(I've had this post in "Drafts" since January when I had the idea to do a week of new words/theories/definitions, but who knows if that will ever happen, and now that Balloon Juice is building a dictionary, I figured I'd post it. Carry on.)

I heard this phrase the other day and traced the first usage back to Balloon Juice. I think it's perfect. I'd nominate it for phrase of the year, but it was from last year, so, well, we'll just have to enjoy it without the awards.

Wingnut Voltron, noun: The act when the right wing blogosphere comes together to form a powerful and passionate opposition to important things, such as scarves in a donut commercial. Derived from the childrens' cartoon Voltron.

This seems like a pretty good idea to me.



Photo by Flickr user cliff1066

The most populous district in America right now, according to the latest Census data, is Nevada’s 3rd District, where 960,000 people are represented in the House by just one member. All of Montana’s 958,000 people likewise have just one vote in the House. By contrast, 523,000 in Wyoming get the same voting power, as do the 527,000 in one of Rhode Island’s two districts and the 531,000 in the other.

That 400,000-person disparity between top and bottom has generated a federal court challenge that is set to be filed Thursday in Mississippi, charging that the system effectively disenfranchises people in certain states. The lawsuit asks the courts to order the House to fix the problem by increasing its size from 435 seats to at least 932, or perhaps as many as 1,761. That way, the plaintiffs argue, every state can have districts that are close to parity.

“When you look at the data, those are pretty wide disparities,” said Scott Scharpen, a former health care financial consultant from California who has organized the court challenge. “As an American looking at it objectively, how can we continue with a system where certain voters’ voting power is substantially smaller than others’?”

Photo by Flickr user Darren Hester

This is almost entirely wrong-headed: the point of stimulus aid to state and local governments isn't to save state and local government jobs. The point is to provide fiscal support so that states, which generally have to balance their budgets, don't make pro-cyclical spending/service cuts or have to enact tax increases during a recession.

Via Talking Points Memo, a poll from Public Policy Polling drilling down into the nonsense regarding whether President Obama is a naturalized citizen of the US.

According to the poll, 24% of the population do not believe Obama was born in the US. That's not a huge surprise, because that's about the % of the country that supported Bush until the end of his presidency (though, it's obviously not certain these are the same people). More of these people (10% to 7%) believe he was born in Indonesia, rather than Kenya, which is weird because as TPM notes, everyone knows that Obama was born in Kenya, or at least that's what they say.

Most telling, tough is the 10% of people who acknowledge Obama WAS born in Hawaii. 6% of them don't think Hawaii is part of the US and 4% aren't sure.

Reasonable people can disagree, sure, but these people aren't reasonable.

Photo by Flickr user JOE M500

I'm honestly confused about why I'm not supposed to shop there. I understand that CEO John Mackey is kind of a libertarian goofball and that he's recently expressed opinions about health care reform that are consistent with his goofball libertarianism.

But: is Whole Foods, as a corporation, lobbying against health care reform? I haven't seen any reporting that this is happening. Are we honestly boycotting Whole Foods in an attempt to change John Mackey's mind? That seems like a pretty unlikely outcome, and a pretty staggeringly disproportional tactic.

Who cares what the guy says in the Wall Street Journal? And why should I base my grocery shopping on it?

Remember these?

This is as funny as she was on Saturday Night Live! It gets especially good in the comments.

Obama legally kills babies and now he can legally kill Grandmas!

Hitler did this. He killed the weak, the sick, the old, and babies and races/religions he didn’t like. Hitler also controlled the media. (Where’s the public debate between scientists on “Climate Change/Global Warming?”) Hitler had the VW bug invented as the state car. What will O’s nationalized car be? So… kill off the weak. That’s the plan. Tax the workers to death. Erase the middle class. Sounds like the evil governments we studied in high school long ago. The evil governments were : kings, oligarchies, facist, socialist, and communist. Now it’s called the Obama Administration. Sounds like candy or a rock band.

Of the three 2009 Speaker Series: Live & Uncensored events, the one I had originally looked forward to most was tonight's showdown between James Carville and Karl Rove. According to Charlie Rose, the moderator, Rove and Carville are both known for "helping an underdog get elected President twice" and connected by Mary Matalin, who is linked to "the political side of Rove" and "the loving side of Carville." Whatever that means.

