Too much good news

To deal with:

Arrested Development showrunner Mitch Hurwitz filmed too much for the show's Netflix revival, so now we probably have to deal with the crappy reality of twelve to fifteen new episodes rather than a nice clean ten.

And this can only mean...

Where's the entertainment?

Do something in 140 characters of less...you'd think your pipeline to the Almighty would give you better material, at least a killer "knock-knock joke"...something about not seeing lamb's blood on the door frame or something.

I have one question, why does your doodled Coat of Arms looks like a censored penis drawing (with a French Tickler no less) and how has Gawker missed that? Is it considered a Miracle -- or just an insight into an underlying condition?

You can thank the Christian Right

In reality of course:

"When you start looking at our older students, we see less improvement over time," said Jack Buckley, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which coordinated the U.S. portion of the international exam. 

Even where U.S. student scores have improved, many other nations have improved much faster, leaving American students far behind many of their peers — especially in Asia and Europe.

With an eye toward global competitiveness, U.S. education officials are sounding the alarm over what they describe as a recurring theme when American students are put to the test. Lamenting what he described as "sober cautionary notes," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said it was unacceptable that eighth-grade achievement in math and science are stagnant, with U.S. students far less likely than many Asian counterparts to reach advanced levels in science.

Maybe if our teachers were a bit better paid and could teach things like you know evolutionary science as y'know a science and all.

And hey, maybe if we let schools in poor areas have more money that might help too.

— Some U.S. states that were measured separately were clear standouts, performing on par with or better than some top-performing Asian countries. Eighth-graders in Massachusetts and Minnesota score far better in math and science than the U.S. average. But in California and Alabama, eighth-graders fell short of the national average. 

— Racial and class disparities are all too real. In eighth grade, Americans in the schools with the highest poverty — those with 75 percent or more of students on free or reduced-price lunch — performed below both the U.S. average and the lower international average. Students at schools with fewer poor kids performed better. In fourth-grade reading, all ethnic groups outperformed the international average, but white and Asian students did better than their black and Hispanic classmates.

The Legacy

As Florida's Republican governor and his co-horts dream of new ways to keep minorities from voting, the State's history on the subject of racial injustice has provided a morbid reminder:

Anthropologists have found evidence of 98 deaths and more graves than previously identified at a now-closed state reform school in the Panhandle, according to a report released Monday. An interim report released by the University of South Florida in Tampa says the researchers found at least 50 gravesites at the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, about 60 miles west of Tallahassee.

It's the kind of nightmare you'd think would be the lead news throughout the country, but so far not all that much. Ritualistic beating, isolation, and clearly worse abuse of young black kids over a period of more than a half century form World War One into the early 1970s.

The anthropologists, led by Associate Professor Erin Kimmerle, used historical documents to verify the deaths of two adult staff members and 96 children — ranging in age from 6 to 18 — from 1914 through 1973. “The cause and manner of death for the majority of cases are unknown,” the researchers wrote. In those cases where causes could be documented the most common were infectious disease, fires, physical trauma and drowning. Other mortality patterns showed trends of deaths occurring after escapes and within three months of arriving at the school.

The institution was a reformatory for black children, almost all of them sent there on minor offenses -- and given the nature of Jim Crow justice, for which this school is the eternal symbol, how many of those offenses were these kids even guilty of?

You know what might have prevented something like this in the past? Allowing African-Americans to vote in large numbers.

And Rick Scott and the Republicans want to make sure that isn't allowed to get out of hand.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Oh and speaking of the last post

For example, this:

Speaking at Princeton University, Scalia was asked by a gay student why he equates laws banning sodomy with those barring bestiality and murder.

"I don't think it's necessary, but I think it's effective," Scalia said, adding that legislative bodies can ban what they believe to be immoral.

...

Some in the audience who had come to hear Scalia speak about his book applauded but more of those who attended the lecture clapped at freshman Duncan Hosie's question.

"It's a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the `reduction to the absurd,'" Scalia told Hosie of San Francisco during the question-and-answer period. "If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?"

Scalia said he is not equating sodomy with murder but drawing a parallel between the bans on both.

