Danny Doom’s Booze Cabinet

I’ll be contributing some 2012 campaign analysis over at the Examiner, starting with this one on the debate last night:

The latest twist came in the form of a Gingrich ex-wife (no. 2) spilling the beans on Newt’s desire for an open marriage back in the late 90′s. For the record, Newt denied the story and made sure to zing the messenger, CNN’s John King, for having the gall to ask him about the day’s biggest story. The reprimand was a rare complaint by Gingrich toward the media elite—his geniality and likability are growing with each new day on the campaign trail—and King chose not to ask him whether his lofty condemnation of Bill Clinton during the impeachment trials could be considered hypocritical.

I don’t know if any more people read that site than do this one but what the hell.

INTERNETS, 18th of January 2012.
PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear”. He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture.
Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent. There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them – like Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever.
So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: “stole”) other peoples creative works, without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they’re all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations – it’s all based on being able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create. If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other peoples rules.
The reason they are always complainting about “pirates” today is simple. We’ve done what they did. We circumvented the rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them). It’s all based on the fact that we’re competition. We’ve proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We’re just better than they are.
And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech. We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.
The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe – but we’ve stayed out of the USA. We have Swedish roots and a swedish friend said this: The word SOPA means “trash” in Swedish. The word PIPA means “a pipe” in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence. They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the rest of us obedient consumers. The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you’ll learn that noone wants to be fed with trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that you will stop them, before we all drown.
SOPA can’t do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we’ll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really. To fix the “problem of piracy” one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they’re creating “culture” but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and tv shows that make them think that they’re fat.
In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he’s complainting that Google is the biggest source of piracy in the world – because he’s jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you’d get a more honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News.
Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can’t access this information when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We’re sorry for that.
- THE PIRATE BAY, (K)2012

A quick thought about Barney Frank retiring: the descriptions of him all seem to settle on the idea that he was a bully of some sort, a gruff, brow-beating jerk who frightened everyone around him. I don’t doubt it. I certainly wouldn’t argue against it. It’s probably what made him so effective in his job. But, as much as I enjoyed his public displays of sarcastic disdain toward right-wingers and fools in general, if you asked me whether he would make for a good president my answer would be absolutely not. Furthermore, would he be remotely electable, even by half the country?

No way. Not a chance. His is not the temperament that achieves the office of the presidency. Forget that he’s gay, or Jewish, or whatever. That personality alone disqualifies him. You know it and I know it, we’re not blinded by ideological hopes and dreams. Come on!

So. It’s quite obvious, isn’t it? He is the Newt Gingrich of the left.

An old-fashioned kegger. I spent a long time last night reading posts on a Facebook group dedicated to all of the people who’ve died from our high school (a loose span of early to late 80s). There were a lot of people. Some died back then and some just recently. We’re all around or just barely in our 40s. So, that was depressing.

It’s probably unfair to kick him now but…here at The Booze Cabinet–even in times of great hiatus–we never falter in patting down the dirt gently on top of a well-deserved political grave. In this case, Mr. Cain’s. That brain-freeze on Libya topped Rick Perry’s oops moment…almost! Oh, he’ll be fine–Republicans love that shit! Here’s my impression of a GOP primary voter:

“Did you hear the stupid shit Cain said today?”

“Yeah, I did. Goddamn liberals reported it, didn’t they? I gotta contribute more money to his campaign!”

“And that Perry, he sure stepped in it, huh?”

“Oh yeah he did! Fuckin’ lamestream media. How much do you think he needs today?”

Dumb as rocks. And hilarious. But Cain, he’s smart. His show is gonna be huge on Fox next year, premiering right around election time! They’re gonna call it “9-9-9nnnnightcap with Godfather Cain.”

But I was just saying about him, that “this is a guy who would refuse to come clean on anything, a guy who would not take questions if he didn’t have to, mega-micro-managing control freak.”

Just to prove it, my man HERman canceled an interview because he didn’t want it to be taped, which would then allow people to see the stupid shit that came out of his mouth and replay it over and over. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

I regard the current actual Pope as an accessory to child-rape, as I do Paterno. But their paternal authority within religious institutions allowed them to carry on

– Andrew Sullivan

I’m glad that at least two of the people I respect have made this connection. Seemed kind of obvious to me.

