Bill Maher insults, well… everyone

Bill Maher’s appearance on the George Lopez show last night was interesting for two reasons:

  1. First, he called Republicans the “ignorant, hillbilly half of America” to the loud cheers of the audience
  2. Then, he basically insulted everyone in the audience by saying that American voters were “like dogs; too stupid to understand issues” and reacting only to “fear, dominance and inflection.”

And maybe he was right, because the audience cheered that, too, even though he was clearly including them in his opinion.

Here’s a brief transcript of this portion of the conversation:

Maher: “We have Democrats for one reason: to drag the ignorant, hillbilly half of this country into the next century. Which in their case is the nineteenth.”

Lopez: “Yes. Absolutely. I agree. How do you think that Barrack Obama is doing halfway through his term?”

Maher: “You know, I mean, look: Democrats are always a little disappointing, that’s why they’re democrats. Uh, but given the hand he was dealt, I give him an “A”.

“I’ll tell you this about Americans, about the American electorate, the voter: Um, they love a winner. You know as soon as he passed healthcare, it went up 15 points. They don’t understand the issues. They’re too stupid. They’re like a dog. They can understand inflection. They can understand fear. They can understand dominance. They don’t understand issues. But when he won on that issue, he went up.”

Lopez: “Right.”

Maher: “I’ll tell you something, if Tiger Woods had come back and won the Masters, he could have murdered all those girls he was f&#*ing. But he didn’t win, and therefore America turned on him. Because they were like, “We’re pissed off, it’s not right to try to f&#* every waitress in America… some of us are still waiting for bread.”

Obviously, that last bit was purely for comic benefit. But the overall message was one he clearly believes. Take a look and decide for yourself:

"I'm Robert Bianco, and I have a man-crush on Barack Obama."

Let’s be perfectly clear: you can vote for whomever you feel is the best candidate. In fact, please do. The more of us that are informed and involved in the process, the better off we’ll all be. (I think.)

(I hope.)

This morning I noticed a USA Today headline about Obama’s 30-minute infomercial that called it a “triumph.” I thought to myself, “when was the last time an advertisement for anything was called a triumph?” Interest piqued, I read the article.

Written by Robert Bianco, it should have contained the disclaimer that is the title of this post. Again, Bianco can vote for anyone he chooses, but we should at least know where he stands before he tosses out platitudes like “low-key triumph… perfectly tuned for the cool side of the medium” or “some parts, perhaps, were hokey [but] they are well-used here.”

Perhaps the biggest clue was his use of the following: “The show was designed to prove that Obama understands us.” “Prove,” not show or maybe demonstrate. “Us,” not working Americans or retirees or undecided voters or whatever.

“Me,” Bianco seems to be saying, “Obama understands me, and for that I am gushing.”

The fact is that words matter, and the words we choose to communicate affect the overall message. It’s my opinion that Bianco, a professional columnist, could have either chosen his better or offered some sort of disclosure about the context of his point of view. But I could be overreacting. You can read it yourself and let me know if you think I’m wrong.

The Ultimate Arrogance

I’ve long thought that taking a basic food staple and turning it into fuel for our cars was the ultimate arrogance. The nose-thumbing equivalent, say, of turning down a friend needing a $4 loan and then using that $4 to buy a venti vanilla latte.

“Yes, I know you’re hungry,” we seem to be saying, “and I know you have kids to feed, too. But if I turn all of this corn into ethanol, there’s a chance I could save ten cents a gallon.”

The good news, I guess, is that we’re developing new ways to create ethanol from the solid walls of plants that will be more efficient than the current method, which only uses about 50% of the dry kernel mass of corn. The bad news, which goes largely ignored, is that mileage decreases fairly significantly with E85, thus causing us to burn more in the first place. The rest of the bad news is that the “demand” for ethanol is driving food prices up and creating a food shortage.

You may have already noticed rising rice prices. Some retails stores in the US have begun rationing the amount of rice you can buy. Why? We’re consuming (both eating and burning for fuel) more rice than we’re producing. “For the first time, it’s been clear that we are consuming more rice than we are producing globally,” said Robert Zeigler, head of the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute.

Honestly, it all makes me just want to ride my bike.

"Aborted fetuses who survive…"

Wow. I happened upon an article today that used that phrase in relation to the current scrabbling going on between Obama and Clinton. Specifically, Clinton is bashing Obama for his non-committal stance on abortion rights, something she has strongly and repeatedly voted in favor of. In fact, she’s bashing him because he has failed to make a strong enough case *for* abortion. In the midst of all of this, there is a reference to Obama’s vote to “deny medical care to aborted fetuses that survive.” James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal says it best, so I’ll just quote him:

There is a word in English for “aborted fetuses who survive.” They are called infants.

[Read the article Clinton Criticizes Obama in NH Mailer]

Immigration Issue "Fixed"?

Kris W. Kobach, D.Phil., J.D. and Matthew Spalding, Ph.D.have written an article about the current immigration bill that is making it’s way through the Senate. Though it certainly uses some inflammatory language, it’s well worth the read. Personally, this seems like a deeply flawed attempt to fix the immigration problem, but you can decide for yourself. Regardless, it’s always important to know what’s inside these bills.

Be informed, get involved. This is your country, and these are your representatives. Make sure they know what you think!

[Read the Heritage Foundation article, “Rewarding Illegal Aliens: Senate Bill Undermines The Rule of Law”]
[Read the legislation]