Left Turn Only

Howdy folks!  Yes in recent months this site has fallen into a state of disrepair.  Well I’m bringing Left Trun Only back for a limited engagement.  After the July 4th weekend Left Turn Only will have daily posts (except on the weekends) about comics, movies, video games, politics, religions, twitter, and various erratta.

However this I did say this is a limited engagement, because I’ve decided that next February Left Turn Only will be shutting down.  So for now let’s party it up and I’ll do my best to provide content that hopefully will be entertaining, thought-provoking, or will get under your skin (particularily if you’re of a conservative mindset).

More later…I promise!

Barack Obama:

But at the same time, he strongly criticized former President George W. Bush’s actions. “Our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions,” he said.

“In other words, we went off course.”

The president again rejected the idea of an independent commission that would investigate the whole range of national security issues under the Bush administration.

“I recognize that many still have a strong desire to focus on the past. When it comes to the actions of the last eight years, some Americans are angry; others want to re-fight debates that have been settled, most clearly at the ballot box in November,” Obama said.

“I know that these debates lead directly to a call for a fuller accounting, perhaps through an independent commission,” he said. But he insisted that “our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability.”

I disagree. It’s not focusing on the past. When we catch and prosecute a murderer two years after the murder, do you see judges saying, “Weeeelll…let’s not focus on the past here, this guy just went off course. Let’s close the book on this one.” Granted, I understand that we have a statute of limitations on things, but sheesh, the guy hasn’t been out of office for 6 months!

Cross-posted at Gustav’s Groupie

“if we’re going to be a country that follows the rule of law, which we are, torture is illegal.”

“advanced interrogation is dick cheney cheney changing a word. dick cheney comes up with a new word to cover his ass.”

now, i don’t know if everything jesse ventura says is right, but i do like his recent outspokenness on torture and chickenhawk dick cheney.

Here’s the thing:

Socialism is defined as government control of the means of production. General Motors and Chrysler are means of production. President Obama wants the government to control both. He is therefore, by definition, a socialist.

David Dutton
Coarsegold

Why are people scared of socialist policies? Because the propaganda machines of the 1940’s and 50’s did a fantastic job of tying communism, socialism, and a whole lot of other ideas together into one big negative package.

Obama isn’t a socialist. He’s enacting socialist policies. If you’ve voted in a Presidential election, you’ve voted for someone who enacted, or supported, or failed to remove a socialist policy from U.S. political theory. Plain and simple. Agriculture is one of the mainstays of the U.S. economy and agricultural subsidies from the federal government have been a big part of government control of the means of that specific production.

Calling someone like Obama a socialist is like calling everybody a racist because they’ve told an off-color joke at some point. You’ve essentially removed any meaning and power from the word and generalized a person into a one-dimensional object. It’s called propaganda.

Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.

I’ve linked to a blog post at Shakesville before that talks about this very distinction. Here’s just one small excerpt that is relevant to this idea:

Nouns have a tendency to be binary: a thing either is, say, a stone or a chair or a pen, or it isn’t; but adjectives admit of degree. We don’t think of “soft” and “not soft” as the only two possible states of softness, or “blue” and “not blue” as the only two possible states of blueness. A thing can be completely blue or completely hard — or at least we can conceive of those extremes, though they don’t really occur in life — but virtually everything falls somewhere between the poles.

And we, humans, are more complicated things than stones or chairs or pens, so nearly all the ways we describe each other are more meaningful than “soft” and “blue.” Surely, then, in the most emotionally and politically charged areas we ought to exercise special care to use language that recognizes, rather than denies, that no one is wholly one thing or another.

So David Dutton is making a fundamental mistake, or a calculated ploy, when he calls Obama a socialist, just like all those people that call Obama a Muslim. But it’s doing something. It’s spreading this misinformation. It’s slurring a man without the slightest thought or consideration towards discussion or even explanation.

And people eat it up. There’s a reason that Snopes is so busy. It’s easy for rumor, myth, and lies to spread like wildfire in the age of the internet and Twitter.

A letter in today’s Fresno Bee gets it all wrong and in such a pithy manner.  Efficiently incorrect:

ah, as usual, conservative blowhard rush limbaugh is telling half truths, or perhaps even outright lies and sticking to them.  you see, his website proclaimed that “tyrants want to ban black cars.”  rush falsely claims that california lawmakers want to ban black auto paint due to the fact that it’s hotter, and will cause more people to use a/c and thus be less fuel efficient.

the problem with his claim: it’s bullshit.  it’s an attempt to start a fire where there isn’t even smoke yet.  it’s rush trying to say, “look at these crazies in california, interfering with your freeeedom.  they’re socialists.”

but even in his own article, he shows how he is full of it.  he gives part of what is actually proposed for cars, and here it is,  “…the California Air Resources Board. CARB wants to mandate the phase-in of heat-reflecting paints on vehicle exteriors beginning with the ‘12 model year, with all colors meeting a 20% reflectivity requirement by the ‘16 model year.”

hmm, where does that say black?  oh, that’s right.  it doesn’t.  it says that we should use more reflective paint.  that doesn’t rule out any color, but rather pushes for paints of all colors that reflect energy.
his kicker…obama and stars drive black cars, so them crazy liberals can’t even do it themselves.

but here’s the truth about what the california air resources board was studying and proposing, “One solution: lower the temperature inside parked cars, thereby reducing the amount of air conditioning — and engine power and gasoline — needed to keep the occupants cool and comfortable.