Yes, and here's the thing you'd think a sentient human being would understand -- when YOU make arguments claimed to be reductio ad absurdum (look at all those law school loans paying off!) YOU are the one who gets to pick the comparison, no one else.  So if it is specious and offensive it is also on YOU.

And equating being gay to murder...that's offensive...and YOU are responsible for it.

How can you deny this?

As someone who had a family member come to my little ol' State from halfway across the world to marry the love of their life in a ceremony that would have been illegal a couple years before, these pictures from Seattle beg the question, how big an asshole do you have to be to deny the right of same sex couples to marry now?

The answer, of course, is a gigantic one.

(via Atrios)

Sure they were the really accurate in the 2012 Election

But I think Public Policy Polling (PPP) may be getting a little off track with its polling of late -- of course, I'm writing about it so...mission accomplished, I guess.

When asked if there was a War on Christmas, the majority of respondents believe there was 47/40.

Well, that will make Bill O'Reilly happy -- or angry about bullshit -- which of course is the thing that makes him happy. Of course, I have my concerns about those actually polled:

A majority of voters (52/45) said they believe in Santa Claus.

Um, yeah...about that, have you met these people?

 [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Wargle Bargle

The three non-wisemen ladies and gentlemen -- Bill O'Reilly, Bernard McGuirk (the other half, and key contributor to Imus "Nappy Headed Ho's" fiasco, and Greg "Dennis Miller with less talent" Gutfield discuss who really is at war on Christmas:

MCGUIRK: The war on Christmas is very, very real, and if you ask me, in addition to some grouchy misanthropic heathen atheists it has to do — at the root of it — with two things — abortion and the gay rights agenda, because Christianity is against those things. It’s subtle but that’s why it’s so pronounced in recent years.

O’REILLY: Hundred percent agree. I absolutely agree 100 percent that the diminishment of Christianity is the target and Christmas is the vehicle because the secularists know the opposition to their agenda (legalized drugs is in that as well) comes primarily from the Judeo-Christian traditionalist people.

Really hitting the Myrrh this year boys.

Yeah...hard to believe their becoming less relevant every day isn't it?

But that is David Gregory's

Method:

Of course it's a Ponzi Scheme

Dick Morris really is the archetype of the age-old question, "Who is the bigger fool, the fool or the fool who follows him?" (that may have started with Obi Wan, but even so that was a long long time ago or so the scrolling credits tell me):

According to FEC data released December 6, Morris' Super PAC for America paid conservative news outlet Newsmax Media roughly $1.7 million for "fundraising" in October and November. A significant portion of the super PAC's money likely went to renting Morris' own email list, which is operated by Newsmax Media.

A Media Matters review found that in the month before the election, Morris sent at least 21 emails to his mailing list featuring fundraising pitches that were "paid for by Super PAC for America." Super PAC also "paid for" at least 25 emails to Newsmax.com's main email list during the same period.

How much money went in Morris' pockets?

A lot obviously.

High value considering Morris would sell what he has of a soul for much much less.

In a decade they'll act like it was all their doing...and their idea

It is truly amazing that with the groundwork laid down the push for marriage-equality began in earnest less than a decade ago -- and here we are after Califonia's false start and Iowa's Supreme Court ruling within three years the whole edifice of resistance is crumbling fast.

Washington Post columnist George Will, who appeared alongside Matalin, also dismissed the potency of the issue for Republicans. “There is something like an emerging consensus,” he said. “Quite literally, the opposition to gay marriage is dying. It’s old people.”

Within thirty years of the passage of Title VII and the Voting Rights Act, there were Republicans talking as if they, and they alone, passed those bills -- while ignoring the Dixiecrats had long-since found a home in the GOP. I imagine within a couple years, the GOP will try to play the same game with same-sex marriage. Besides, they've already found their new target. Single parents:

Mary Matalin: 30 years from now, real people understand the consequences of so many babies being born out of wedlock to the economy and to the morality of the country.

One step forward, two steps back.

 [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

About the same number of people who approve of that chancre

On their privates.

Among the 1,000 individuals polled nationwide throughout September and October, just 9 percent approved of Congress’ current job performance. The margin of error for the public opinion survey conducted by YouGov/Polimetrix was 3.5 percent. That means Congress’ approval rating could be as high as 12.5 percent or as low as 5.5 percent.

