Or more appropriately, Ross Douthat’s army of stick figures tries to overthrow the Roman Empire.

… or something like that.

From Douthat we get preening pseudo-intellectualism that sounds like this:

Why is it that Douthat uses 1954 as the dividing line between the “old court” and the new? 1954 is the year in which the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Brown v. Board of Education, a decision that announced a sea-change in American politics and kick-started the civil rights movement. Following Brown v. Board, the institution of “separate but equal” was no longer sustainable. Jim Crow laws were attacked everywhere. And the “state’s rights” movement began trying to enact various legislation for the sole purpose of putting up a stopgap measure to prevent the inexorable progress of civil rights. Therefore, it makes sense that following 1954, there would be an inordinately high number of state laws being overturned.

Then there’s this:

A “supermajority”? Apparently, Douthat recognizes that the shift of the court is irrevocably in the direction of progress and a supermajority is nothing more than retrograde court-packing.

And a court that is “answerable to us”?

Apparently Douthat is too stupid to understand that the judicial branch was constructed in such a way as to avoid being blown in a direction by the prevailing political winds or popular mores. It is what has allowed the court to strike down legislation regarding school prayer, segregation, bans on abortion, anti-miscegenation, anti-sodomy, and a whole host of other laws. Yet these are all steps forward for a civilized society. Why would we want a judiciary that is answerable to the rabble? Answerable to people like … Douthat?

Seriously.

I watched one episode.

Halfway through I concluded that it was a giant steaming pile of pure, paranormal, quasi-psychological, Jungian meta-bullshit.

Seriously.

Today in the news, some interesting information regarding the cost of health care, the uninsured, and how they relate to each other.

Health care companies are passing the buck along to the consumer … again.

The cost of health insurance is getting passed on to the consumer because the rolls of the insured are dwindling and the health insurers want to maintain their profit margin. People lose their jobs and for those remaining employed, their costs go up—making it more difficult to afford health insurance.

Pay attention. This is the free market destroying itself. At this rate, we should see insurance companies begging for universal health care by next summer.

Sometimes idiocy occurs naturally, and sometimes it takes a lot of work to happen. Case in point, the folks over at “Natural News,” promoting the idea that flu vaccines are “worthless.”

The article starts out with a tenable premise, but then works hard to come up with this asinine statement:

Dear Mr. Adams, as a “consumer health advocate,” you suck ass.

Do you even know the difference between the viruses that cause the common cold and influenza viruses? Because they aren’t the same. How about using something like Wikipedia as a start to understand that the common cold is caused by rhinoviruses and coronaviruses. Influenza viruses, on the other hand, are an entirely different line of illness.

In fact, the basic scientific premise is pretty much spelled out for you:

The least you could do, as a “consumer health advocate,” is address this simple fact. I’m not a scientist by profession, but I’ve studied enough biological science to understand this basic premise of virology.

Influenza vaccinations are meant to treat only a single strain of an influenza virus. They are not a panacea for all influenza viruses. If we were to extrapolate your thinking, then you should argue for not receiving the polio vaccine since it doesn’t prevent the flu. However, I think that Jonas Salk may disagree.

The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced that they will stop using the term “swine flu” to refer to the current influenza outbreak, in favor of the more technical term, influenza-A (H1N1). This was primarily in response to the Egyptian government—a government so profoundly stupid that there are no words in any language to properly mock them—for slaughtering hundreds of thousands of pigs to stop the spread of the disease.

… and the response from the media? Total fucking Retard-o-Rama:

The article then continues …

I find it utterly fucking amazing that the human race has been able to exist as a viable species for this long. The Egyptian government slaughters pigs to prevent the spread of a disease that isn’t related to pigs. Russia and China ban imports of pork because of fears about a disease that isn’t related to pigs. And when the WHO officially stops using the common name of the disease to help curb the stupidity of governments such as has been seen with Egypt, Russia, and China, the report on the change in terminology goes on and repeatedly uses the unnecessary and inappropriate term.

Of course, science doesn’t mean diddly squat to morons that have flipped into mob-rule/mass-panic mode. And it becomes necessary to issue statements such as this.