I’m having a hard time masking my contempt, not only at the candidate Cain but those who support his mockery of the American political process (easy to mock, I know). I can remember why I liked Obama in the first place: he seemed reasonable. He showed signs of being sensible and knowledgeable. No small thing. He had limited experience, less than Hillary Clinton, but it was balanced by his sense of calm and intelligence (not that Clinton didn’t display similar qualities). Mostly, Obama did comport himself as an ignorant ass. Wow, what standards. Compared to most of these guys (and gals) yes, that is a useful consideration (Newt Gingrich–is there a bigger ass than he?).

These chumps, Perry, Bachmann, that dimwit Palin, they seem to revel in their ignorance and yet–that’s what garners support for them! Cain, to me, is an truly abhorrent figure, a dickish CEO with little regard for women and a proud tendency for supreme control of his surroundings. This is a guy who would refuse to come clean on anything, a guy who would not take questions if he didn’t have to, mega-micro-managing control freak. Right-wingers love that shit.

Has any recent major presidential candidate shown as little mastery of the basics, when it comes to policy matters, as Cain? He’s shown his limitations time and time again, from debates in which he can’t articulate his policy preference on Afghanistan, to his cluelessness on the so-called Palestinian “right of return,” to his contradictory stands when it comes to abortion and a willingness to trade GITMO prisoners for hostages, to his (unconstitutional) declaration that he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet or a federal judgeship, to his inability to defend his 9-9-9 tax plan. Yet some defenders of Cain actually celebrate his lack of knowledge, portraying it as a virtue, a sign that he’s an outsider, a non-establishment figure, authentic, the appealing anti-politician.

Well, not all right-wingers. This is Pete Wehner, a rare conservative voice of sanity (on this topic alone). But these guys on the right are loyal to a fault. What an understatement! Loyal to a fault-line. Finding self-awareness with Republicans is like retrieving a contact lens on a crowded dance floor. It never happens but once in a revolving disco ball ecstasy-fueled blue moon.

I spent a lot of time on this site back in the old days railing against the Iraq War, even before it began. I called GWBush everything from a lying war-mongering criminal to a lying fear-mongering war criminal, and I stand by every word of it (because it’s true!). Now the war, or the U.S. involvement in it, is coming to an end, over 8 years later than it should have (it should have not been, ever). The body count is ridiculously huge, whether you choose to count only American lives (4,479) or include, as we should, Iraqi civilians. These people died because America got really scared and believed stupid things they were told by a cabal of assholes (Bill Kristol, Dick Cheney, etc.). They are all, unfortunately, still alive–neoconservative mf’ers–and waiting for your apology.

It remains what it always was, and what it could only be: a failure.

If the war you advocate requires for its success the indefinite deployment of U.S. troops, you’ve advocated a failed war. The American people have never and will never agree to a perpetual war of choice that costs billions of dollars each year and results in the ongoing death of American troops — especially if its proponents suggest before it begins that it will be a cakewalk costing $50 to $60 billion. That’s hardly a difficult lesson, but neoconservatives still haven’t learned it.

So my point today/tonight is only to reiterate my feeling of fuck you-ishness to those responsible.

I am not moving fast enough to keep up with the events. Art imitating life imitating art. For the record:

The report was still so vague in that first week of September that it seemed less a threat than an ill-conceived promise, but still there it was, breathless and hanging out there like a timebomb: a broken nuclear-powered satellite had fallen out of orbit and spun out of control and was now due to fall from the sky, the location and date as-yet-unknown. With that the lever had been pulled, downward shift and we were stuck in this enthralled paralysis, it was as if the world was on hold. Everywhere you would look people were gripped with fear and excitement, it was odd and fantastic. No one knew when or where it might land but everyone, it seemed, was certain it was to be upon their own head.

“You know this thing is going to fall in the ocean, right?” I said to Sandy, “If it even makes it through the atmosphere,” but soon she was swept up in the fever with everyone else, saying and doing things as if the world might end.

…

Sandy was glad to have me back in the face of all of this fear and conspiracy and we would take these long drives along the lake and watch the sky, drinking out of paper bags and theorizing on a post-apocalyptic future as the sun burned away into night. I could feel a distinct change in the earth’s pull, that weird heaviness that came with doom, and I quickly fell in love with the idea of it—planet in peril!—it was, as it turns out, the perfect cushion on which to land upon my return. The old familiar surroundings and places I had long ignored now appeared clearer to me, more in focus, with highlights and borders, like maybe they wouldn’t be around much longer? The disorientation I had felt from re-acclimation began to take on new heights and it left me feeling like I never really came home, like somewhere along the way we had hit a cloud and veered left and got off the plane in another dimension. The hype kept building and the crazy theories kept spinning wildly out of control until it finally seemed as if we were sitting on the cusp of a total meltdown.

