the need to wax all creative with the extended metaphor? Does having a viable black candidate remind him of a minstrel show? Does having a viable female candidate remind him of a burlesque show? Because both of those are absolutely HI-larious. Just like a circus! Maybe having strong Democratic candidates reminds him that the Elephants should have been roped in four years ago. Zing!

Brett King writes in "Kosovo not justified as separate country from Serbia…" 

"Clinton’s evidence of genocide was just as substantial as Bush’s weapons of mass destruction argument in Iraq."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Oh my god. Huge difference of a factual nature: It can be proved that WMDs never existed in Iraq; it can also be proved that Slobodan Milosovic was in fact responsible for the deaths of thousands of ethnic Albanians. See the difference? Of course not. Oh, wait -

"A Wall Street Journal investigative piece…demonstrated how the number of Albanians killed was greatly inflated and some of the bodies found showed no evidence of mutilation."

I see. Not really that many deaths, and no evidence of mutilation on some of them. Well, that’s that. Carry on. While we’re on the subject, I’d like to take issue with the so-called "Holocaust survivors" that were only in Auschwitz for HALF the time of the other, ahem, residents. Stop whining and come back when you’ve got a real tragedy.

According to Brett King’s latest right-wing ejaculation, gun control was a measure Nazi Germany took to ensure ethnic minorities were powerless when the government wanted to haul a bunch of them off to death camps. Gun control in America will be like Nazism in America. Get it? GUN CONTROL = NAZISM.

Brett, if you vote Democrat and elect a leader who’s black or a woman, you won’t have to worry about it.

Nevertheless, the central issue remains: will violence be stamped out if we let students with conceal-and-carry permits take guns around school and into classes? You bet it will! It’s like with the atom bomb; when only one nation had it, those white people basically blasted whatever Asians they wanted to; now that a whole bunch of people have nukes, the world is a much safer place! Still not convinced? Consider this chart:

As you can clearly see, the more guns in circulation, the fewer deaths. Until everyone gets them and we all kill each other. But we can cross that bridge when we come to it. The important thing is to take the first step and arm as many people as we can.

Enough quibbling over figures. Why stop with just letting students pack heat? I say we split the campus up, let the elites carrying concealed each be responsible for a different "territory," and the rest of us can just pay protection money!

Also: thanks for sharing that "Hearty Stew" recipe. But I’m kind of a city boy, so instead of venison, I use the flesh of urban schoolchildren. The only drawback is that it tends to be high in crack. On the plus side, it’s high in crack.

Just knowing that my pathetic blog got some attention from an editor (wow!) re-ignited the spirit of my vigorous Collegian-bashing. I skimmed through the past two weeks of Collegians looking for typos, stupidity, and basically whatever material I could find. All in all, meh.

I did notice one thing - which I have noted before: this paper hardly contains any news. There are often profiles: a math professor, the president’s son, a community service group; but unless a planned event - such as a speech or a meeting - takes place, we hardly get the impression that anything ever actually happens here.

Having said that, Feb. 4’s Collegian was phenomenal. Monica Castro’s article on a student who has survived cancer and joined Relay for Life was nuanced, informative, and brief, seamly transitioning between the student’s story and the success of the project. Well done.

Aubree’s op-ed piece: "Students should relax, learn to give up control of their lives." I loved this essay, but I have no idea what it was about. That’s good! Keep us guessing! Clarity is like sex: keeping it out of reach only heightens desire.

Thank you, Matt Combes, for being gay enough to tell us all about staging a virtuoso anal sex performance, because I couldn’t just google that. Seriously, it’s good that this kind of stuff would make it into the paper. I would suggest, however, that we ease the readership into an anal sex article - lubricate their expectations, so to speak, instead of just bending them over and ramming it into their eyes. Your comment board is lit up with the back and forth of "Anal sex is nasty!" vs "Stop being so prudish!" yadda yadda yadda. I’m not really sure what to think about the "I’m gay, therefore I’m an anal sexpert" angle Matt took - it probably just made him look obnoxious and he didn’t necessarily need that background info to gain street cred (ass cred?) with the students.

Brett King has been publishing recipes! So helpful. But he’s still hasn’t let us know what goes well with his favorite dish: Flesh of the Poor. I’m guessing he enjoys it with fava beans and a nice chianti.