The current GOP brand is a flaming bag of dog shit on the front porch of America.

Seriously.

In New York (NY-20), a 30-year veteran of the New York legislature will lose an election to a newcomer … and this is in a district with a voter registration that leans in the GOP’s favor.

I guess it beats losing to a dead guy.

It’s odd to hear all of the recent references to people “going Galt.” It’s odd because the idea of Galt and Rand’s philosophy are infantile at best.

If someone wants to “go Galt” then let them. It’s a case of “I’m mad, so I’m taking my toys and going home.” As I’ve heard others note, “graveyards are full of indispensable people.”

If you want to engage in the ultimate expression of individuality and disengage with society, or “go Galt,” then do it. Go Galt. But go all the way. Don’t take any half-measures. If you’re going to go Galt, then you’ll need to solve your own problems and get your own fuel for your vehicles, generate your own energy, grow your own food, and stop using the Internet. Because these are all luxuries created by collective effort, not a single individual. They were created for the purpose of collective/social benefit, to be enjoyed by society and enabled by the collective will of society, i.e., government.

Government, not individual ideas built the roads that allow for interstate commerce and the distribution of grain and produce from the heartland out across the country. Government money–taxpayer money–subsidized the construction of the power grid which distributes fuel and electricity to our cities and towns. And the creation of the Internet was funded by scientists intentionally working for the common good, funded by government research grants.

And even our constitution enshrines our collectivist goals by declaring that “We the People,” have engaged in this society with the explicit purpose of promoting the “general Welfare.” It says nothing about “We the People” forming our constitution to make more profits, to start a business, or maximize individual wealth.

“Life, Liberty, and Property” are held by everyone, but they are not absolute guarantees without conditions. Through due process, the government can take your life, liberty, or property if you commit a crime against another citizen or against society as a whole (e.g., prison, fines, or the death penalty). Through due process, the government can take your liberty or property when necessary and the interests of society outweigh your individual rights (e.g., taxes, public speech to incite riots or chaos).

It is the goal of our government to preserve individual liberty insofar as it is viable within the context of our social contract. And it is understanding the balance between the rights of the individual and the interests of government that we have long sought to resolve.

I’ll be honest. More often than not, when I watch Jon Stewart, I’m in it for his news recap and kind of pass over the guest interviews.

But the brewing flap that’s been developing the last few days between Jon Stewart and CNBC has been interesting. Thus, Stewart’s interview of Jim Cramer last night would be must-see-teevee if it wound up being anything more than a sophomoric finger in the eye.

Heh.

Rick Santelli is a cowardly, paper-tiger, piece of shit. But I will at least give Jim Cramer credit for having the guts to come on Jon’s show and get called out on national television.

And what I loved most of all was the fact that it was clearly evident that Stewart had done his homework. He called bullshit several times. Cramer tried to defend himself. Stewart called bullshit again.

Daily Show interview with Jim Cramer, Pt. 1

Daily Show interview with Jim Cramer, Pt. 2

Daily Show interview with Jim Cramer, Pt. 3

And the coup de grace was Stewart’s response to a clip where Cramer talks about manipulating Apple’s stock price:

Pundits have, for decades, never been called to answer for the bullshit they spew. I can’t count how many “debates” I’ve seen where a couple of bloviating pieces of shit come on television, blather back and forth like competing wind tunnels, and then finish off with “well, I guess we’ll see.”

Well, here we are.

For those who aren’t aware of how the whole housing crisis came to be, here’s a basic primer on what happened.

There’s a house at 123 Main St. It has a value. For the sake of our conversation, that value is $250,000.

You want to buy that house. But of course, you don’t have $250,000 cash on hand, so you take out a mortgage. Bank X agrees to loan you the money.

But Bank X wants some sort of assurance that they are going to get paid, so they make you take out mortgage insurance. Insurance company, InsCo A, agrees to provide mortgage insurance in the event that you can’t make payments.

