Dreams Of Noise

Dunno why everybody's so shocked, shocked! that a 67-year-old duck call maker from the backwoods spouts racism and homophobia.

Nor am I surprised that Rush Limbaugh defends him on the grounds of FREEDOM OF SPEECH!

I'm not even piqued by the stance of the rest of his clan, that their fatigues-and-whittlin' Simple Country Honesty™ cannot possibly move forward without their patriarch.

However, I am slightly annoyed that Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) is jumping on the FREEDOM OF SPEECH! bandwagon. But then, he's only supposed to be one of the new breed of conservative intellectuals (which I'm sure we all remember from his Mr. Rogers-style SOTU rebuttal in 2009).

And I'm rather annoyed, and simultaneously bemused, at the FREEDOM OF SPEECH! outcry from the same people who boycotted the Dixie Chicks for saying they were embarrassed to be from the same state as Pres. Bush, the same folks who followed Ari Fleischer's despicable lead in warning people to "watch what you say".

Let's remind everyone, especially Jindal and Rushbo, of a little basic law: The First Amendment, guaranteeing freedom of speech, does indeed guarantee anyone the right to say anything (within the obvious limits of "fire" in a crowded theater, etc. Let's not cloud the argument with bullshit). This even extends to outright lies -- goodness knows enough of them have gone unchallenged.

And it guarantees that the government cannot legally suppress your speech.

It does not guarantee you an audience.

And, if you are a representative of a private company -- in this case, the A&E Network -- it does not guarantee you a job if you say shit that said company thinks is damaging to their image.

You'd think that someone who started from nothing and built his hand-carved duck calls into a fairly big corporation and a reality TV show would have people to mention these things to him. At least someone in his immediate family.

Ah well. I'm gonna continue to stay off his lawn.

Good morning! Here, have a song. From an idea by Bruce Adelsohn. Thanks to Zander Nyrond and Blind Lemming Chiffon for suggesting lyrical tweaks.

Ted Cruz Crazy
Words: © by Tom Smith
Music: "Tom Cruise Crazy" by Jonathan Coulton

Music video for the original song:



Ted Cruz is so in love with freedom
At least all his people tell him so
Hates the poor and doesn't want to feed 'em,
Thinks Obamacare just has to go,
But a functioning government sucked out his compassion,
Good thing he's not Canadian anymore

Ted Cruz is Ted Cruz crazy
Just be glad it's him not you
If you had Ted Cruz's ego
You might be Ted Cruz crazy too
You'd flash your big white phony smile
You'd break Congress's rules
(alternate: "You'd dominate the news")
And you'd be the only man on Earth
Who didn't hate Ted Cruz
Oh no, you wouldn't despise Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz is always getting odder
He knows he'll never be that sane again
And when Ted Cruz looks for cannon fodder
He sees the welfare queens and union men
He knows someday he'll have to play
A very subtle race card,
He reads "Green Eggs and Ham" and gets it wrong

Ted Cruz is Ted Cruz crazy
Just be glad it's him not you
If you had Ted Cruz's viewpoint
You might be Ted Cruz crazy too
You'd threaten the economy
While your colleagues drink their booze
And you'd be the only man on Earth
Who could even stand Ted Cruz
Oh yeah, you wouldn't loathe Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz thinks somewhere there's a place for him
But he's not of this world anymore...

Somewhere in his White House playset
Poor Ted Cruz sits staring at the wall
A voice speaks in his head, and he obeys it
He never fails to heed its call
There are millions who know his name
Everybody hates him
Guess he's just not making himself clear...

Ted Cruz is Ted Cruz crazy
Just be glad it's him not you
If you had Ted Cruz's ambitions,
You might be Ted Cruz crazy too
You'd stomp and scramble over folks
Who have much more to lose
And you'd be the only man on Earth
Who didn't despise Ted Cruz
Oh no, you wouldn't much like Ted Cruz.

Must-see video at dKos. The point here is not how much of a doof Gov. Rick Perry is, so much as it's the awesome pro-New York video Lewis Black and the Daily Show staff put together.

If you could move, right now, for free, to any city in America, where would you go? I'm torn between staying in the Ann Arbor area, Kissimmee, FL, or Chattanooga, TN (very important perqs: access to I-75 and the fastest internet in the country).

Tremendous. And epic.

More information at The Maddow Blog.

Sadness. Pianist Harvey Levan "Van" Cliburn has passed away at the age of 78.

As classical musicians go, he was a rock star. His breakthrough came at the first quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, held in Moscow in 1958. The event was one of many intended to demonstrate Soviet superiority, in this case culturally.

Small problem: a 23-year-old from Texas who ended up getting an eight-minute standing ovation. His performance at that competition, of Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto, is available on YouTube.

Rest well, Mr. Cliburn, and thanks.

Alabama state representative Mary Sue McClurkin, who is of course sponsoring anti-abortion regulation, says a baby is the largest organ in the body.

Perhaps you've heard of the proposal to mint a trillion-dollar coin to take care of the debt ceiling woes. (Click here for a more detailed discussion.)

No matter which side of that proposal you are on, I think you'll find this (from Steve Benen at the Maddow Blog) really, really worrisome:

This morning, the [National Republican Campaign Committee] argued, apparently in all seriousness, "The amount of platinum needed to mint a coin worth $1 trillion would sink the Titanic." To help drive home the point, the campaign committee even created an image of a President Obama platinum coin weighing down the Titanic.

Making matters slightly worse, the NRCC says the coin would "pay for [Obama's] spending," which suggests Republicans still don't understand that the White House cannot legally spend money that hasn't already been approved by Congress.

But even putting that aside, the problem with the image and initial argument is that the NRCC appears to have forgotten how money works. A $20 bill does not have $20 worth of paper. Indeed, the paper and fibers that go into a $50 bill do not have five times the value of a $10 bill. And as such, a $1 trillion coin would not need $1 trillion worth of platinum.

For a number of years now, one of the most pressing currency issues has been whether we should stop making pennies, as they are literally worth less than the metal made to create them.

A ten dollar bill weighs exactly the same as a hundred dollar bill, except for that extra zero, which adds nothing and yet multiplies by ten. (Or somethin'.)

We have currency precisely so we don't have to lug around hunks of metal, or anything else.

How about a credit card with a value of $1 trillion?

I see where the NRCC is trying to make a symbolic point... but, for cryin' out loud, if they don't know the basic rules of how an economy based on currency works, how can they possibly have any credibility at all on policy?

Great sadness and fond memories for us Michiganders today.

First, Helen Milliken, the wife of former Governor William Milliken, has passed away at the age of 89. She was the First Lady of Michigan for fourteen years, and came to be an exceptional advocate of women's rights and environmental protection. She was one of those people about whom no one had anything bad to say. A smart, elegant, classy lady, and a great ambassador for our state, and she will be missed.

And then there's Marvin Eliot Schlossburg.



Sonny Eliot has passed away at the age of 91. We'll remember him sadly but fondly -- "sondly" kinda remembering, if you will.