Real life not about winning, money. Well, I’ve got no money and no winnings, and to be honest, I don’t quite see the point of going on. What gives?

Speaker, workshop promote use of nonviolent communication. As if violent “communication” is really an issue among middle-class college students.

Brett King: Tax rebate stimulus plan awards those who don’t pay.
Those who pay the most in taxes have the most money. Those who already have a lot of money are more likely to squirrel it away instead of spending it. Squirrelling it away does not stimulte the economy. Those who file tax returns but don’t pay - the reason is not that they’re shirking the IRS. The reason is that they just don’t make enough money to have to pay taxes. This special tax bracket, with the least money, these people are most likely to spend it right away, putting money into the hands of enormous private corporations (who also don’t pay taxes) we’ve come to know and lrrrve.

Glaring omissions in “City Council discusses contracts, transportation, blah blah blah.” The city will apparently go ahead and purchase property owned by O’Reilly’s Auto Parts so that O’Reilly’s can move to a different location.

Where, exactly, is the old property? Why is the city buying it, instead of a private purchaser? And if the city is already $3 million over budget and reluctant to make the deal, why did they go ahead and unanimously approve it? Inquiring minds should want to know.

Postponing sex can heighten desires, extend relationships - Annette Lawless
There are a great many jerkwads who despise their sexual partners immediately after sleeping with them. For the rest of us, life is short, and we should seize the day (night).

“Hold out for that first kiss.” “Repressing desire can only make it more powerful.” I guess the basic principle is the myth of “Acting like a fifteen year old is the key to happiness your whole life.”

I firmly believe that the sooner you have sex, the sooner you can have sex again.

In Kelcey Childress’ takedown of the recent spate of comedies involving pregnancy, she takes them to task and pronounces disapproval of these movies for mocking pregnancy. In attacking the supposed premise of the movies, however, she completely misses the point.

The point of the movies wasn’t to mock pregnancy. Pregnancy is not "funny" and no one is trying to make it so. When Kelcey thinks of comedy, she thinks of slapstick. "Juno" and "Knocked Up" are not slapstick. It’s the characters, not the situation, who bring the funny; characters who, not being prepared for the event that lies before them, are forced to grow up fast and, in doing so, bring a unique perspective to the sitch, a perspective that is not parrotted ad nauseum by happily married couples on soap operas and furniture commercials, a meme that is not rammed down your throat by all those shitty Lifetime movies, wherein some innocent wide-eyed country maiden gets impregnated by some cad with 10 kids by different mothers and has to learn the hard way that, except for the handsome, gentle, patient, avuncular white knight, ALL MEN ARE ASSHOLES!!!1!!1!! OMG!!!!!1!1!!

The point of the movies was that pregnancy is an impactful event; it doesn’t happen only to certain people, and it’s not just certain types of people who deserve the honor. Given the right circumstances, it can happen to any of us, and in the end, the characters demonstrate, through their maturity and grace, that they can handle it. To know that, Kelcey would have had to watch the movie, listen to the dialogue, become familiar with each character’s style, and treat them all the same way you should treat people in real life: with compassion for their flaws, and awareness and respect for their capacity to develop and learn. Neither memes are more or less realistic than the other; but Juno and Knocked up provide a new way of thinking about it, a way that refuses to demonize people involved just because they don’t fit the molds you’ve been accustomed to seeing; a task that, perhaps more than anything, is the entire point of art. You narrow-minded clod.

Yesterday, Brett King’s right-wing vomitorium railed against - shock! - Kansas’ Democratic governor. Athough he tried to demonize her, King was completely unable to specifically fault her for anything wrong or bad.

To wit, his argument seemed to be:

Kansas lost X private sector jobs while she was guv, but gained (X - 5000) government jobs.

Big government bad, making capitalist rich good.

Therefore, Kansas guv bad.

See, coincidence equals causality (I know what you’re thinking. But it’s wingnut logic, not real logic. There! Did that sort everything out?), although King is at a loss to directly or indirectly link the Guv to the loss of private sector jobs. It could be that a lot of companies just performed really shitty or went overseas. Of course, that’s probably the Democrats’ fault too. I’m pretty sure all those government “jobs” are just welfare anyway (i.e. they went to minorities), so I guess I see his point. Once again, great work Brett!