Recently, News8000 anchor, Jennifer Livingston, received criticism of her weight by occasional viewer, Kenneth W. Krause:

Jennifer’s response was impressive: dignified, intelligent, and very professional.

Mr. Krause, it must be said, is one confident son-of-a-bitch. He responded to Jennifer’s video with this statement:

Oh, where to begin…

At the beginning. I’m sure Ken felt that greeting a complete stranger with a casual “Hi Jennifer” was the perfect beginning to a bit of gentle criticism. “Ms. Livingston” might perhaps have been a better indication of the well-meant advice that followed, but then I’m not really familiar with the etiquette of “I don’t know you but you disgust me” correspondence. I must say that I do feel for him though, being an unsuspecting “witness” to a “physical condition” (i.e. crime) first thing in the morning. How can anyone be expected to enjoy a hot cup of coffee and a bran muffin while being visually accosted by the “obesity” of a local public personality?!

Now, as my friend can attest, I may be one of the cattiest (and cruelest) people in the world – behind someone’s back. Most of the time. Unless I love the person, then I’ll abuse him right over the phone. However, I don’t consider myself a bully, nor do I believe Ms. Livingston’s critic is a bully. His note was presumptuous, inappropriate, insensitive, tactless, rude and self-righteous, but not bullying. A bully is someone who verbally or physically abuses another person for their own amusement or pleasure. It is a known fact that children can be outrageously cruel (if you haven’t experienced it firsthand, or vicariously through your own children’s schoolyard traumas, check out Lord of the Flies), and I heartily agree – cruelty or kindness are learned at home. Although, to be fair, some people are born lacking the capacity for empathy and a predilection for causing harm; they are considered douche bags.

Speaking of douche bags[1], I would love to see a photo of Ken. Was he, at one time, a disgustingly fat pig of a human being, but after an intervention and gastric bypass surgery, is now a certified judge of healthy weight for women? Or, perhaps he was blessed with the gift of universally acknowledged beauty. As a perfect specimen of robust yet slender health, Ken must feel obliged to reach out. Like Mother Theresa, Mister Krause just wants to help. Only instead of tending to lepers, he is compelled to seek out those whom he finds to be plain or pudgy and let them know how much better they would look with a little makeup. His thoughtfulness knows no bounds.

Nature or nurture, one thing is certain, the belief that you have the right to tell another person that you find their appearance offensive, that comes from the heart. Or the gaping hole where one’s heart ought to be.

Ken, take your own advice and try to transform yourself into a kinder human being.

[1] A good example of bullying.

I get religious intolerance. It’s like someone saying your mom’s a whore: it’s upsetting if it’s not true; it’s devastating if it is. This is really all about civility. I don’t like rudeness.

Just the same, a lot of people are nothing so much as outrage springs ready to be triggered. And that is its own kind of rudeness—and worse.

Here’s the thing: there are those who are trying to offend and those who inadvertently offend. It is like the difference between someone who looks you in the eye and purposefully kicks you in the shin and someone walking past who does it by mistake. It may be the case that both of these kicks hurt equally. But no reasonable person is going to make a scene about the latter. Shit happens. Life is pain. Get used to it.

Regular readers will not be surprised to hear that I’m pretty liberal in defining what is inadvertent. I often write about religion in a very critical way. This will no doubt offend religious people, but that isn’t my intent. I am trying to figure out God, the universe, and everything else. Similarly, I think that the Muhammad cartoons were probably created to be funny, not to offend Muslims.

There was a really thought provoking article in Ahram Online today, Two Coptic children arrested in Egypt for ‘insulting Islam’. It’s not what you think. The two children in question are 9 and 10. The village Iman saw them tearing up pages of the Koran. But he didn’t take them to the police. Instead, he took the children to their church and asked that they be punished.

Thus far, I like this story. This is the way that civilized people behave. If some kids are vandalizing your house, you talk to the parents. Unfortunately, the story goes off the tracks from here. As far as I can tell (and I’m reading between the lines here), the people at the church gave the kids a slap on the wrist. They claim that the children were illiterate and so didn’t even know that the pages they were destroying were from the Koran.

I question this. I don’t think you have to know how to read to know you are dealing with a holy book.[1] Apparently, the Iman felt the same way and so went to the police. Just as I think the church could have been more understanding of the Iman, I think the Iman could have been more understanding of the kids.

What I think is going on here is that neither group particularly likes the other. So the children are being used as a kind of proxy war for the two local faiths. I cannot believe that the two groups couldn’t use this opportunity to break down the walls that are separating them instead of building more. But then, I’m a liberal and that’s just like us.

[1] What kind of a church is this that doesn’t teach their children to read?!

Matthew Yglesias has a short article about how terrible the 2007 predictions of which Smartphones we would be using today. They predicted that Symbian would be the market leader with 40%. This is mostly Noikia (31%). It hasn’t worked out that way. Symbian now has roughly 1% of the market, as you may have noticed that you are not, in fact, using a Noikia smartphone right now.

These experts also thought that Microsoft would have a large share (14%) of the market, but they too are way down (4%). The predictions about RIM were roughly correct.

