Ferrell is Feral Funny

December 12, 2011 by Leave a comment

Comedy can arise out of hard-fought technique or stem from the transcendence of style. Both a comic’s comic and a people’s favorite, Will Ferrell is one of those gifted folk who do funny as both an art and as a craft, and he was one of the first stars to conquer online humor, bursting forth with this comedy gem “The Landlord” on his writing partner Adam McKay’s web site FunnyOrDie.

(Warning: “The Landlord” might be NSFW”):

McKay is one of the best at combining laughter with political insight. If you haven’t seen his film The Other Guys (2010) yet, which stars Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, I highly suggest putting it in your Netflix cue.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1386588/

It’s hilariousness and it’s a critique of our corrupt political and financial system. Like the best comedies and the best of Ferrell, it works on multiple levels.

Filed under Comedy, Entertainment, Videos Tagged with , ,

Conservative Hypocrisy (On Federal Power)

December 12, 2011 by Leave a comment

Another hour, another incisive Talking Points Memo article, this time on how the challenge to Obama’s health care expansion exposes conservative hypocrisy. On logical grounds, we know that most political conservatives are lying liars who lie, but of course they don’t care about the purity of their ideals. It’s about power, not logical consistency.

On the other hand, reading about the expansion of Medicare is a good reminder of some of the good that Obama has done. His fight against a single payer option was stupid in terms of both politics and policy, but every step towards, you know, helping sick people is a healthy step.

TPM: ObamaCare Challenge Exposes Conservative Hypocrisy On Federal Power


Filed under Obama, Politics Tagged with , , , ,

Goldman Sachs Target of Occupy Protests at Ports

December 12, 2011 by Leave a comment

Kudos to Bloomberg for actually recognizing that the Occupy Protestors have specific targets. The article mostly focuses on the split between activists who want to target Goldman Sachs’ business and workers who don’t want to miss a paycheck. That is, of course, the Capitalist Bind, one that pits activist vs. worker even though the two have similar needs and goals. It’s a system which makes it extraordinarily difficult to protest, and part of the clumsiness of the Occupy movement is an attempt to find what might be effective.

Bloomberg: Goldman Sachs Top Target of Occupy Protests at West Coast Ports

Occupy Protest

Filed under Occupy, Politics Tagged with

Lowe’s: Building Bigotry Together

December 12, 2011 by Leave a comment

Talking Points Memo has the goods on how Lowe’s has pulled its advertizing on a TLC show about Muslims because the show is about Muslims. Most defenders of religion (against what?) are actually defenders of (their own particular brand of) Christianity, so it may be a long wait for outrage.

TPM article on Lowe’s

Filed under Politics Tagged with , ,

Krugman: It’s Depression

December 12, 2011 by Leave a comment

The news amidst Paul Krugman’s latest analysis is that he calls our current economic state a depression. He then goes on to analyze the severity of the current European political quandary.

Obama’s got it covered. His short term response is to heed the Tea Party and balance the budget, damn the circumstances. His long term response is to opine, in three years, how nobody realized it was this bad.

Paul Krugman: Depression and Democracy

Filed under Obama, Politics Tagged with ,

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