Well at least the GOP got re-districting to be as fucked up as they are.

Weird

Mitt and Ann Romney did what you'd expect every defeated Presidential candidate to do...

They showed up at a boxing match (those still happen?)

Mitt was the guest of the guy who organized it and was a special fan of Filipino boxer (and social conservative politician) Manny Pacquiao with this greeting:

Romney also visited with Pacquiao in his dressing room before the fight, wishing him well in the bout.

"Hello Manny. I ran for president. I lost," Romney told the fighter, according to Pacquiao publicist Fred Sternburg.

And with Mitt's special greeting, by the sixth round, so did Manny Pacquiao.

Oh, the moment the knockout occurred...

I think he made about the same face last month when Ohio was called.

Not to act all smarter than their base

But, y'know, Science and all that:

Birmingham, Alabama (PRWEB) December 04, 2012 – The results of a 4 year study show that Americans who obtain their news from Fox News channel have an average IQ of 80, which represents a 20 point deficit when compared to the U.S. national average of 100. IQ, or intelligence quotient, is the international standard of assessing intelligence. Researchers at The Intelligence Institute, a conservative non-profit group, tested 5,000 people using a series of tests that measure everything from cognitive aptitude to common sense and found that people who identified themselves as Fox News viewers and ‘conservative’ had, on average, significantly lower intelligent quotients. Fox Viewers represented 2,650 members of the test group.

I don't know about this study (sounds dubious), but at least it is a study, as opposed to a paranoid delusion, which in and of itself sounds at least 20 IQ points higher.

It's almost as if they are paid to say bullshit

If only there was some kind of asshole who would just ambush people and be incredibly obnoxious enough to confront someone over petty bullshit and dipshittery?

One week after the 2012 election, Fox News correspondent Jesse Watters told Bill O'Reilly that Obama voters were "zombies" who supported the president "as long as there was Obamacare, gay marriage and abortion on demand." Per the FEC filing above, Watters, who resides in Long Island, N.Y., contributed $500 to Obama Victory Fund 2012 in late September. You'll note "News Corp.," which owns Fox News, is listed under "name of employer."

The first political party to make into the DSM-V

Crazier and crazier:

The Republicans’ anti-tax Tea Party wing, which failed in its goal to defeat President Barack Obama and the Senate Democratic majority, is rising to leadership positions in policy and activist groups that have guided the party’s direction for years. South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, who helped insurgent candidates oust incumbent Republicans in primaries, announced yesterday that he will lead the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, a group that has served as an incubator for the party’s policy and legislative ideas for decades.

If the Party was more pro-choice y'know these incubators wouldn't be such a problem.

I'd say Mitch McConnell really took one on the Chin

From his own fists after his hackneyed need to fillibuster himself over the debt limit.


But, Mitch McConnell can never take a punch on something that does not exist.

Yeah, clearly

The only thing funnier than Dick Morris always being wrong about predictions, is his blatantly wrong explanations of why he was so wrong.

We lost because whites stayed home! Particularly among the elderly, the voter turnout was disappointing with seniors casting only 16% of the vote, much less than had been anticipated. (Seniors were the only age group that Obama lost by a significant margin — 15 points).

Why didn’t whites vote and why didn’t we all spot it sooner?

Impact of Sandy.

Yeah, Dick, if only the whites in New York and New Jersey had turned out (oh, they did?) Romney would have won there.

Just like Republicans have not done the 1984 and 1988 respectively.

You bet, Jackass.

Too much bonding

I do think this may be one of the more off-putting statements I have read of late that did not involve a FoxNews pundit or Jerry Sandusky.   Ladies and gentlemen, mother and daughter porn team specializing in 3-ways...what's so special about it daughter?

"I enjoy the sex and I enjoy being with my mom," says Monica, who dropped out school in ninth grade and got her mom started in the porn biz before following suit.

AYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

How are the Lohans or Kardasians not involved in this? 

This Planet's dangerous, we should probably leave

As long as we take the dogs with us, the rest of the planets residents will probably be quite pleased.

A strong earthquake struck Friday off the coast of northeastern Japan in the same region that was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami last year. Tokyo high-rises swayed for several minutes, one city reported a small tsunami and at least two people were reported injured.