Given that the predictions about the winners were way off, it should not surprise you that they were also off about the loses. At the time, Apple had 4% of the market. But these guys were no idiots. They predicted that Apple would grow—a lot. They said Apple would currently have 14% of the market. This is less than half of the 32% share that Apple has. This is bad, but it could have been worse. And it was!

In 2007, Google had no market share at all. But they had plans and so the experts predicted that Google would have 6% of the market by now. This is a little low—by a factor of 8.5! Google now has 51% of the market.

And now for my predictions. Oh, never mind!

Back in February, I was too busy celebrating my birthday by hiding from everyone I know to notice that Bill Murray was shilling for Mitt Romney on CNBC. This brings up one of the great annoyances of life that is always simmering in my brain stem. But first I should tell you what Blurry said. It wasn’t explicit. “I think we ought to be personally responsible. I think if you can take care of yourself, and then maybe try to take care of someone else, that’s sort of how you’re supposed to live.”

Frankly, I’m not sure what to make of the end of that. You’re supposed to take care of yourself so you can take care of someone else who shouldn’t need it because they’re supposed to take care of themselves? But Blurry isn’t finished with his babble, “It’s not a question of asking other people for help or being rescued or anything like that. I think we’ve sort of gotten used to someone looking out for us, and I don’t think any other person is necessarily going to be counted on to look out for us.”

I would continue with the quote but it becomes a tangled mess. So let me tell you what I think our friend Blurry is trying to say:

Do I have that about right, Bill, I mean, Mr. Blurry? I just have one question, “Does this press liaison position come with dental?”

A new Senate report slams the Department of Homeland Security. It seems that the fusion centers created in every state aren’t fighting terrorism so much as just militarizing local law enforcement and infringing on the civil rights of Americans. If you’re think Quelle surprise! you’re not alone. A lot of people on the left and right were concerned all the back in 2002 that this is the sort of thing that would happen. Wired has a very good article on the report, DHS Counterterror Centers Produce ‘a Bunch of Crap,’ Senate Finds.

As you may remember, after 911, much of the push for reforming our “security” system was to allow the various organizations to share data so that never again would we suffer such a devastating attack. And the government’s great idea was: a huge bureaucracy inside of which all the other agencies would fit. The linchpin of this would be these fusion centers where all the data would be brought together:

But it is not just that these centers are mostly useless (except as a works program—I’m all for that), they are actively bad:

Interestingly, Fox News is also covering this story, but given that it is basically a GOP program, they tread lightly, As post-9/11 program grew, info on Americans, not terrorists was collected; price tag huge. The article doesn’t mention Obama or Bush. But instead of primarily being about the civil rights issue, it portrays the program as mostly being a financial boondoggle. So even without mentioning Obama, the article is still a hit piece, pushing the standard Republican “when we’re not in the White House” line that debt is killing us.

But I’m pleased they’re even covering it.

I’ve been one of the people saying that despite what those like Nancy Pelosi have claimed, there is basically no chance of the Democratic Party winning back the House of Representatives. I still feel this way. However, Real Clear Politics’ Battle for the House, just made a change—and they don’t do that very often. They moved three seats from “Leans GOP” to “Toss Up.”

It would still be near miraculous for the Democrats to pull this off, but little by little it looks more possible. Pelosi’s 60% claim is just politics, I’m afraid.

The last two years have been really great in California for political junkies. There has been a stark contrast between the governorships of Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’m not completely happy with Brown, but he has done a great job as governor under the worst of circumstances. Schwarzenegger, on the other hand, showed himself to be completely out of his depth during his 4 years in office.

As you’ve no doubt noticed, Arnold Schwarzenegger is everywhere these days, promoting his new book. Mostly, I don’t care. The seedy side of his life comes as no surprise—this is what you get from hyper-testosteroned assholes. But on The Daily Show last night, he spoke at length about politics and it really made me sick. Shouldn’t he be alone in a hotel room with some groupie rather than spouting his ignorance about America’s problems?

He claims that he is a fiscal conservative, but then babbles out the same old tired canards. The Chinese hold our debt? Wrong! We have an unsustainable debt? Wrong again! But perhaps the worst thing about the interview was how he twisted himself in knots rather than admit that the Republicans are not the party of fiscal conservatism.

Of course, the Republican Party is the perfect place for Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is perfect at giving those reasonable sounding, vague platitudes about belt-tightening and living within our means. And when he was a governor, he was terrible at actually doing the job. And that pretty much defines a Republican.

As I’ve said, I won’t be voting for Obama this year. This is because I made a promise to the President about something. I don’t quite remember what it was. I think it was over the debt ceiling debate where he was, as usual, willing to abandon liberal principles in the name of “bi-partisanship” that he would never get anyway. But if I were in a swing state, I would go back on my word, hold my nose, and vote for Obama.

I’m not the only one who feels that way. Noam Chomsky has stated much the same thing on the Matthew Filipowicz Show:

I’m a little more positive toward Obama than Chomsky is. I’ve long given up on thinking that we could have an acceptable president. Obama is about as good a President as is likely possible. The best thing we can do is push him in the right direction. And on domestic issues he is clearly superior to the Republicans.

This doesn’t mean that I’m happy with the Democrats. In fact, today’s news that Democrats in the Senate are reconsidering the horrible Bowles-Simpson chairmen’s report is greatly disturbing. The DNC kind of won me back. But more of this bullshit and I will be gone for good.