Scoobie Davis Online

Sun Myung Moon Blog

Amway Blog

The YouTube Video "The World's Most Powerful Cult"

Talk Radio Transcripts
Rush Limbaugh1
Rush Limbaugh2
Sean Hannity1
Sean Hannity2
Matt Drudge
Andrew Napolitano
NewsMax1
NewsMax2
Tammy Bruce1
Tammy Bruce2
David Brock
Ann Coulter1
Ann Coulter2
Ann Coulter3
Clear Channel
Bill O'Reilly1
Bill O'Reilly2
Bill O'Reilly3
Bill O'Reilly4
Bill O'Reilly5
Bill O'Reilly6

What others are saying about Scoobie Davis:

"Naughty"
-Joe Conason

"Gadfly extraordinaire"
-Tom Tomorrow

Top Party Crasher
-Radar Magazine

"a nut"
-Bill O'Reilly

"media prankster"
-PRWeek

Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More
Web Sites That Rock
Salon
Am. Politics
Daily Howler
Buzzflash
Am. Prospect
Media Matters
Slate
538
CAP
ConWebWatch
Air America
Greg Palast
Steal Back Your Vote
CREW
The New Yorker
Mother Jones
The Daily Beast
Trendhunter magazine
The Nation
Raw Story
HiLoBrow
HinesSite
VoteVets.org
TNR
Joe Conason
Ed Schultz
FAIR
Radar
Gawker
The Onion
DU
CLG
Eriposte
Move On
PFAW
Surfer Mag
Unprecedented
American Fundamentalists
Feed
PR Watch
High Times
Theocracy Watch
CSPI
Snopes
419 Eater
Buy Blue
Jack Chick
InTrade
Science of the Time
H+ Magazine
Tom Paine
Ken Wilber
Suicide Girls
Polling Report
Adbusters
Media T.
Alanis
Boing Boing
Rolling Stone
Never Get Busted
Zeta
Infiltration
Bill Berkowitz
John Robbins
Young Turks
Poynter
Global Politician
Fighting Words
Cursor
Online Journal
Anti-Rush1
Anti-Rush2

Blogs
Atrios
SlanderBlog
Amway Blog
Sun Myung Moon Blog
Googlebomb Blog
Josh Marshall
Daily Kos
Pandagon
Orcinus
Hullabaloo
Eric Alterman
Tom Tomorrow
Corrente
Calling All Wingnuts
Think Progress
MoxieGrrrl
America Blog
Wash Monthly
Ruy Teixeira
John Gorenfeld
Newshounds
David Corn
Mark Cripsin Miller
James Wolcott
Talk to Action
Crooks & Liars
Huffington
Firedoglake
ConsortiumBlog
My DD
Cliff Schecter
Brad Blog
Boorman Tribune
Kicking Ass
TalkLeft
Michael Moore
See The Forest
Roger Ailes
Salon Blog Report
Glen Greenwald
B-C
Taegan Goddard
Media Channel
Sideshow
Matthew Yglesias
Mark A.R. Kleiman
Tbogg
Oliver Willis
Skippy
Wonkette
Sadly No
Washington Interns
Political Realm
MF Blog
Move Left Media
Cranky Liberal
LeftField
Most Liberal
WTF
Politicky Bitch
Like Sunday
Autonomist
Funny Farm
Reflections on Playboy
utopia
Straight,Not Narrow
The Dude Minds
Rude Pundit
Margaret Cho
Dr. Limerick
Michael Berube
Elayne Riggs
Liberal Avenger
Crooked Timber
the stoRm
PD Dude
Demo Cali
The Agonist
SLA
Recovering Liberal
Breach
Smythe's World
NMMNB
Throwing Things
A La Gauche
Blah3
Timshel
Archpundit
Killer Empathy
Freeway Blogger
Dr. Forbush
Daily Blatt
Skimble
Pro. Gold
Dem Vet
David Sirota
Cut to the Chase
Est. Profit
Funny Farm
Brad DeLong
Mithras
BuffaloPundit
Bark,etc.
Amygdala
SK Bubba
Speedkill
LA Observed
Tapped

Film
IMDb
Filmmaker
Indie Slate
Moviemaker
Doc.org
IFC
Holy Cowboy
eXposure
Flicker
CinemaWeb
HOPE
filmmaking
Sundance
Film Threat
Unhollywood
AFI
FilmUnderground
Box Office
The Industry
indieWIRE

Reality Hacking/DIY/Crashing
Hacktivist
DIY Convention
CERI
BLF
Lycaeum
Erowoid
Infiltration
MAPS
The Partygoers
Kid Protocol
Robert Anton Wilson
GooglebombBlog
Jamming the Media
Boing Boing

Comix
Dan Clowes
Jack Chick
R Crumb
C B Galaxy
Fantagraphics
Will Eisner
Batton Lash
Tabloia
Comics Journal
Hard Drinkin' Lincoln
BiffSniff
Art Spiegelman
Joe Matt
Johnny Ryan
FreedomToons
Chris Ware
Charles Burns
Frazetta
Chris Ware
Neal Adams
Adrian Tomine
Scott McCloud
Last Gasp
ComicMix
PoopSheet
Harvey Pekar
Kevin Smith
Joe Sacco
D & Q

Reference
Webster's
Wikipedia
World Almanac
Internet Archive
What's It Worth?

