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Me: Yes, it’s amazing how things get better after you quit. Accept this in lieu of a New Year’s post as I am working my way up to falling down shitfaced, and have a C-roster of comic book movies queued up to accommodate my reduced ability to process input.
Happy New Year’s, FYOM*.
* find your own music
No, I’m not blogging again, but I’m putting up this guest post as a Christmas card for you and yours in this, the Second Age of Newt. On behalf of Prof. Snift, this is dedicated to Amy Koch, Michael Brodkorb, Newt Gingrich and XXXmas lovers everywhere!
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For creating new economic opportunities for the economically disadvantaged through legal reforms enabling the fast tracking of qualified youth into early employment
Guest posted by Jonathan Snift
One of the more depressing aspects of our down economy is on daily display in our day care centers, schools and playgrounds. Millions of children of all ages with nothing better to do all day than learn. But learn what? Shakespeare won’t get them a job, and there’s nothing they can do in math class that a calculator can’t do better. College prep? As if most of their underemployed parents could afford to send them to a community college, let alone a reputable four-year institution with a Greek system worthy of the name.
Republicans suggest we lower the minimum wage and jettison our child labor laws so that these waifs might seek gainful employment, but with countless experienced older Americans now available to shelve and bag groceries, rake leaves, serve burgers and detassel corn, why go with the soft hands and unmotivated minds of callow youth?
No, we are clearly wasting our next generation’s most precious and elusive qualities: their youth, their innocence, their nubile bodies. In fact, I have been assured by a very knowing British person of my acquaintance here in the Twin Cities, that a young healthy child well nursed is at eight years of age a most sanitary, satisfying and wholesome bed partner, whether taken orally, oiled or in his or her natural state. At this age gender is less of a consideration, but my friend emphasizes that there is an insatiable market for young children of both sexes, both here and abroad. But it is a market that suffers from an abundance of demand and too little available product thanks to decades of squishy liberal reforms and cumbersome nanny-state rules and regulations.
This is a matter to which I have previously given great thought. Thanks to the internet I have acquired and reviewed copious amounts of photographic evidence of this need, and it is clear to me that the market for this product is well established. Current business models require that children be fully grown before they can be married off or otherwise prostituted. While this tradition works well for guaranteeing the smooth and trouble-free transfer of wealth and property from one generation to the next, it is not a model well suited to the needs of our present day, propertyless working class, if in fact you can find any of these ne’er-do-wells who still do in fact work, the public dole being more popular now than ever despite all Congressional efforts to the contrary.
For the lower classes to obtain full value from their children, certain laws, rules and regulations need to be adjusted. The ten-year-old daughter of an ironworker, for example, will not noticeably appreciate in value despite requiring expensive maintenance (e.g., food, clothing, healthcare). Why should an ironworker or a baker or traditional incandescent light bulb maker not be able to realize a return on their investment when their children are at peak market value?
Current laws may make sense to Scandinavian-styled liberals, but working people and those on the dole alike need revenue now, and not more pie in the sky education bills that inevitably lead to ever more educated, ever more dissatisfied burger flippers who notoriously do not contribute to their parents’ retirement care or Indian casino outings.
A perspicacious reader might point out that this country has a morbid abundance of young children, and that the law of supply and demand would quickly lead to fire sale prices. This is not a compelling argument because, and let us be honest here, not all children conform with Western ideals for beauty or sex appeal. The parents of an ugly child will have to shoulder that burden until such time as their asymmetrically featured brat is old enough to hold a shovel or wear an apron. Still, even these parents would benefit as the removal of more comely children from the workforce would make it easier for those in the remainder bin to gain employment.
In 2009, there were slightly more than four million live births in the United States. However harshly you sort and grade them, at least a third, or 1,316,000 of them, would have market value. Is 1.36 million children a year enough to satiate the American demand for sex with children? Any close examination of our culture, from Britney Spears’ Pepsi ads to pictures of JonBenet Ramsey on the Usenet, would suggest not. But as Jonathan Swift, another social engineer from an earlier era, once pointed out:
There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us! sacrificing the poor innocent babes I doubt more to avoid the expense than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.
