The Guilty Pleasure Of Schadenfreude

I spent a couple of the days after the election taking some quiet enjoyment in browsing right-wing sites and seeing how they reacted to the apocalypse. But I didn't run across anything like the blog of one Kevin DuJan, apparently a gay Republican (and a big Sarah Palin fan). He blogged copiously on election day while he watched MSNBC in gloating anticipation of a lefty meltdown.

Click here for Kos's article entitled Reliving election night, through the eyes of a wingnut. It's cruel, but fascinating. This poor deluded sap was convinced -- CONVINCED, I tells ya -- that the election was in the bag for Romney. Too bad his blogging didn't feature a self-directed webcam.

Click on Kos's highlighted link near the end, predictions. (Or if you're not sadistic by nature, maybe don't.) What universe do these bozos live in?

What Does The WSJ Consider A Mandate? That Depends.

Click here for an article by Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker entitled Mandate With Destiny on how that Murdoch conservative bastion, The Wall Street Journal, views the matter of what it takes to earn a mandate in a presidential election. Surprise, surprise: Bush won a ringing mandate on his reelection in 2004, while Obama eked out a narrow victory in 2012.

In 2004, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, conservatism’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, congratulated President Bush for “what by any measure is a decisive mandate for a second term” and exulted, “Mr. Bush has been given the kind of mandate that few politicians are ever fortunate enough to receive.” This year, examining similar numbers with different labels, the Journal came up with a sterner interpretation. “President Obama won one of the narrower re-elections in modern times,” its editorial announced.

This is despite the facts that Obama in 2012 won the popular vote by more than 4 million, as opposed to Bush's 3 million in 2004; Obama won 332 seats in the electoral college in 2012, as opposed to Bush's 286. (270 electoral college seats are needed to win the presidency.)

Right-wing pundits confidently predicting a Romney blowout included Michael Barone, Peggy Noonan, Dick Morris, Glenn Beck, and George Will. None of these Members of the Conservative Priesthood guessed that Romney would win more than 325 electoral college votes, a number they all considered to be "a landslide." Obama's 332? A pretty shaky margin, apparently.

Chris Christie Prepares A Turkey

Oklatexarkalamissianageorgialinatuckysee!

Cartoon from The New Yorker.

Click here for an article entitled State of the Dis-Union, itself from an article on Crooks & Liars by David Neiwert entitled Can We Help the Would-Be Secessionists Pack? 675,000 people from all 50 states have signed digital petitions on https://petitions.whitehouse.gov to secede from the U.S. The White House promises to respond if there are more than 25,000 signatures on any one petition; so far, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas have met that requirement.

"... the primary backer of secession mania is the California-based TeaParty.org, also known as the 1776 Tea Party.

One article posted on the group’s website states: 'When the Federal Government sets out to ruin the lives of law abiding citizens by making laws that are against God’s law, then it is fit and proper to make a concerted attempt by any state to secede from the union to become a new government should the majority of the citizens agree.'”

There were similar rumblings when W was reelected in 2004. However:

The difference between 2004 and 2012, however, is the people grumbling about secession eight years ago weren’t taken seriously by their political party and didn’t wield much influence over its party’s leaders. Not so with the tea party.

Another difference that can’t be denied, said Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairman Tim Burke, is the role that race plays in the current debate.

“I continue to believe that a lot of people out there, unfortunately, have difficulty believing America could elect an African-American president,” Burke said.

Referring to comments that Romney made to donors after the election alleging Obama won, in part, because he promised “gifts” to black and Hispanic voters, Burke added, “You just can’t continue to alienate the non-white people of the United States.”

Most historians conclude the conservative wing of the Republican Party first came to prominence in the late 1960s, as part of what’s been dubbed “the Southern strategy.” (Click here for my blog posting, Republican Southern Strategy: Lee Atwater.)

That’s when the GOP began appealing to conservative, white Democrats from the Deep South who were upset by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the desegregation of public schools.

What to name the new entity? Hunter at Daily Kos suggests United Galts of America, or New Jesusland; I like Oklatexarkalamissianageorgialinatuckysee.

Luther, The Anger Translator (NSFW)

Setting Up A Wireless Network

Click here for a detailed but readable tutorial from Microsoft on setting up a wireless network.