Blogging Links
Blogger
Google Blog Search
Technorati
Findory
TailRank
Feedster
Blogdigger

Blogarama - The Blog Directory


Blog search directory
Blogwise - blog directory






Search Engine Optimization and Free Submission

[Powered by Blogger]
Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com
Reading List
Feed

Friday, April 29, 2011


Must Read
Steve Kornacki on the real nature of birtherism.

Thursday, April 28, 2011


Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand, and the Miami University Theodicy paul ryan miami
It didn’t surprise me when I recently found out that Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), whose draconian budget proposals are the latest rage in GOP circles, is a devotee of free market cult leader Ayn Rand. I don't know much about Ryan, but I can see how Ryan’s academic environment encouraged his worldview; Ryan and I attended the same undergraduate institution: Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Miami University (AKA Miami of Ohio) was a blast (I wrote about my Miami U. experiences here) but it was extremely sheltered and homogeneous. I could see how it could encourage a sterile, self-serving, venal, and supercilious ideology like Rand’s Objectivism. Charles Taylor, writing in Salon about Ann Coulter and other “Conservative Fembots,” describes his own undergraduate experience that is reminiscent of Miami University’s prevailing ideology and theodicy:
I don't know the social background of Coulter, [Laura] Ingraham, [Kellyanne] Conway or [Lisa] Pinto, but I've encountered their type before. They are the essence of the white, privileged kids at the small New England college I attended during the conservative heyday of the early Reagan years. What characterized those kids and what characterizes the [Conservative Fembots] is that they seem unaware that not everyone shares their privileged existence, or seem to believe that anyone who doesn't has only themselves to blame. It's a small world, after all, and the CFs are absolutely secure about their place in it and the rightness of their views.
When Rand wrote, "No one helped me nor did I think at any time that it was anyone's duty to help me," it reminded me of some snotty upper-class Miami University students I knew who laughably attributed their lot in life to their supposed efforts. A professor of mine at Miami noted that such people were born with so many advantages that they would have to work overtime to fail. (Rand was also full of herself; in reality, she was a sponge who lived off her Chicago relatives and, once she hit the big time, reneged on her promise to repay them—she’s the last person to call anyone a moocher.)

In essence, Rand’s ideology is a feel-good elixir for self-aggrandizing people who have a huge sense of privilege. Assimilating its message is a way for people who were born on third base to convince themselves they hit a triple. Miami University has been fertile ground for this kind of non-thinking.

Addendum: I’ve never liked anyone who liked Rand’s sterile and ham-handed novels; they all seemed to be joyless and miserable people. I saw the cinematic adaptation of Rand’s The Fountainhead and it was plodding and hilariously pretentious. For more on how cults create bad cinema, read K. Gordon Neufeld's article about the films Battlefield Earth and Inchon. . . Despite an impressive limited-release opening weekend, the box office for Atlas Shrugged: Part I has since tanked. . .I previously pointed out in the case of Newt Gingrich that it was bad enough that he was using his GOP bigwig status to carry on with young women, but it was much worse that Gingrich let himself go. Well, ditto for Rand who apparently was a notorious skeezer. Here’s what Jonathan Chait wrote about Rand:
Sex and romance loomed unusually large in Rand's worldview. Objectivism taught that intellectual parity is the sole legitimate basis for romantic or sexual attraction. Coincidentally enough, this doctrine cleared the way for Rand--a woman possessed of looks that could be charitably described as unusual, along with abysmal personal hygiene and grooming habits--to seduce young men in her orbit. Rand not only persuaded Branden, who was twenty-five years her junior, to undertake a long-term sexual relationship with her, she also persuaded both her husband and Branden's wife to consent to this arrangement. (They had no rational basis on which to object, she argued.) But she prudently instructed them to keep the affair secret from the other members of the Objectivist inner circle.


UPDATE: Miami U. named one of the top preppy colleges in the U.S.
UPDATE II: Check my post on Paul Ryan's "Rand-esque" birthday cake.
UPDATE III:  Check out this video that deals with Ayn Rand:

How Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard Came Up With Their Big Ideas -- powered by Cracked.com
UPDATE IV:  Ryan is the third Miami University graduate on a major party ticket.  Benjamin Harrison is the first.  In his unsuccessful reelection bid in 1892, Harrison chose another Miami U. grad, Whitelaw Reid as his running mate.
UPDATE V:  A succinct overview of Miami of Ohio from the comments section of Joan Walsh's article, "Paul Ryan, Randian Poseur":
Miami University is on the short list of colleges acceptable to well-off families whose kids can't get into an Ivy (preferably Dartmouth). DePauw, SMU, USC are in the same category. Good, solid schools with strong programs, but places where one doesn't need to be an academic star to be comfortable and one can mix with lots of other acceptably well-off young people. One is less likely to be bothered by messy, radical thinking, especially of the left wing sort.
UPDATE VI: Tom Tomorrow lampoons Ryan's relationship with Rand and his attempt to dump Rand for St. Thomas Aquinas.