Yes, there is a greater good to consider. Do feminists really wish to abort their children? Or do they simply lack fiscally feasible alternatives? Assuming a market price of at least double the cost of medical care and birthing, we would no doubt find far fewer pregnant women willing to give up an after-birth bonanza simply to avoid a stint in the ranks of the bovine. The impact of reduced abortions? Assuming a 50% reduction in abortions (with the same ratio of comely to ugly among the additionally born), it would not be unreasonable to anticipate another quarter million or so babies, or 1.5 million all total. Enough to sate a nation that year after year tops the world’s depravity indexes? Possibly, but none of my arguments have yet spoken to the lucrative overseas market. Increased distribution costs to be sure, but there are historical models that suggest ways in which resourceful sea captains could maximize their cargo space.
The lower wholesale cost of Third World children would help defray transportation costs, and any coloration biases could easily be offset with Benetton style marketing campaigns. Even with aggressive use of such marketing, it is doubtful this would undercut the premium for healthy Swedish babies, or even dour Norwegian children (assuming blue eyes and bleachable hair).
There are, of course, drawbacks to my proposed solution. While researching Turkish prison records from the 19th century, it became clear to me that children so employed often do not turn out well, but this liability is partially negated by their reduced actuarial prospects.
The savings to be realized, however, dwarf all other considerations. No new public schools would need be built. Fewer teens on the street would mean less crime, allowing for cutbacks in our police forces (or, more likely, their reassignment to the more important task of protecting private property). With fewer hard-bodied ragamuffins participating in school sports, the more worthy children of the affluent would see less pine time while encountering fewer risks on the field of play (West Burbia’s well-padded Fighting Financiers being no more interested in incurring physical injuries than our own endearingly chubby Battlin’ Butterbutts).
Additional benefits would be numerous. While this plan would not slow the iniquitous rate at which immigrants reproduce, earlier harvests would reduce their impact on society as a whole, time-tested remedies like war and pestilence having failed to sufficiently reduce the numbers of Hispanics and even darker ethnicities to manageable proportions.
Zoning laws should be revisited, creating opportunities for revitalizing economically depressed neighborhoods. Former Miracle Mile projects could be remade into Miracle Smile zones. Although well-heeled establishments could easily be designed to blend with suburban aesthetics, some things are best taken care of well out of sight of home and family. Areas zoned for therapeutic carnality could further enhance their attractiveness to shoppers by banning all use of cameras and phone-cams. As Switzerland has discovered, privacy is a salable commodity and what daddy does in Sesame Alley should stay in Sesame Alley. Likewise Romper Lane, Barney Town, Transformers Park or any of the other newly re-named economic revitalization zones.
Culture, obviously, would be impacted as well. The success of teen strippers grinding for soft drinks suggests there is a market for A Walk on the Child Side branded products, not to mention the inevitable FCK (Former Cosby Kid), MJs (Michael Jackson survivors), and PG (Pepsi Girl) strip club promotions. Television’s child stars would, instead of fading into obscurity, go on to become some of our most famous and beloved courtesans and casino circuit boy band singers. Reality TV would undergo a renaissance with shows like Who Wants to Be a Child Porn Star?, American Idyll and JonBenet for a Day dominating the Nielsens.
Furthermore, this plan would deliver us from the ancient problem of bastards, runaways, truants and vandals, as all would go straight from the holding tank to homes of ‘lil repute. The savings in social services alone would be substantial, and the incentives for children to “be good” would again be self-evident. If you don’t want to grow up dating your Uncle Anthony, behave yourself!
Development of this market would also provide us with a commodity desirous to the oil-producing nations, helping to improve our balance of trade. As America goes, so goes the world, and the introduction of children-for-oil programs to the global economy would be universally beneficial. New laws and attitudes would boost trade, improve morale and create new opportunities for travelers. Mormon missionaries would find ready part-time work. Foreign exchange students would have less cause to write home for money. Children’s choruses and choirs would no longer need to do their fundraising in advance as the real money-making opportunities would come on the road.
In short, providing a full range of employment opportunities to lower and middle class children could undo the damage done by letting women into the workforce. I have submitted copies of this proposal to the appropriate committee chairs in the House and Senate, and expect to see a bill come up for vote early next year.
Given our national stalemate over how to move this country forward, the time for this remedy is now, more than ever.
[Jonathan Snift is a former Deputy Chair of the Anoka County Republican Party, and currently works as a visiting adjunct professor of Social Darwinism at the Stillwater Institute for Penal Science.]
This post was made possible with a grant from Newt Gingrich’s Contract On America, LLC
For more posts like this one, go here.
Timeless. Not to mention an apt image with which to shut down this blog. I’ve figured it out now and this is how it works: If I blog, I don’t work on the novel(s), but if I don’t blog but continue to read eight newspapers and several dozen blogs a day, I don’t work on the novel(s) either.