“It’s not going to kill us off, Sandy,” I said, but she kept that worried look in her brown eyes and laughed nervously.

One of the last times that we drove to the lake before the satellite fell she was quiet and I filled the space with jokes, trying to put her at ease. I could see her staring up at the sky like it was a monster getting ready to pounce and when she spoke it was in a little girl voice, timid and cute. She was such a small thing anyway, with long brown hair falling down over her turtleneck, and when the cold came roaring in off the water she would lower her head and get swallowed up in the big jacket that she wore until springtime.

“I better learn to swim, Sam, don’t you think?” she said, looking out at the water and moving her arms.

“Why’s that?”

“Oh, you know. First there’ll be fire and then there’ll be water,” she said.

“Well, don’t worry, baby, I’ll build you an ark.”

Now she laughed. “No you won’t, silly.”

“Yeah…you’re probably right. That thing would sink like a stone.”

She just smiled and kept looking up. “You’re smart,” she said. “You know how to get out of doing things.”

She was sweet when she said this, and then she looked at me like I was the one who was going to be there to save her. I pushed her hair out of her eyes and it didn’t feel like lying, not at all and I thought about the words she had said to me when I was still in the black cloud, those sad days when I was still trying to understand where love goes. “That’s what you do, is glorify the past,” she had said and it burned into my skin like a scar. Of course she was right, and I needed to hear it, but that didn’t mean it made any more sense to me. It was always the past, always that which I could not change. “Come on, Sam,” she said, “Look around. Be in the Now.”

It felt like I had come a long way from those days, living for myself in the moment, appreciating life and not getting caught up in the old anxieties. I was becoming more of a man. But then I gazed up at an airliner floating across the clear night sky, lights flashing slow and dreamlike, and remembered how it was not so long ago when the sun rose for the last time at the bottom of the world. It seemed like I had just left, like I was barely even there. The whole world was in a fog sometimes. Sandy grabbed my hand and held it, silent, as the lights blurred up into a red burst, the long pause and then darkness. It felt like we were going to stay that way forever.

On this chilly fall day it is important to look back on a time when the sun shone brightly and all the world was filled with possibility. Oh, and this was in Florida, so there’s that.

Politicians should avoid cultural references at all costs, and especially attempts at rock and roll hipness. It only demonstrates the break that must take place when you choose to leave the real world of sex, drugs and rock and roll that normal humans live in and enter the vapid shit-filled storm of politics:

Huntsman also defended name-dropping the late grunge rocker Kurt Cobain during the debate in reference to Mitt Romney’s book, No Apology. “That just sort of came to me,” Huntsman laughed. “You can’t say ‘no apologies’ on the 20th anniversary and not have Kurt Cobain come to mind.” (A 20th anniversary issue of Nevermind, an album by Cobain’s band, Nirvana, was just released.)

Yes, you can say “no apologies” and not think of Kurt Cobain. Why? Because the song is called “All Apologies.” When you are, as the song says, “all apologies,” that means you are very apologetic. That would be the opposite of having “no apology.” Does it sound like I am speaking to a young child? It’s kind of like the difference between a fair-minded liberal mindset (to a fault) and the hard-line conservative mindset (I am an asshole and proud of it!).

Also, the 20th anniversary of Nevermind does not contain the song “All Apologies.” It is, of course, from the (superior, in my opinion) album In Utero, from 1993. But other than that, I can see why the reference popped into Mr. Huntsman’s politician-addled brain: he’s a typically dim-witted Republican candidate for president trying to sound cool for the 10 people under 40 who might consider voting for him.

I need help. I wish I knew more Republican Tea Party types, if only so they could serve as a translator for me. I need to understand something: How did repealing health-care reform, global warming regulations, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, rejecting Keynesian economics, including the efficacy of fiscal stimulus, abolishing Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, and rejection of Darwin’s theory of evolution became a normal way of life for the GOP?

I missed the latest Crazy Debate last night but from what I understand there were cheers from the allegedly pro-life crowd for death–once again. This time it was for the Death of The Uninsured–what are supposed to do, save the ones who can’t afford it?  Please. Not very Libertarian.

If what the American people want, and vote for, is to be loosened from the shackles of government–be it Medicare or Social Security or the Post Office or the Fire Department, FEMA or some other bothersome agency that meddles in our business–then yes, it will make sense that we also live in a country that cheers the mention of an executed prisoner like the vengeful Christians do.

Repeal the 20th Century. Vote GOP.