What's the Matter With Oklahoma?

Regular readers know that I've always considered Oklahoma to be pretty much my home state. Even though we moved out of state when I was ten years old, my most formative years were spent there and it's to those years that I inevitably go back when I find myself awash in rosy nostalgia for a bygone time -- those years on the farm were actually a lot of fun for me.

And that's why any oddball news from the state invariably catches my eye. Like this story: State Rep. Dan Fisher (R-Buttfuck) has introduced legislation into the state house of representatives that would prohibit state expenditure of funds on an Advanced Placement US History course that, in his words, "fails to teach 'American Exceptionalism'. He belongs to something called the Black Robe Regiment, a Glenn-Beck-affiliated outfit, that argues that "the church and God himself has been under assault, marginalized, and diminished by the progressives and secularists." Even worse, it attacks the “false wall of separation of church and state" and warns of a “growing tide of special interest groups indoctrinating our youth at the exclusion of the Christian perspective.”

Exclusion of the Christian perspective. You know, that's an argument the constitution guarantees governments can't get in the middle of: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...etc." -- First Amendment to the United States Constitution

Jesus, Oklahoma. You've already banned any consideration of Shariah Law. But you're not satisfied with that; you have to attack the contents of a scholarly and scholastically agreed-upon history course because it dares to claim (I presume) that George Washington didn't really chop down that cherry tree, that the Europeans were not the friendly white brothers from across the sea who were only concerned for the welfare of the savages, and slavery was not actually good for blacks?

Of course you do live mostly downhill from What's the Matter With Kansas, so a lot of the shit they pull out of their asses gets washed downstream to you. But that doesn't mean you have to pick up that pile of shit muffins, dust them off and get them gold plated.

They are still shitmuffins.

Does a Rising Tide Lift All Boats?

We've been spoon-fed an economic concept since the Reagan administration, as part of that whole "trickledown economics"* thing, that a "rising tide lifts all boats". Well, it does seem to work that way in the real world of Budd Bay, one of the farthest-south reaches of Puget Sound, about a mile from my house. But, since boats that are lying on the bottom and stuck there don't get lifted, using that as a metaphor for anything except the rise and fall of water in an arm of the sea is kind of stretching it.

But that what's rightwing economists have tried to do since Reagan, and they are still at it, despite 30 years of facts -- inconvenient things, those damn facts -- proving the exact opposite when it comes to that "trickledown" bullshit.

BadTux the Snarky Penguin, whose blog I always read, has a startlingly simple analogy of his own, which involves the sellers of oranges. A lot of sellers of oranges coupled with just a few buyers. It illustrates a concept which was new to me, oligopsony, but which makes a lot of sense.

It's definitely worth the read, especially since it comes from a smart guy who is actually in a boat that's rising but who still sees the necessity to help those boats that are stuck on the bottom.

Dammit, now I'm using that metaphor... But never mind that. Go read his trenchant analysis of the whole thing.

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 * Also known as the "don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining" school of economics.

Hate Speech on Fox Nation Site

Our friends over at the always valuable media watchdog site News Corpse have collected the most egregious examples of hate speech posted in the Fox Nation forums and have collected them here for your "enjoyment".

Go ahead and read through them. If you can. Fair warning: They are not for the faint of heart. The wingnuttery will defend themselves, as always, by saying the Democrats do it too, but I challenge anyone to find a liberal equivalent of this very angry race-based invective, even a remote or obscure liberal example.

You can likely find a lot more of this on your own if you go yourself to their site. I won't provide the link because I don't want to contribute to their page-driven link stats, but you can find it easily enough on your own (note: it's wwwDOTfoxnationDOTcom). It's fucking disgusting and they appear to have given up even any semblance of supporting their "fair and balanced" slogan.