Which is not even to mention just how completely sick and fucking tired I am of American politics. Reading Jeff Sharlet’s “The Family” is helping me to realize that the super haves in this country have been fascists for as long as there’s been fascism. If anything, we know more about them and their agenda now than we used to (when we thought the two parties really ran everything).
So I guess what I’m saying is that I need to be done with this, this being this blog which is much more than just a metaphor for my incomeless life and deer-in-the-headlights take on this new but already ass-fucked and left in a ditch for dead century of ours. I could comment further, but I already have — far too many times.
While I haven’t really accomplished anything with this blog (shee-it, I couldn’t even parlay a decade of C-tier blogging into a free Netroots Nation membership) I have been on the winning side a few times. Well, once that I didn’t end up regretting later, anyways.
For them that foolishly think they can’t get by without my links, here are some folks that routinely post at least one links aggregation post a day (and several “real” posts), and all do so more coherently and straightforwardly than I ever did:
Steve Benen (Political Animal)
Avedon Carol’s Sideshow
Not to mention newssloggers like ThinkProgress, TPM Muckraker and Raw Story.
For straight up politics heavy on the writing and the ugly, do keep reading:
Firedoglake (I’m a firebagger, you’re a firebagger — hell, we’re all firebaggers except for the fucks we elect)
However much money you have, they’re going to fuck you out of it but for those who think otherwise here are some good blogs about money and economics:
For the few of you who liked my tech links, all you really need to know is TechDirt, TorrentFreak, and, if you’re into quantity over quality, Techmeme.
Minnesota? If you clicked on my Minnesota links, you already know more about those blogs than I do. No links as those I omit will just feel slighted all over again and I think I’ve slighted the DFL enough these last eight years.
Arts? Everything you ever got me from either came from James Wolcott, Max Sparber, JafaBrit or Eyeteeth. Food: Heavy Table. Generic weirdness? BoingBoing and Waxy.
Humor? There is no god but TBogg, whose memes I took in vain constantly. Honor my memory by reading him (actually, I think he’s on vacation right now but it’s a blogger’s vacation, i.e., working at his real job too hard to find time to snark). For the polytheists among you, I also recommend Roy Edroso, and if you don’t mind being baffled once in a while, Crazy Internet Beatz.
And if you need something to be outraged about, what KBR is doing to Jamie Leigh Jones should be outrageous enough to hold you until the start of the new school year. If not, check in with Clusterfuck Nation once a week.
Never stop being offended by the dirty, creepy things powerful people do when they think no one can hold them accountable but, for my part, accept that I can’t keep sorting through this shit day after day after day. Eight years of political blogging was probably about four years too many, especially when every link in the world wouldn’t be enough to make a difference.
The book(s), assuming it/they get written, probably won’t make a difference either, but they’ll be entirely of my own making, something the news never was.
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Acknowledgments: [insert selfless copy here, followed by mumbled this and that] … Minnesota Observer for being a contributing blogger once upon a time, Tild for countless inspired graphics, and my readers who, despite my telling them to go the fuck away, never did and yes, I still think you should talk to someone about that.
For the record, I am not killing this blog. I’m just not planning to write any more posts for the foreseeable future, with no plans for resuming posting without being adamant about it. Yes, this book(s) better be good.
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He wrote Hound Dog about the time I came into this world, and I’ve heard that song once or twice since then, not to mention having been a hound dog once or twice or mebbee five or seven other times besides.
Oh, and Amy Winehouse had no drugs in her system other than alcohol when she died. So I guess that was OK that she died then and that’s probably a good place to leave it (her and this blog).
Jon Talton with more reasons to hate Obama:
The Robert Rubin wing of the party, of which Mr. Obama is a member, has long wanted to welsh on the government’s obligations to younger workers, including by giving part or all of Social Security to Wall Street. As for the right, they are fervently in favor of privatization, notwithstanding the shellacking George W. Bush received for attempting this. And, oh, what a great nation we would have if your Social Security had been hostage to the stock market casino. We’re told that we’re living longer. But that’s hardly true for everyone. We’re told the baby boomers are too big an obligation. How is that in a nation of 310 million people? America is broke! Hardly. It’s the richest nation in the history of the world, even richer than in the 1950s through 1970s, but the wealth has been redistributed up. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme! If so, why hasn’t it collapsed with the chief administrator making off the with proceeds?