Unbeknownst to you, there is an investment firm, InvesCo B, that is selling things on the stock market. They know that if you pay all the way through on your mortgage, you will likely pay twice the original value of the mortgage. What better kind of investment is there than one that pays 100% interest over 30 years—or better, over 15 years? Not many. Granted, most Americans will only hold their mortgage for 5-10 years before refinancing or purchasing a new home. Instead of $500,000, InvsCo B thinks they can get about $100,000 from you in interest payments and still be left with an asset that is valued at more than $250,000 … say $325,000 (conservative estimate). Therefore, the initial $250,000 mortgage, over the course of 5 years, represents a net gain of around $425,000 (interest payments plus the appreciated value of the asset). InvesCo B decides to buy your mortgage from Bank X and package it up with a bunch of other mortgages. That becomes an asset-backed investment vehicle. Your house—along with those of other people—is the asset behind the vehicle. We’ll call this vehicle a Pinto.

Now InsCo A doesn’t want to just stand there waiting for you to miss a payment or go unemployed. It’s bad risk management to not provide for this eventuality. InsCo A decides that they want to have something backing the mortgage insurance policy, so they go looking for investments that they can use to offset the cost of your house should you default. InsCo A looks around and notices that InvesCo B has a Pinto investment with a high rate of return. InsCo A then buys a bunch of these Pintos and uses the investments to back the mortgage insurance policy on your house.

One day, you get fired from your job—or laid off, or outsourced, or downsized, or something. Either way, you’re out of work. And you can’t pay your mortgage. Eventually, your property is foreclosed. The mortgage company, Bank X, goes to the insurance company, InsCo A, to call in the mortgage insurance policy. InsCo A goes to InvesCo B to cash out the investment they made in the Pinto investment. InvesCo B goes to the mortgage holder of the assets behind the Pinto, which is you^[1] And thus we start the wonderful circle jerk that is the housing crisis.

Now consider that the packaging of loans—or debt—occurs several times over. Ten different Pinto investments get rolled into a single Edsel investment. Then 10 to 15 Edsel investments get broken up into multiple pieces each and rolled into different Crown-Vic and Buick investments. Just to keep things interesting, the credit card companies have also rolled your debts—your credit card balances—into Pacer and Hummer investment vehicles, because what investment is better than you paying 30% on your credit card balances that just pay out in perpetuity. So you roll in a bunch of Pacers into the Edsel, Crown-Vic, and Buick investments, and then continue breaking them up, repackaging them, and selling them onwards.

And just to make the clusterfuck really interesting, Bank X actually represents about a thousand different banks, each doing their own version of Edsels, Pintos, Hummers, Crown-Vics, Buicks, and Pacers. And this is occurring not just with your house, but with millions of properties. And this is occurring not just with your credit card balance, but with millions of people’s credit card balances.

And then Wall Street jackoffs make billions (literally) in bonuses for this genius plan.

And then the whole house of cards comes crashing down, and no one can figure out the whole self/circular-referential mess because … well, no one really knows, because everybody had a fist in someone else’s ass.

Case in point:

And then Wall Street jackoffs make billions (literally) in bonuses (again) for this genius plan.

And then Rick Santelli goes on CNBC and says you’re a loser because you might be having a hard time paying your mortgage.

Hey Santelli. Fuck you.

^[1] Actually, Bank X never really sold your mortgage, they just sold the rights to the mortgage. Bank X was just a flow through (taking a little cut for themselves on the way) for the money to reach InvesCo B.

Seriously, leave him alone.

Attention whores feed on attention. If you want to make the attention whore a bigger whore, then keep giving attention.

Give attention to Limbaugh and you feed the whore. Give attention to Limbaugh and you give his ideas the tacit approval that they are worthy of discussion.

Limbaugh isn’t worth the attention, because his ideas aren’t worth considering. He doesn’t engage in honest debate because he doesn’t debate. He spews ideology. He’s an ideologue. Ideologues are driven by ideology, not by reason. The idea must survive, regardless of whether or not it’s reasonable or logical.

Limbaugh’s 20+ years on the radio are built around his ideology. He can’t change that ideology without risking his fan base. This is why Limbaugh is immune to the reality of self-contradiction.

This is why Limbaugh wants Obama to fail—because Limbaugh can’t accept the idea that he might be proven wrong in the most empirical manner.