Republican Southern Strategy: Lee Atwater

I've heard this story for years, and Republicans have always claimed it was apocryphal. Now the tape of the interview has been made public, and Atwater did indeed say these things. He was being interviewed in 1981 by Alexander Lamis, a political scientist at Case Western Reserve University. The interview was scholarly, not political. Say it, Brother Lee:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

Jacksonian Foreign Policy

Click here for a somewhat long and wonkish explanation of Jacksonian foreign policy (as in Andrew Jackson, "Old Hickory," U.S. president from 1837 to 1849; click here for his Wikipedia entry).

This has some relevance to the U.S. attitude toward Israel. From the hard-core right-wing site, Ace of Spades HQ:

... from the perspective of the most widespread of them [schools of American thinking about world affairs], the Jacksonians, what Israel is doing in Gaza makes perfect sense. Not only are many Jacksonians completely untroubled by Israel's response to the rocket attacks in Gaza, many genuinely don't understand why the rest of the world is so steamed about Israel-and so angry with the United States.

Sam Gordon, 9-Year-Old Football Superstar!

First season in a pee-wee boys' football league: 35 touchdowns, 1900+ yards rushing, 232 carries, 8.2 yards per carry, 65 tackles!

Oh, and "Sam" is short for "Samantha."

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Here's a highlight reel, 3 minutes, 23 seconds. You can't always tell at first which player is her -- until she comes rocketing out of the pack carrying the ball! And football isn't pattycake; she takes some pretty serious hits. On one play, she breaks five tackles on her way to the goal line (and then there's the 65 tackles she made). I'd be concerned about her getting injured, but football isn't even her number one sport. Her dream is to play pro soccer -- a much better choice, I'd say. Go Sam!

Henri 4 - L'Haunting

Quel dommage! Mon pauvre Henri!

Mitt Romney, Job Creator

Click here for an article by Greg Palast, an economist and financial investigator turned journalist, at The Nation entitled Mitt Romney's Bailout Bonanza.

Romney and a group of his hedge-fund manager henchmen bought struggling auto-parts manufacturer Delphi during the financial crisis. Realizing that Delphi would have to be bailed out along with GM and Chrysler, this band of merry men paid 67 cents a share for Delphi. They then held the federal government to ransom for a $12.9 billion bailout from U.S. taxpayers, threatening to shut down if they didn't get their demands, a move that would be a death sentence for the car companies. Two years after their bargain-basement acquisition, they took the company public -- at a stock price of $22. (I checked today's price; it's $33.19.) Romney personally made over $15 million on the deal; his partners in crime made about $4 billion.

They did create a lot of jobs, though! When Delphi was purchased, it was an American company with a unionized work force of over 25,000 in 29 American factories. The noble job creators got rid of the union and started creating jobs. Delphi now employs over 100,000 people. Well done, boys!

Just one catch. The article says there are now 4 Delphi factories in the U.S., employing about 5,000 workers. The rest of the factories -- and jobs -- are in China. Delphi is now incorporated in the Isle of Jersey, a tax haven off the coast of France.

Read the article; there's more, including "foggy accounting" used as a justification to slash company commitments to its pension plan.

The New Yorker: Paragon Of English Usage?

I wrote the following letter to The New Yorker:

Long-time reader, first-time contributor. I wanted to make a point to a colleague about proper punctuation and grammar. For years I've referred to The New Yorker as the world's best-edited magazine. To make a point, I wanted to ask my colleague to go to The New Yorker site and pick an article at random to see an example of proper English usage. Fortunately, I did it myself beforehand. To my surprise, the very first blurb for an article included the following: "Now that New York has experienced two freakish storms in less than two years, has a conversation has begun about its future in a warming world?"

Huh? Is this The New Yorker, or has my browser redirected me to Fox News? Oh, well. I clicked on this article; surely the punctuation and grammar here would be illustrative. After a few seconds, I came across the following: "The Romney ad doesn’t say; it doesn’t mention the line about Republicans that proceeded Obama’s comments." Come on, New Yorker! Tighten up!

Free Remote Access And Screen Sharing Tools

Click here for another Bob Rankin article, Free Remote Access and Screen Sharing Tools.

No need to pay $20/month for GoToMyPC. Products discussed include Logmein.com and UltraVNC -- both of which I have used and recommend -- Crossloop and TeamViewer.