They just keep stacking it higher and deeper. [TBogg]
And Wall Street keeps crashing. Today it was Morgan Stanley adding their no shit Sherlock take to S&P’s downgrade of the USA’s credit rating. [Yves Smith]
How bad is it? Even Pope Natzinger says enough is enough: end self-regulation, protect labor unions and redistribute wealth! I can’t wait to hear what Rick Perry has to say about that!
emptywheel has a video of Americans given a choice of unlabeled pie charts describing an ideal economy, Sweden’s and ours. Almost everyone picked Sweden’s. The only person who correctly identified our pie chart was a foreigner. Maybe he was an escaped student from the Hershey work camp in Palmyra…. [h/t Rob from Chicago] (Didn’t we used to mock the students who traveled to Cuba to help with the sugar cane harvest?)
Chuck Grassley confirms Matt Taibbi’s story about the SEC destroying documents, yet can’t seem to find it in himself to threaten anyone with prison or even a tongue lashing. Hell, we can’t even get our courts to stop cut and dried price fixing! [emptywheel notes the establishment media is linking to Chuck and not Matt]
Mormons continue to be one of the least popular religious groups in America.
Mormons are fighting back, PR-wise, but Jon Huntsman offers a model for how Mormons can get elected to national office: call yourself a Mormon and a Christian. (A better choice than owning up to being a Bolivian Mennonite, imho.)
John Kasich declared it “my way or the highway” season in Ohio, and then after the polling numbers came in, switched to “so yeah, let’s talk.”
Is the GOP already tiring of Perry and looking elsewhere? Looks like it. And the existing players are upping the ante. If media asks a question they don’t like, they walk off the set. (Bachmann’s been evading questions for years.) What happens in Wingnutterdonia stays in Wingnutterdonia!
Patrick McHenry eats a townhall.
What is acceptable to talk about? Totally made up bullshit is still OK. Rush can toss his biracial cookies into the mix as often as he likes.
Here in Minnesota, it looks like Senator Amy will get a free pass next year. Republicans would rather run against Al Franken. Shouldn’t this be telling us something about the kind of job Amy’s doing?
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Another Supreme Borks decision results in a dreadful lower court ruling. An enterprising foreign student was buying textbooks overseas, then reselling them to American college students on eBay. Not the easiest way to make money as greedy textbook publishers are constantly updating or replacing textbooks, so you really need to know the market to make money this way.
Now the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that this kid now has to pay John Wiley & Sons $600,000 for selling eight textbooks on eBay.
When you give corporations all the protectionist legislation they want, you end up with a nightmarish system hell wouldn’t have. Getting rid of Obama won’t fix this. We need aggressive progressive leadership that will do the dirty work of impeaching and removing Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy from the Court, and a strong enough majority in the Senate to confirm new, not insane Supreme Court justices.
And no, I don’t see that happening either so just figure that before you sell anything on eBay ever again, you’ve tripled checked with the maker of your item to make sure that your physical possession of their product allows you resale rights. So far the Borks have decided that you can’t re-sell digital music or movies or books, and you can’t sell dead tree editions of books printed overseas. I’m sure that’s an incomplete list but don’t worry about it. If you screw up, their lawyers will get in touch.
Meanwhile, a new report finds that big ISPs do well by bittorrent traffic. Torrents are designed to use what bandwidth is available, and doesn’t put any strain on the system (which Netflix’s streaming strains considerably). Not that the big ISPs are showing any gratitude. Don’t expect AT&T to stop trying to cap bandwidth (even as the Baby Bells mostly go with the flow).
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Etc.:
Epic Rap Battles of History: Dr. Seuss vs Shakespeare [video]
Six new things on a stick at this year’s MN State Fair
Still more new science that can’t find any problems with pot
Ridley Scott inexplicably decides to remake the best science-fiction movie of all time
Cool! Google maps now lets you toggle weather information on/off
Did MPR just hire Garrison Keillor’s replacement?
Trailer for Hysteria (which appears to be a very funny movie) [video]
Best sniper rifle in the world? Try Accuracy International, a small British firm
Another Kindle owner whines about his inability to adjust the type size on real books
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And that’s that for a while. I guess I really do need to focus exclusively on clients and the book for a while. Doing this makes me get my mad on, and that’s not where I need to be right now.
See you after Labor Day.
Evening blogging sucks as I’m rapidly learning. I see some news in the morning, jot down a few notes and by evening all my notes are old news. Greg Sargent addresses Ray Sandoval’s “firebagger” diss in this Plum Line column.
