Beyond tragedy.

It's hard to imagine a darker scenario; a Muslim military officer goes berzerk and murders 13 people on a military base on U.S. soil. Beyond the tragedy of mass murder is the cultural implications of a Muslim American turning against his fellow citizens. Was it psychological or ideological? The speculation begins:

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Fox News wasted no time in suggesting that political correctness was the culprit in this tragedy, and that we should have special screenings for muslim soldiers:

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Hasan's cousin, on the other hand, describes a man who was ostracized because of his religion and was very afraid of being sent to the front:



Whatever the truth is, this has to be considered a terrible set back in the war on terror. How will this affect soldiers' morale towards other Muslims in their ranks? How many Muslims will decide not to pursue a military career because of this? This is going to get very, very dark.

It's the Super Bowl of Freedom!

Apparently the only people interested in the Super Bowl of Freedom were aging white retirees with nothing to do on a Thursday.

Today was Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann's "house call on congress", also dubbed by her as "The Super Bowl of Freedom". Despite her fears that Nancy Pelosi would sick her goons on the ordinary folks in attendance, it looks like it all went down peacefully with just a few arrests.

Here you can see video of those arrests, with the crowd attempting to sing "God Bless America" without actually knowing the words:



Here we have Pastor Stephen Broden delivering a benediction that is little more than a regurgitation of debunked anti-reform nonsense and paranoid fantasies that seem to be the calling card for this movement:



And here's Bachmann Crazy Overdrive herself talking to her subjects like children in her folksy Minnesota accent. Is it wrong that she turns me on a little?



It's worth pointing out that Bachmann's chief of staff, Michelle Marton, resigned yesterday and won't discuss the reasons why:

A conservative Republican House member, speaking on the condition of anonymity, suggested that Bachmann’s views — and her willingness to state them — make it hard for her to keep staff.

“When your captain’s crazy, it’s time to find a new ship,” the lawmaker said.

Even Sesame Street bashes Fox News.

You should know you're doing wrong when even Sesame Street takes shots at you. What's next? Dora the Explorer knocking Fox on their immigration coverage? Sponge Bob Square Pants bashing Fox's promotion of off shore drilling?

Teabaggers rejoice in defeat.

Well it happened. Tea Party candidate Hoffman went down in flames and New York's 23rd district goes Democrat for the first time since the reconstruction. And it seems they couldn't be happier:



It's fun to watch Chris Matthews herd teabagger Mark Williams this way and that, and his last comments (at about 6:30) about the difference between "moral" victory and actual victory are spot on. This movement seems content to purify the Republican party at whatever cost, even if it means political defeat. Groovy.

Dark markets.

Frontline's piece on Alan Greenspan's failure to prevent or even imagine the financial meltdown is as infuriating as it is informative. There was, of course, a whistle blower who was first ignored, then frozen out. Until it all came tumbling down:



Hollywood doesn't produce plots this contrived; female whistle blower rails against old boys club, gets stepped on and ignored, and is finally vindicated. Kathy Bates as Brooksley Born, Dustin Hoffman as Alan Greenspan. The film has literally written itself. Except we've already lived it.

Pot porn anyone?

I'm using Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call to tax and regulate marijuana as an excuse to splatter my blog with the mesmerizing images of Mathieu Young. Check em' out, the non-drug related photos are pretty good as well.

Bigots, Zealots, and Cranks.

This is a little wonky for me, but tomorrow being an election day, I suppose some hard politics is in order. And there's a really interesting race that will be decided tomorrow in upstate New York's 23rd congressional district.

The moderate Republican incumbent, Dede Scozzafava, just got taken down by far right Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Over the past few weeks Hoffman, with the help of Freedomworks.org (the PAC of the Tea Party movement) president Dick Armey, was able to successfully exploit Scozzafava's support for abortion rights and gay marriage in order to drive her out of the race.

What's really surprising is that this happened even against the wishes of traditional Republican power players like Newt Gingrich, who endorsed Scozaffava despite her handicaps, so to speak.

Now Scozzafava has turned around and endorsed the Democratic challenger, Bill Owens. Though, it did take FOX a little while to face reality:



Now, I don't care who this Hoffman guy is (he's kind of a stiff) or even who wins the election. What's interesting is the power dynamic that's happening between the moderate and extreme sides of the conservative movement. There's a very telling moment at the 6:50 mark of this interview between Chris Matthews and Chairman of the New York Conservative Party, Michael Long:



So at this point the far-right of the conservative movement seems to be willing to sabotage Republican candidates who don't pass their litmus test, even if it means losing the seat to a Democrat. They have balls, I'll admit that.

Brains, on the other hand, may be in shorter supply. It seems like a losing strategy to me, but hey -it's their party. If they want it populated solely by bigots, zealots, and cranks, they'll get their wish. At least then I'll never run out of wonderful clips like this: