Pinning the Surreal-O-Meter

An anti-suicide bombing PSA. For Iraq.

Public service announcements have changed a lot since that foreboding culinary lesson. They now include exploding cars, flying Matrix-style stuntmen and exceedingly dire messages like "Don't Suicide Bomb." A new, American-made PSA aimed at discouraging these deadly attacks is currently in production. The ad is slated to air as a 60-second spot on Iraqi television this summer.

I guess the folks who commissioned this weren't aware of the situation in Iraq. From the memo obtained by the WaPo last week:

"Employees all confirm that by the last week of May, they were getting one hour of power for every six hours without. ... One staff member reported that a friend lives in a building that houses a new minister; within 24 hours of his appointment, her building had city power 24 hours a day."

I've found it's kinda hard to watch TV without electricity. I guess subtleties like that escape some people, though.

Congressional priorities

Remember back when an up or down vote was the most important thing in Washington?

Evidently some issues are more important than others:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Republican-controlled Senate smothered a proposed election-year increase in the minimum wage Wednesday, rejecting Democratic claims that it was past time to boost the $5.15 hourly pay floor that has been in effect for nearly a decade.

The 52-46 vote was eight short of the 60 needed for approval and came one day after House Republican leaders made clear they do not intend to allow a vote on the issue, fearing it might pass. (empahasis added)

That's some two-party system we got going there, innit?

And evidently inflation only counts when you're talking about corporate interests:

Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, offered an alternative that proposed a minimum wage increase of $1.10 over 18 months, in two steps.

The increase was coupled with a variety of provisions offering regulatory or tax relief to small businesses, including one to exempt enterprises with less than $1 million in annual receipts from the federal wage and hour law entirely. The current exemption level is $500,000, and a Republican document noted the amount had "lagged behind inflation."

God forbid the exemption "lag behind inflation"! Of course, considering that the minimum wage has also been "lagging behind inflation" for years, but after all, it's not like THAT affects anyone, right?

And I love the justification from House Majority Leader John Boehner for not allowing a vote on the bill:

Pressed by reporters, he said, "There are limits to my willingness to just throw anything out on the floor."

Evidently so:

• Vote description: Expressing the Sense of the House of Representatives That a National Young Sports Week Should Be Established
  
• Vote description: Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act
  
• Vote description: Condemning the Unauthorized, Inappropriate, and Coerced Ordination of Catholic Bishops by the People’S Republic of China
  
• Vote description: Supporting Responsible Fatherhood, Promoting Marriage, and Encouraging Greater Involvement of Fathers in the Lives of Their Children, Especially on Father’S Day
  
• Vote description: To Designate the Facility of the United States Postal Service Located at 217 Southeast 2nd Street in Dimmitt, Texas, As the “Sergeant Jacob Dan Dones Post Office”
  

Gotta have your priorities, after all.

Bill O' Hussein?

The ever-nauseating Bill O'Reilly has weighed in on the trouble in Iraq (but wait - I thought everything was FINE there!) by suggesting, twice, that in effect we need another Saddam Hussein in power there:

Saddam was able to control Iraq, as you know, and defeat insurgencies against him. The new Iraqi government can do the same, but it needs to get much tougher.

Back on the 19th he said much the same thing:

That's how I'd run that country -- just like Saddam ran it. Saddam didn't have explosions. He didn't have bombers, did he? Because if you got out of line, you're dead.

Of course, back in 2003, Bill considered Saddam "Hitler Lite":

It is absolutely eerie how closely the current Iraq situation parallels the rise of The Third Reich 70 years ago. I consider Saddam Hussein to be "Hitler lite" because he has the same virulent anti-Semitism, the same callous disregard for human life, and the identical lust for power that Adolf possessed. The only difference between the two villains is the size of the moustache.
(Bill O'Reilly, Townhall.com, March 8 2003)

So, um, okay - Saddam was just like Hitler and all, but he kept control of things so we should take the example and be just like him, although he was just like Hitler. Or something.

Real life intrudes on the snark

Not that I haven't been motivated to post here, not that my outrage has gone away, not that I'm burned out -

In my "real life" I'm a small businessman, and due to various pressures I don't need to go into right now we've spent the last couple weeks finding a new location and moving to it. Plus a lightning strike on our house has eliminated electricity in one (and just one) room - the room my computer is in.

Anyway, it's been hectic but things should be returning to normal fairly soon, and the snark will indeed continue. After all, between Rove apparently getting off scott free, Bush's numbers continuing to plummet like a lead brick, war crimes in Guantanamo and Iraq, and all the other recent fun, I'm not looking at running out of outrage any time soon - not until January 2009, at least.