The Obama official, Ray Sandoval, circulated the email just after the debt ceiling deal passed Congress, hammering lefty critics for deriding the deal as a surrender. Sandoval’s email included a blog post that derided Krugman as a “political rookie” and decried critics for “pure, fanatic, indomitable hysteria.”
The term “firebagger” appears to be a reference to Firedoglake, whose bloggers frequently hammer the White House for giving too much ground to Republicans….
Sargent, however, thinks Obama’s getting ready to wow the left, and that this was not a pre-planned thing. I am, frankly, past giving a shit. Sandoval’s not some newbie, and this was a Sistah Souljah trial balloon by proxy. Jane Hamsher is right to be pissed, and has a chart to justify the firebagging. But for my money, the coldest shoulder comes from Obama’s former volunteers.
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United States of White Collar Crime:
If you missed my update, do read Matt Taibbi’s HUGE SCOOP on how the SEC has been criminally enabling Wall Street’s crimes, and then read Yves Smith’s take (yes, this shit started on Bill fucking Clinton’s watch)
emptywheel with Michigan mortgage fraud horror story
Incredibly, Michele Bachmann has a criminal on staff more heinous than Frank Gaffney (but maybe not as douchey as Steve Wilkins)
Even T.Rump is willing to pay more taxes, but mostly he wants the govt. to stick it to oil companies (ranted like a true landlord)
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I was all set to pounce on this story about the noxiously racist Abercrombie & Fitch, then saw this Romenesko item:
Mark Gongloff of WSJ.com’s MarketBeat blog says it was a “brilliant move” for Abercrombie & Fitch to pay “Jersey Shore” star The Situation not to wear its clothes, but points out that investors didn’t care for it. ANF shares were down nearly 9 percent the last time I looked. Still, “every blog from here to Mars won’t be able to resist running [A&F's] press release today,” notes Amy Odell. Rebecca Greenfield adds: “The company is obviously doing it for attention, of which they’ve gotten a lot. But unfortunately it looks like their efforts have backfired, as much of the press points out their nonsensical reasoning and attention grab.”
I think we’re about due for some new TV shows and movies in which all the vilest characters wear branded clothing, mostly A&B.
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More politics:
Lots of folks reassessing the recalls: Greg Sargent, Cognitive Dissonance, and Rachel Weiner
Ruben Bolling on Corporations are People Too! (also, we learn that after ripping Obama for vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, Mittens will be there too, raising money)
Joe Lieberman just won’t shut the fuck up
Why we’re not getting Rupertgate updates, and why that matters
Crystal Sugar lockout update and links
More on why Ron Paul gets no press
More on J. Christian Adams’ astonishing ability to get press
Two grafs into Roy Edroso’s latest I twig on where he — and every pirate on earth — is going (only a Libertard could be so dumb)
Smearing government for doing what we pay it to do
Robert Reich has three speaking gigs coming up in Iowa
And no, Chris fucking Christie’s not running for president, but a lot of Republicans are already looking past Rick “phony baloney stats with a side of libel” Perry and are pining for the fat guy. And yes, it will kill Gov. Goodhair when the TeaPers hear that half of Perry’s jobs miracle was due to hirings by the state of Texas. Perry’s even getting attacked (and endorsed!) by the loony right, but the best rip came from Jon Stewart:
Rick Perry is not George W. Bush on steroids; Rick Perry is what happens if Lex Luthor distilled down George W. Bush essence in a laboratory and crossed it with gunpowder and semen from the finest thoroughbred in Lubbock — and then strapped that concoction onto a nuclear missile and shot it into the f**king sun.
I don’t care if his writers wrote that, kudos for having said it. [more] [more] [more]
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Etc. and no, I do not get this Mr. Fish cartoon — leave a comment if you do:
MO school makes raped student write note of apology to her rapist, who then raped her again (and for those too disgusted to click, she’s retarded, he isn’t and yes, this could have only been worse had it happened at a Jesus camp)
I’m not really clear on why Air Force Staff Sgt. Daryn J. Moran’s military discharge hasn’t been downgraded to “general” from “honorable” as he certainly isn’t the latter (fyi: “general” discharges will kill your ability to get a civilian job, which is why they always gave them to gays)
L.A. Times picks up on the DARPA conflict of interest scandal
Each and every day, I hate Target a little more, and not just because those fashionista fucks have never heard of a 50-inch waistline
Sugarland: we paused to pray and God killed some lesbians instead of us!