UPDATE VII: Great Drew Friedman illustration of Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand for a great New York Observer article:

Wednesday, April 27, 2011


Will Joseph Farah Welsh on his Bet?
Now that President Obama's released his long-form birth cerificate, WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah owes Kapi‘olani Medical Center 15 grand. This is based on Farah's statement that WorldNetDaily "will send a check in the amount of $15,000 to whatever birth hospital is listed on his long-form birth certificate." Will Farah honor his promise? I'm guessing not; as I pointed out, Farah has a convenient memory about claims he has made in the past.

UPDATE: Farah's WorldNetDaily has an article, "White House releases Obama 'birth certificate'" These people remind me of Leon Festinger's book When Prophesy Fails.

Monday, April 25, 2011


Must Read
Sean Hannity Cropping quotes in order to leave out crucial information? Who would have guessed. Click here and here for Jon Stewart hilariously addressing two previous examples of Hannity's cropping.

4/26 UPDATE: Anderson Cooper responds to Hannity.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011


The Political Economy of the Birthers or Why is the Right Paranoid? jerome corsi birther
Drudge is promoting Jerome Corsi's forthcoming book Where's the Birth Certificate?: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President with a lot of usual Drudge hype: "It's utterly devastating," reveals a source close to the publisher. "Obama may learn things he didn't even know about himself!" The book is published by WND Books, the publishing house for Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily. Farah is a fundamentalist publisher and former ghostwriter for Rush Limbaugh who was a major player in the Clinton Body Count paranoia (though he tried to avoid the issue when I confront him in a Washington Post online forum).

Of course, all this Birther hype is nonsense and Richard Hofstadter's theories explain why people believe this kind of absurd stuff. However, Hofstadter's theories don't explain why about half the GOP base believes batshit stuff like this as well as easily discredited things such as the belief that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama or that Obama is a Muslim.

I think this can be explained in cultural and economic terms. Both Democrats and Republicans appeal to people whose economic interests do not correspond with each party's legislative agenda--I'm speaking of rich people who vote Democratic and poor and working class people who vote Republican. Democrats appeal to rich peoples' better angels and the rich people who vote Democratic realize that it is ultimately in their overall best interest to have a strong middle class in this country.

On the other hand, Republicans appeal to the reptilian brains of poor, uneducated, and working class people. Also, in the past thirty years, the GOP has sought religious fundamentalists (as I pointed out, it was no big surprise that many of the people responsible for the Vince Foster conspiracy theories in the 1990's were involved in the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980's). Most Republican operatives know that the Birther issue is bullshit, the way that the Clinton Body Count was bullshit; however, these conspiracy theories keep the GOP base psyched up during low-turnout midterm elections because these people are convinced that not only are Democratic presidents the wrong man for the office, but they are illegitimate.

However, there is one big difference between the anti-Clinton conspiracy theories of the 1990's and the anti-Obama paranoia. In the 1990's, the GOP had a good situation: they were able to narrowcast their paranoid message through the Rush Limbaugh show and Jerry Falwell's Old Time Gospel Hour. It also helped that the Clinton administration's response to right-wing ratfucking was inept and feckless (e.g., here and here). However, the case is different now. With the advent of groups like Media Matters for America, the hard right can't narrowcast their paranoid message anymore. With issues such as Birtherism, the GOP is paying a price with independents who rightfully view the GOP base as increasingly nutty.

Addendum: I've corresponded with Corsi; the one thing I got from our correspondence is that Corsi loves to dish it out but he can't take it.

UPDATE: The fair and balanced Foxs News is promoting Corsi's book.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011


Must View
ThinkProgress on Ayn Rand:

Monday, April 18, 2011


Must Read
Paul Krugman on civility

Friday, April 15, 2011


Must Read
Robert Parry on a lost opoortunity.

Thursday, April 14, 2011


Must View
Rep. Paul Broun calls FDR a Stalinist. The Georgia Republican had previously referred to the American Civil War as "the Great War of Yankee Aggression."

Wednesday, April 13, 2011


Must Read
Wow! That's fair and balanced.

UPDATE: Wow! That's really sane. I've previously written about John Hagee here, here, here, here, and here.

Monday, April 11, 2011


Must Read
David Von Drehle's cover story in Time on Civil War revisionism.

Friday, April 08, 2011


Person of the Year: High Grant
I never cared for Hugh Grant's movies (except for Four Weddings and a Funeral), but sticking it to Murdoch is great.

Thursday, April 07, 2011


Must Read
Evan McMorris-Santoro on John Fund

Tuesday, April 05, 2011


Must Read
Alex Pareene's arrticle noting thatthe late Jerry Falwell's diploma mill, Liberty University receives more in federal aid than NPR. As I noted, Radar magazine listed Liberty U. as one of America's worst institutions of higher education.

Monday, April 04, 2011


Must Read
Paul Krugman asks, "Where do they find these people?"

Friday, April 01, 2011


Must View
Jon Stewart on Bill Sammon


Happy April Fools' Day
Remember: A prank a day keeps the dog-leash away!

Home