Oblivion has a very explicit anti-drone message. It’s a pretty good movie, too, but it’s hardly a blockbuster.

Poll numbers don’t fill the old coffers.

Imagine all the people who would be barred from practicing journalism if journalism were a real, licensed profession:

Peggy Noonan (for secretly taking money from Enron then praising the company)

Lee Sock Puppet Siegel

George Will (for participating in a mock debate using a stolen debate book with Ronald Reagan and then giving Reagan rave reviews for his performance)

Armstrong Williams (for taking NCLB payola during the Bush Administration)

etc.

And Bill Gates is using his fortune to destroy public education in America and aid Monsanto in promoting its suicide seeds.

Gates might be the sickest of all because he actually sees himself as a force for good in the world.

Take care.

I’m selfishly wishing you a speedy recovery so you can get back to the important work you do around here and on your own blog.

This will still be an Essential Daily Blog for me, but it ain’t gonna be the same without you.

Thanks and Happy Holidays.

What if monkeys suddenly come flying out of my keyster?

Why I don’t take anything Barack Obama says seriously:

His FISA about face.

His No more “Scooter Libber Justice” comments.

Blowing up people’s children and then saying, “What children?” “Who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes?” and “These bombs don’t officially exist, but if I had some I would blow up them Jonas Brothers
boys for getting too close to my daughters.” (So funny)

(Our beloved president also thinks it’s funny to ridicule postal workers for being lazy and shiftless.)

And he must have lost every pair of comfortable shoes he owns.

He gave Shirley Sharrod the Lani Gunier treatment.

He tells the banksters, “I got your back.” (Comforting the comfortable)

He tells the NAACP, “Buck up.”

He said that dropping bombs on people is not war after congress refused to declare war. (see Libya)

I’m still waiting for Card Check.

In the president’s defense, although his sick, sad, corporatist education policy sucks rhinoceros testicles, at least it’s consistent with what he said he was going to do in 2008. (See FISA, card Check, Closing Guantanamo, Ending the ridiculous GWOT (instead of merely eliminating the name).

Arne Duncan explicitly advocated homicidal Shock Doctrine policies when he referred to Hurricane Katrina as the greatest education reform program ever.

If a Republican Secretary of Education had said such a thing, he probably would have been forced to resign.

This is what Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report means when he calls the Obama administration a more effective evil.

Obama (and his irascible alter ego Rahm) decided a long time ago that the Billionaires Boys Club is a far more important constituency than teachers (and students do not even vote.)

VIVA Chicago Teachers

Kai Penn worked as the Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement in an administration that routinely blows up young South Asians males for being “up to no good.” So this advertisement really shouldn’t be too surprising.

Barack Obama appointed Arne Duncan to appease the Billionaire Boys Club which makes education policy in this country. Duncan is a unqualified hack: In Chicago Duncan devastated neighborhoods with school closings and then fraudulently covered up his pathetic record. From Diane Ravitch, Death and Life:

In 2009, the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago released a study demonstrating that the city’s claims of dramatic test score gains were exaggerated…. The Study concluded, however, that “these huge increases reflect changes in the tests and testing procedures—not real student improvement” (158).

President Obama should have fired Arne Duncan when Duncan said that Hurricane Katrina was the best education reform policy ever. (No Republican could have gotten away with endorsing homicidal Shock Doctrine policies.)

Race to The Top is a sick, sad policy wherein states are forced to waste limited education funds in order to compete (Hunger Games Style) to come up with policies that support ineffectual and wicked corporatist policies.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I have been waiting for someone to call out Costas for his smug stupidity for years. During past Olympic ceremonies he thought it was appropriate to joke about the country that had the most overweight monarch in history and he once hilariously quipped that during an unsuccessful coup which involved taking over a radio station the rebels had changed the musical format.

As one of the few so-called journalists granted a one-on-one interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger before the California gubernatorial recall election, Costas basically crawled his ass and gave him a televised prostate massage.