Due process meaning “we’ve already decided to make you pay, now here’s what you did wrong”
Probation/parole: a period of time during which you learn that you’ll never again hold a job with a reputable company (rehab is for squishes, real men just get another gun and start all over again)
emptywheel on sports so yeah, obviously this is a very gratifying read!
WINston’s London Calling moment (I may be the last blogger not to have linked to The Clash in recent weeks) [News Cut with a telling map but no Clash video?!]
I stopped posting while drunk mostly because I stopped drinking (to lose weight), but also because of this
I’m reading Jeff Sharlet’s The Family right now, but if you just want a taste of his take on prosperity gospel creeps, check out The Heavenly BMW
Not sure why I’m feeding the MN trolls, but yes, the new Conan the Barbarian is from Iowa (oddly enough, when the first movie came out my little brother was simultaneously into Schwarzenegger and Queen)
More Kindle million-selling authors
That’s a whole lotta etc.
UPDATE: Matt Taibbi has just ripped the lid off SEC corruption. MUST READ!!!!
Is anyone else already sick to death of Rick “I Texecuted a man just to watch him die” Perry? He’s got the kind of sense of humor that would start a bar fight in 99 out of 100 drinking establishments conjoined with the victimized right’s standard refrain of “cantcha take a joke?” Actually yes, I can take a joke when it’s a joke and not a fucking insult.
Rick Perry moved heaven and earth to stop an arson expert from halting Cameron Todd Willingham’s execution, and then covered his tracks like the backstabbing, yellow dog sumbitch he is. If a cold-blooded. lying prick like Rick Perry can be elected President of these United States, I truly am done with this country forever. Elect a Bush once, shame on you. Hijack the Supreme Court and install another Bush, shame on you. But after all that if we elect another Bush, well, that’s shame on all of us. Even Barack fucking Obama would make a better president than this cattle-less waste of hat.
Dominionists, No, we can’t have too many Dominionists, not after they’ve worked so hard at turning Jesus Christ into a blunt object suitable for cracking walnuts and busting heads. Hilariously, the WaPost gave free space to a Christianist who’s not a Dominionist, and he got slaughtered in the comments (so much so they’ve throttled them so you have to manually keep clicking to keep reading but do click and do read. And no, I don’t think America is ready for candidates who praise Jesus just as often as they spit on liberals.
Rick Perry’s moment of corn dog
Americans no longer have any confidence in America and I don’t have enough fingers (and toes) to point to all the reasons why but here’s a chart
Bachmann flunks another fact checking and yet another blogger finds it necessary to rerun THE FREAKING VIDEO OF BACHMANN CALLING GAYS “PART OF SATAN” because the right refuses to believe the shit she’s said (which does make sense because they know how many lies they tell about us, so why wouldn’t we lie about them?)
Juan Cole on Bachmann’s confused understanding the Middle East (once she puts the baby Jesus on the felt wall chart, she seems a bit lost)
A reminder that you can’t win the Ames Straw Poll if you don’t spend a lot of money [and a reminder of how much the last straw poll was worth to the winner]
He’s a weird old racist geezer, but Ron Paul deserves more respect than sloppy day late kisses from Fox
Incredible but true: this video will make you hate the Koch brothers even more than you already do
Regina Dugan, the living embodiment of the term conflict of interest
UPDATE: Oh. My. God.
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I will defend Obama on one count, and one count only. Ryan Rhodes, a Tea jackass in Iowa, called Obama out on the thinnest most specious charge imaginable:
“He just denied [that Joe Biden called Tea Party members terrorists]. He said the vice president didn’t make any of those assertions,”Rhodes said. “If he doesn’t want to even admit what was on TV nationally — all over the place — then how can you have a conversation?”
All over the place being on Fox News. There is zero footage of Biden saying this because all the stories are based on hearsay coming out of a closed meeting, and most of the hearsay attributes the terrorist remark to Rep. Mike Doyle. Fox News is whipping their viewers into a frenzy over hearsay that is almost positively false because had Biden actually said it, Fox would have produced their wiretap of him saying it.
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Etc.:
Bono is richer than Paul McCartney and Elvis’s estate put together
I had to dig, but the insurance company that’s stiffing the miracle hockey shot kid is Odds on Promotions (their website says BIG PRIZES, BIG RESULTS but they left off the BIG SCREWJOBS part)
There are two Scott Hortons?
No link credit as all the major dailies said the same thing
Politico’s Roger Simon thinks Ron Paul got shafted by the media’s bizarro coverage of the Iowa Straw Poll. To be sure, I found the media anointing of the first, sixth and seventh place finishers as the big three to be arrogant, but not out of line.
