Red Dawn for the Gun Nuts

Remember the move “Red Dawn”? Not the crap-tastic waste of film they put out last November, but the original 1984 version. It starred Patrick Swayze and a young Charlie Sheen as leaders of a group of teens who fight off invading Soviet forces. The movie is pretty much a wet-dream for conservative hawks and right wing conspiracy theorists (Glenn Beck probably stores it with his porn collection). It’s just the kind of fantasy scenario that gun-nuts are absolutely obsessed with, the fantasy of fighting an invading army, or a tyrannical government, against impossible odds and emerging victorious. Well, strictly speaking, the kids in the movie weren’t very triumphant, and realistically speaking, neither would the gun nuts in a similar situation.

Dear Liberals: Please Step Back From the "Cliff"

Late New Year's Day congress passed a deal to avert the so-called "fiscal-cliff" that has had everyone crapping their pants with angst for the past month.  As these "deals" often go, no one got everything that they wanted.  Republicans were forced to raise taxes on rich folks, committing a cardinal sin against their great Gods of Limbaugh and Norquist, while President Obama was forced to settle for less in taxes than he originally wanted.  Needless to say, the Magic-Pony Progressives among us immediately took to Twitter, Facebook, airwaves, and blogs to claim that Obama "caved" once again to Republicans, with most of them starting their rantings before even reading the actual deal.