The problem? I’m glad you asked. Their post does a couple of things. First, it misses the mark completely by ignoring the fact the PBS News Hour announces all service members who have died in the line of duty overseas as soon as the names and portraits become available. Their post just misses this completely, end of story. Except, secondly, their post implicitly blames Americans (aka, Facebook users) for what has always been a failing of media and government to protect us.

On an almost weekly basis, I’m reminded of when an internal NBC memo was leaked regarding Phil Donahue’s cancellation stating that he would provide, “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.” I always find it curious the things people get mad at, and yet do absolutely nothing about.

The president has not only governed as a liberal—he’s governed as an incompetent liberal, thereby reminding voters that electing a Republican Congress and president next year is the only way to change direction.

It deals away with so much context, fact, and history, that I struggle to believe that Michele Bachmann didn’t say it.

Things out there seem to be mostly the same. People still have problems getting work and Ron Paul seems to be the only candidate so far who even attempts to answer questions and topics posed to him in a debate.

In a sad note, it seems who is IOZ has gone off the blogging grid permanently. While I’d like to think we could full that void (Will certainly could), he was definitely my better.

Oh, and “uncontroversially, Bushs’ crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s.”Uncontroversially. It’s that word that proves you are listening to a fanatic.

And I think Sully’s right, but just because Chomsky says its uncontroversial, doesn’t mean it is. So why doesn’t Andrew make that easy argument? Who knows, maybe Andrew looked at the number of dead people between “them” and “us.” But I know what the real point is that no one else will say: it’s easier to kill the asshole that kills innocent people, turtles, anything really to promote their bake sale; rather than a nice guy who accidentally kills innocent people.

I love this post from Andrew Sullivan (in a sick, sadistic way). And he’s been making this point for a while now.

His idea is that anything to get a conversation going on the budget is good. By that logic, we can assume that talking about how Quadaffi is a psycho  will change the way things happen in the Middle East. Discussing these topics isn’t going to change anything because no one with any money wants anything to change.

In fact, I’d bet that Ryan made the plan in a manner knowing that it wouldn’t be put out to the floor so that he only has to stand behind it in a rhetorical sense and say, “See, at least I tried, and you’re too scared to try anything.” Which, for those of you paying attention sounds like the same excuse I would give if I lost a pensioner his 401K plan in AAA rated collateralized loan lottery tickets.

I am in no way, shape, or form, amazed at the agreement many viewers have regarding the take away of funding towards public broadcasting. In fact, if America is amazing at anything, it’s the ability to make the smallest, most insignificant sacrifice such a dire cause to the march of freedom that is our nation’s narrative. Oh, you don’t believe me? Then why do we order diet coke when we get the number 4 at McDonalds?

And then there’s the hatred from whoever wrote into Michael Getler. In between Getler’s weekly “I’m-an-ombudsman-I-can’t-have-an-opinion-or-I’ll-lose-the-integrity-that-no-one-notices-or-cares-about” high school paper article, viewers shared with him their frustrations that PBS would stoop to the level of advocating funding for itself, as opposed to allowing others to simply say they suck and accept such critique as fact. You know, the way NPR does it.

But once again, the entertainment of these consequences is too much to withhold me from writing such a wondrous review of the saga. A man, alone, willingly watches programming, and when reminded that the provider of such programming is losing funding and would need their viewer’s support, gets angry at the prospect that the thing he consumes for free is not, in fact, free. It’s as if I’m reading some real life version of The Machinist.

And all of this, for programming that simply legitimizes the narrow ideology between the two parties. No Republican hates a Democrat for a position being held, or vice versa. They hate each other because they are on differing teams, while their positions are fundamentally identical.

I do have a secret though as to why we, as a people, are not worried about global warming: because we don’t care. There are YouTube videos of white, suburban, well-off, youths who kick footballs into oncoming cars. And you’re going to tell me that you’re shocked that species that produces that has yet to do anything about global warming?

All in all, it should be kind of comforting. I mean, think about it, all that means now is that George Will has more in common with those suburban youths that anyone would have originally thought. And the point is that no one cares because they can get away with not caring.

Oh, you don’t believe me? Then why do you think it would be “rad” if we had 50-70 degree weather in February?

I’m still unsure if I’ll start plugging links to things I write from the Nappy Cat, or just keep forcing people to the RSS feed. I’m thinking of using TwitterFeed to have Twitter automatically post things from the blog. If you have any other suggestions, let me know.

You can follow me on twitter @MikeKatsimbris. Also, while I’m not sure I have access to do so, Will might be able to make a “latest Tweets” box somewhere on our web page so that you (for those of you who don’t care for RSS or Twitter) can just come to our site and see what he (I’m not sure if he still uses his Twitter account) and I have been linking to lately.