The Iowa Straw Poll is a pissing match between whores. Even the winner was reported to have only gotten five votes for every six tickets she purchased, so yeah, lots of lies all around. [Would you count on this guy's vote?]
How did Candidate Bachmann capitalize on her big win? Apparently by cowering in her trailer in Waterloo, waiting for Rick Perry to leave the room and for the lighting to be adjusted (I’m guessing there weren’t enough incandescent bulbs….) [more from Driftglass]
The only good thing to come out of the straw poll was Gov. Bridgefail’s departure, but City Pages gets that one right by calling his early quit one of his 10 biggest failures. The actual Iowa Caucuses won’t be held for another five months. Pawlenty’s getting out because absolutely no one cares about him because his accomplishments were all as fake as his tough guy talk. Bill Scher called him a milquetoast mimic of wingnut soundbites. Seriously, given boxing gloves and stuck in a ring with Michele and Marcus Bachmann, does anyone think that the ensuring fight would be anything but comedy gold? [hat tip to Tild for having seen BridgeFAIL coming years ago]
Given this godawful batch of losers, it’s hard to pick the nominee, but I hope Ian Welsh is wrong about it being Rick Perry.
Krugman on the Texas Unmiracle
Cons already whining about media quoting Perry accurately
Perry pushes for caveat emptor anarchy (no, people don’t deliberately put e.coli in your food, but without regulations there’s nothing to thwart amoral MBAs from cutting corners to the point where they might as well be shitting on your chicken tenders)
Gay Perry? (emphasis on the second syllable)
The worst part of all of this? If you take the media three as the most likely nominees, what does it say about the Republican party that two of those three candidates (and Sarah Palin in the wings) are Dominionists?
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Some excellent screeds were posted today. I recommend The Immoral Minority on Obama, Norwegian Shooter on Obama, Jonathan on the continuing collapse of everything, and this seven-minute video on banksters.
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More politics:
Funniest two-minute clip about Sarah Palin ever (and yes, Hannity looks like a total fool because Frank Luntz just gave away Fox’s entire dirty little schtick) [more Hannity fail]
Roy Edroso rounds up the Redcoat-coddling right’s reaction to London burning [Sam Pizzigati on the "feral underclass" as in, we did'na wanna shoot them, but they gae us no other choice, the bloody rotten fookin' shoplifters!]
Wisconsin finally finds a Prossercuter
Tomorrow’s round of recall elections in WI looks like a slam dunk for both Dems (the Nazi quote leaking out didn’t hurt)
Sarah Palin quotes Mark Twain (no, she shouldnta oughta not done that) [more]
More heroes who’ve proved to be zeroes
WBBM-TV in Chicago brutally edits a four-year-old’s words to make a future cop sound like a gangbanger (never let the real story interfere with the story you want to tell)
Floridians showing surprising interest in AG’s corruption
New Tom Tomorrow and no, I don’t think Tea Party Tim is supposed to be Gov. Bridgefail
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Money, and why they have it and we don’t:
Warren Buffet on how his friends rape our economy [emptywheel]
Profiting from politically induced human misery
NYTimes nails Darrell Issa [Dayen's take] [TPM Muckraker]
Student loan debt skies 25% in just three years
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Etc.:
Google’s acquisition of Motorola isn’t just a big deal for Google, it may signal the end of cable [please, please, please let cable die (about five minutes after this deal goes through would be perfect timing)]
Someone else saying what I’ve been saying about the USPS caving to Fed Ex/UPS cherrypicking
In the distorted world of comics, men are musclebound and women are sexpots — but I agree with Alyssa Rosenberg that there’s a big difference between sexy and slutty
Yet another link to Britain’s drunkest woman, but not one story will be written about why she drinks (no, I don’t know, but if I did, I’m sure that it would spoil the joke) (all that’s really important is that the super drunks be mocked so that the every day falling down drunks have someone to look down on)
Another moron claiming technology is addictive: no, the shit you do with your technology may be addictive, but technology is no more addictive than a syringe or rolling papers are
Record-setting thin ice in August (no reason the Arctic should be any different than the global economy that’s being torched by the same greedbags)
If you live in Chicago, consider scraping together some coin for Sheila Jordan at the Green Mill, August 19-20 (she was insanely hot in the ’50s, and hasn’t slowed down — legendarily unique vocal stylings)
A 13-minute clip of Dennis Rodman’s emotionally powerful Hall of Fame acceptance speech
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Kudos to Corey and a happy fourth birthday to MinnPost!
