Collections Notice!
So, I just got a collections notice for an old medical bill that I was under the impression my insurance company had taken care of - and if I don't pay it by the 10th, it'll get reported to a credit agency.
Pandagon
Contradictions don't phase us, as we outgrew thinking long ago
I almost missed this, but thankfully I saw it at Digby's blog---Rick Perlstein has reprinted a piece he wrote in 2007 about the role of the unconscious in right wing politics. It really sheds light on the way that conservatives manage to get out their racist, sexist, and homophobic messages without coming out and saying it, which makes it maddening to push back because there's the plausible deniability factor. Like the McCain ad, linking Obama to images of white women that are most famous for being icons of people's worst fears of female sexuality, which invokes an ugly racist stereotype without coming right out and saying it, so when liberals raise a fuss, conservatives can shrug and pretend they don't see it.
Oh, Sweet Mesus
The panel on Hardball (Andrea Mitchell and Roger Simon) is now discussing that John McCain is merely being misled by his staff, and that's why he's saying all sorts of stupid, dishonest things about Obama. Also, McCain has a Sense of Honor, and we all know it.
This Is So Funny We'll Campaign For It
So, as a part of what's apparently their new Funny All The Time strategy, the McCain campaign has custom-made tire gauges with Obama's name on them available for a twenty-five dollar donation. It would probably help if it wasn't one of the most effective ways available to every American to conserve fuel and lower gas costs, though.
White supremacists: Obama's boosting our movement
Tom Prater, Florida spokesman for the white power group Euro and a member of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, says the Illinois senator's success is a boon for his cause."I've gotten more calls in the last two months about interest in our organizations than I got in all the years in the past," said Prater, who lives in Jacksonville.
August Kreis, national director of Aryan Nations, another white supremacist and anti-Semitic organization, agrees.
"Obama's done my group a lot of good," said Kreis, who lives in South Carolina and says he keeps a Nazi flag over his mantel. "He's polarizing Americans, black and white. "Especially in Florida, affiliates have increased recently," Kreis said, although he did not produce membership figures.
You can't even laugh this one off because you know that those who feel threatened by this kind of change will find solace in white power organizations. Don Black, former national grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and the founder of Stormfront.org, brags about revived interest.
"I get nonstop e-mails and private messages from new people who are mad as hell about the possibility of Obama being elected," Black said. "White people, for a long time, have thought of our government as being for us, and Obama is the best possible evidence that we've lost that. This is scaring a lot of people who maybe never considered themselves racists, and it's bringing them over to our side."
It's hard to know how many people are willing to actively join one of these organizations, but it's safe to say, with the anonymity of the Internet, that those who sympathize will find a more user-friendly outlet that is more palatable. Black has banned the use of terminology (including "nigger") and obvious white power symbolism such as swastikas, lightning bolts and the number 88.
"This is not a change of philosophy on Black's part," [Mark Potok, an investigator for the Southern Poverty Law Center] said. "This is a public relations move to make the Web site seem less drastic, to try and draw more people in right now during the presidential campaign. His beliefs are still fundamentally neo-Nazi. If you listen to the content, you'll hear it."
Hat tip to Dave Neiwert, who said:
Of course, the main people doing the scaring are overt race-baiters like Black, as well as the only slightly more subtle smears spread by the likes of Floyd Brown and Co. and their anonymous army of e-mail forwarders. And no doubt they will all do their damnedest to stir up trouble intended to harm an Obama presidency should it happen.
Bamboo Reviews, Dark Knight, Deux
We did it with "Wall-E", so we can do it with the other giant blockbuster of the summer---"The Dark Knight". I waited until after seeing it this weekend to read Jesse's review of it, because as my geek quotient rises, my tolerance for getting spoiled lowers. This review will also have spoilers, so beware if you're like me, and have put off seeing it.