***

One more thing regarding the last post I wrote about Twitter. I still stand by the RSS feed problems it has (all the replies to fans/friends and retweets of content). I will say this however. Subscribing to a user’s RSS feeds allows you to see if they’re answering their fans, and even give you an idea of just how much self promoting goes on. Remember how I singled out Tim Harford last time? Well, not only has he actually toned it down (not by my accord, I assure you), but he really is an answer-centric user. A lot more Neil deGrasse Tyson than Sara Benincassa. By the way, that’s not a shot at Sara because she actually does have some great content.

Oh, and let me ask anyone reading this: If there is a worry that Facebook has reached its MySpace moment, not only do I want to ask what would replace Facebook, but more relevantly, what would replace Twitter when it reaches that point? Or, will Twitter not reach that point? And if not, why not?

NASCAR: What are they going for? – Bryan DiSanto

While watching a Philadelphia Flyers game, during the commercial I switched to the Daytona 500. As a fan of race cars, and anything fast, I thought watching it would make the commercials go by more quickly. Boy was I wrong. Every time I switched over to the race, there was a caution flag, with all the race cars in line behind the pace car. Boy, what an exciting race. Well now we all know why the pace car comes out, a caution flag. But why all the cautions you ask? Wrecks. And oh boy, were there a lot of them. This drove me to text my friend, who also is a fan of motor-sports, and anything automotive in general.

I came to the conclusion that for a car to deliberately contact another car, there needs to be some kind of penalty. No one of those, “Hey, were fining your multi-million dollar team $20,000” penalties. There needs to be a loss of points in the standings. I mean the “R” in NASCAR stands for racing. So let the fans see the racing. Not 1 final lap of racing and 299 laps of cautions, meaningless commentary, pit stops, deliberate hits upon other drivers and hey, crashes.

The way the “Stock Cars” (I use that term loosely, more on that later) draft is ridiculous. In the Dayton 500 the drivers were running in tandem. Teams of 2 were pushing (literally) themselves around the track. What happens if the front car lifts throttle or hits the brakes you ask? Well if you watched any of the race, you’ll know. The back car plows into the rear end, turns the front car around inevitably causes a crash, and Knocks a car or two out of the race.

Now, it is not only legal to make contact with other cars, it’s ENCOURAGED. Have they learned nothing of the death of drivers? Sure, some blame safety, driver error, car setup, or say the cause was a freak accident, but in the end, every time a car impact an object or another car, the outcome could be deadly. It’s so ironic that before the race, everyone honors a deceased driver who passed away during a race. Then, only a couple laps in, deliberate contact is made between cars, at over 200mph, which could easily end in multiple deaths. And worst of all, fans not only like the crashes, that is what they watch this form of “racing” for.

This brings me to another point. How can you call yourself a fan, knowing your cheering for someone to potentially kill or injure another driver every week? Do the fans consciously know what they are cheering for? I’m fine with violence, so go watch some boxing, MMA, or a hockey game. This is not the place for it. However particularly in the South, fans stare “rubbin’s racin” I’m sorry, but no, it really isn’t. Rubbing is not having the skill to pass, or block a pass cleanly. Rubbing is racing, in demolition derby, and probably Roman chariots. So if these fans want to see cars crash, why not stand on an overpass above I-95. You may even see a decapitation. Or hey, watch any form of rally racing. Trust me, the crashes in the WRC are much more spectacular than in NASCAR. AND, get this; crashing isn’t even the name of the game. As a side effect they may actually get to see some good racing. Maybe if the WRC advertised Sebastian Loeb flipping his Citroen over into a tree on route 1 North in Dover, via a billboard, they could triple their fan base. That is beside the point though.

So, where is NASCAR going with this sport? In the absence of innovation, development, and the showcase of skill, we are left with crashes and sponsors. Crashes make the sport exciting; exciting enough to attract viewers and fills seats. When you buy merchandise you can have your favorite potential murderer’s driver’s face on it. So NASCAR likes, money and crashes. They advertise it as something it isn’t (racing) in an effort to make it legitimate. There are other people out there that are staying true to the form of racing. Which brings me to the term “Stock Car”. Yes, back in the day the cars had to be produced to race. However, today, I don’t see a full sheet metal, tube chassis, fire-breathing small block V8 at my local Chevy, Ford, Dodge, (don’t see much of anything at Dodge) or Toyota dealer. But wait, I just made a slanderous statement. They stay true to their roots by using a fucking carburetor. Nothing screams state of the art technology like 1970’s carburetion. If these cars are “Stock Cars”, then the old Honda F1 car is a spitting image of a civic.