CARB looked at two possible ways to achieve this: mandating the use of reflective paints that reduce the amount of solar heat absorbed by a vehicle, and requiring manufacturers to install glass with reflective coatings to achieve the same purpose.”

reflective glass and reflective paint.  nothing about color.  and, when the air board realized that paint technology wasn’t efficient enough they just went with the reflective glass coating, which adds about $30-$50 per car.  not much money to keep your car a lot cooler.

You’re already making unpopular decisions.  Let’s legalize marijuana and be done with it.  You can bet your sweet ass I’d buy some of that legal stuff, and I’m fucking poor.

It’s terribly ironic that something like weed could potentially be something to stimulate the economy.

Photo from WeAreChange.org

…Or So I’m Told.

I’m thinking of starting a regular column describing how bat-shit crazy Glenn Beck may or may not be, but frankly I think my mind may melt trying to watch him on a daily basis. He reminds me of a political televangelist who instead of performing “miracle healings” provides kooky right-wing pablum that even has some conservatives shaking their heads. The March 17th episode of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show really brought this home (and I’d love to link you to it, but it seems the search video function of the Daily Show site is down) where Glenn says that it’s better to believe in something even if it’s untrue.

So I’d love to have this as a regular feature, but that’s one rabbit hole I’m really afraid to go down. I’m also afraid that doing this column regular will enrage the Glenn Beck zealots because taking orders from my liberal left-wingers I’ll not be fair and balanced but instead cherry-pick Glenn at his utmost bat-shittiest. I’m told it isn’t hard to find the bat-shit crazy clips and sayings of Glenn Beck, hell it’s almost like a drinking game these days. However it’s real dangerous to piss off crazy people who religiously follow bat-shit crazy people like Glenn Beck. They tend to do self-destructive things too like vote Republican or Tivo Bill O’Reilly. That being said, until next time:

(And yes he’s joking….or is he?)

Just thought I’d throw an introductory post out your way since the place is still getting up to speed.

My name is Adam.  I live and work in Fresno, CA.  I build custom furniture.  I write for Gustav’s Groupie, and I co-host The View Looks Good From Here, Fresno podcast.

Generally, I’m not so hot at writing original content right off the bat.  I prefer to find something like a letter to the editor or online article to use as a stepping off point to begin discussion.

I look forward to participating in a lively debate.

One trait I liked about Barack Obama when he was running for President was that he seemed to grasp the “big picture”. After eight long years of mismanagement under President Bush, the United States is facing some very hard times. The Obama administration is attempting the Herculean task of pulling us out of the economic cellar and onto the road to recovery.

Yesterday on CNBC, Warren Buffet chastised President Obama for doing too much at one time instead of putting his entire focus on economic recovery. After Buffet’s interview the Republicans suddenly had new talking points and network news had a new story (I’d call it a fable) to tell. All the major networks are now asking if President Obama isn’t giving the economy the proper attention it deserves by announcing reform in education, by tackling some form of health care reform, and even beginning plans to remove our troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan. Republicans were lining up eager to reinforce these new talking points and to continue this charade of a GOP make-over as some kind of contrite and enlightened political party (and not as the continued obstructionists that hope for the President to fail).

With apologies to Warren Buffet who I generally respect, President Obama is doing just what our economy and country needs to get us back on track. Barack does indeed see the big picture. Education affects our economy. Health Care affects the economy. New technology affects the economy. In 2003, UNICEF labeled our educational system at 18th out of 24 nations in terms of effectiveness. Depriving our kids a quality education deprives our economy with potential leaders, inventors, and business owners able to provide the spark in our economic engine. Tackling real health care reform has the potential of alleviating the burden of excess health care bills, promote preventative care, and free up money and time that could be used to buy stuff or reinvest. The Harvard journal, Health Affairs, revealed that half of all personal bankruptcies in 2001 was due to illness and medical bills. Repealing the Bush stem cell ban, and also moving forward with Green and renewable resources can trigger new technological advances that could lead to not only a better environment but resources that could help the automotive industry and the start-up of new medical and energy businesses.

President Obama hasn’t taken his eye off of the economy, he is seeing further down the road to recovery. It’s a road the scares the bejeebus out of the conservatives, but for the health and longevity of our country it’s good news for all Americans. All the rhetoric that the President should only do one thing and one thing only feeds into the short-attention span and story-driven news that I find repugnant. I much rather have a President who is able, as Obama himself put it,” able to walk and chew gum at the same time.”