Considering the insanity from last night's event at Radio City Music Hall, my expectations were pretty high. Alas, something seemed off about the night from the very beginning (the orchestra was only 3/4 full at 8:00 when the evening was supposed to start, though it did eventually fill), and it never got completely on track. Frankly, Rove wasn't as despicable as he's often portrayed, Carville wasn't as spicy as he is when he's 'on', and Rose didn't care to control the conversation.

I was surprised at the amount of attention paid to Carville v. Rove Round 1 in NYC because for Coulter v. Maher I wasn't able to find anything ahead of the event. Last night in NYC was marred by protesters and hecklers and perhaps the excitement was too much for the 3 performers because, while the Boston crowd was well-behaved (surprising after our Maher/Coulter display), there weren't a lot of fireworks on stage. Of course, there was Carville's Ragin' Cajun huffing and puffing and Rove's know-it-all smugness. Even Rose got into it, pointing and bowing his body like a marionette, sometimes folding all the way over.

I'm losing steam, but I want to share the notables:

-The sound issues for the Speaker Series continued as Rose's introduction battled someone who had their mic turned on backstage and I was begging for a 30 Rock/Naked Gun moment of embarrassment. James Carville was impossible to understand for most of the night. Part of this was his accent, but when he moved the mic closer to his mouth, it was better.

-Bodily theatrics played a big part tonight: Already mentioned was Rose's puppet-like pantomimes. Carville mugged for the crowd, but also fidgeted constantly, adjusting his tie and socks, and scratching his armpit. At one point, Rove mimicked Carville's herky-jerky gesticulations for a good 20 seconds, much to the delight of the audience.

-Topics covered include: The Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor ("All I could say was 'sonofabitch'" - Carville, Rove thinks she'll be easily approved.), The Economy (Carville, in a point that he leaned on like a wooden leg, says it's a "breathtaking accomplishment" how much Obama has made us feel better about ourselves and the direction of the country, Rove thinks it's all Obama's fault.), Health Insurance, Does the Market work?, Foreign Policy ("More power to him, he's doing the right thing" and "America's popularity is different than is credibility" both by Rove.) Bush (Rove said they should have tackled immigration before trying to fix Social Security, Carville said they succeeded in Africa and had good ideas on immigration), Clinton, and best political lesson ("It's about addition, not subtraction" - Rove. "When I was younger, I overrated intelligence, but now I'd go with judgment" - Carville.)

-Favorite quotes/interactions:
"I don't want the cops busting my door down when I'm having sex." - Carville "I don't want to be the cop busting down the door while YOU'RE having sex." - Rove
"You don't interrupt James when he's talking." - Rove. "He doesn't whine." - Rose.
"Difference between Clinton and Bush, Clinton had 8 bad minutes, Bush had 8 bad years." - Carville
"James, your ignorance is appalling." - Rove

I'm glad I got to go if only to see how brilliant these guys usually are in short bursts on live TV. The three are whip-smart and fanatically prepared. Tonight, however, it didn't feel like any of the three were on. They also hadn't agreed on a format; Rove came for a debate, Carville came for a talk show. I think this has more to do with what each of them have been doing for the last 8 years, than either of their political or speaking skills.

I'm also extremely excited to see what the Speaker Series has in store for Boston in 2010. Hopefully more events of different formats (town hall with submitted questions, maybe?). It might also be interesting to see them approach books (Gladwell vs Lewis?!) or movies, and maybe in different settings. This might be a more ambitious path than they're looking to forge, so if that's the case, I'll happily accept several more politically-themed events next year, but let's maybe mix it up with less established politicians or pundits. If they won't sell as many tickets, the Speaker Series should consider utilizing some of the Wang's smaller properties.

Every couple weeks he's good for an anti-Rick Warren post - he's got Rick Warren, I've got sharks.

It might be just me, but I really struggled through the first 125-odd pages of this book until Lincoln got elected (sorry for the spoiler. He dies at the end. Damn it, again!). Kearns has obviously written the book from the perspective that Lincoln always made the right decision, and thus didn't include any decisions he got wrong. That said, Lincoln sure seemed to make a hell of a lot of decisions correctly.

Bonus links:
Lincoln Memorials in NYC, 16 hour audiobook of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates and superpower Lincoln biopic coming in 2011 from Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner, Liam Neeson, and Sally Field, with music by John Williams.