Home of the Daily Glean, consistently the best roundup of Minnesota politics anywhere whether written by David Brauer, Max Sparber or Brian Lambert. The inability of the Strib or PiPress to match their collective output is FAIL spelled in all caps.
I have been working on a book this summer, but until I put the blog on standby, I wasn’t making much progress so from now on, Norwegianity posts will upload in the evening, if at all. Paying customers and this book now own my morning hours and this blog will get sloppy seconds/thirds only.
This being my first stab at a novel, I am, of course, writing a trilogy. It took me all summer to develop a 2,500-word outline; since Wednesday that outline has grown to over 5,000 words. Simply put, I do my best writing/thinking in the morning. I don’t make money from this blog, so it’s now an evening project. Maybe some afternoon posts, but only if I’ve had a productive morning.
Frankly, I’d shut Norwegianity down entirely except the book project is very political, and I need to stay on top of political trends. So yes, I need to keep up with Michele Bachmann’s deer in the headlights moments, even Marcus’s “I’m not gay” lip mushing [TBogg], as well as her little victories * and not so little victories. She’ll be gone by next April, but in the meantime it will be fun watching her freak out over the fact that people do keep track of what she says. Likewise, I’m still tracking Phil fucking Gramm-endorsed Rick Perry’s acclamation-by-media, drought-ridden, evangelical-infested stroll to the nomination over Mitt’s Mormon still fucking means Mormon body and the wives his forebears rode in on. [scary Perry pix]
None of which excuses Obama, and yes, my novel will map the future of American politics by name. (Just because 1984 wasn’t as horrible as Orwell predicted doesn’t mean he still wasn’t right.) What we are in the middle of is not a case of both sides behaving like asses. [more (in which Digby accidentally beats the crap out of D.J. Tice's phony argument)] The equivalences between the parties is growing, but we’re not there yet, however hard both sides work at it, Obama by righting our side and saner Republicans by paying attention to the god-awful bottom line. [the more articles like this one you see, the faster moderate Republicans will flee their party]
Ever wonder what happened to August townhall meetings? Turns out congresscritters are still holding ‘em, but it’s the cons getting lambasted this time around so the media’s skipping this story. The sad part is that this noncoverage bubble would burst if just one talk show guest reamed their host over this, but that won’t happen and no one who counts reads lefty blogs so there goes another one down the ol’ memory hole.
Not all members of Congress are on vacation. Fully one-fifth of them are junketing in Israel where they get wined and dined and get to experience firsthand what it’s like to wipe your boots off on a Palestinian.
Spotty on Gov. Bridgefail’s weekend tumble into the Raccoon River
Ron Paul on abortion, proving what a sorry-assed Christianist excuse he is for a libertarian
Hunter on the clusterfucked side of Republicanism
It’s all about class, and the fact that one side has no class, just money
WINston on the recall
And more links from Digby (some pretty good ones, as a matter of fact)
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Newsiness:
Who exactly does Chuck Schumer think wants to blow up our power plants, and wouldn’t it be simpler to resolve our differences?
More U.S. troops killing themselves than are being killed by insurgents
Anders Behring Breivik, still smirking
51% of Coloradans favor legalization
More on how humans are not wired for reading (but how we can get addicted to tanning)
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Etc.:
Hundreds of millions of dollars later, Yoko finally gives away some free John
Not sure if I linked to a Jonathan Turley account of this last week or the week before, but the case of the little old lady from Warroad failing a faulty drug test finally caught the Strib’s attention
Arguments for copyright (I often disagree with Monday Note, but they make their cases clearly and coherently)
Ted Nugent has, apparently, figured out that his audiences come as much for the politics as the music, and has again unleashed himself
Go Satan Go [video]
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International Humanist of the Year PZ Myer’s speech to the Humanists on biology and creationism [warning: on my Mac this stream took over my entire computer! it's an hour long and the video is for crap and the stream is very CPU clogging, but the sound is good and it's a good speech]
Bachmann wins, Ron Paul a very close second and any Republican who might actually be able to beat Obama came in sixth through tenth.
Never before has any American political party been so thoroughly determined to get their ass kicked.
Weigel saw this one coming (as did everyone else who was actually there, but kudos to the other media for keeping the obvious a secret just to keep the horse race golf cart race going)
Amanda Marcotte on Michele Bachmann
Michele goes down on a corn dog (while Santorum fellates an ice cream cone)
There is no truth to the rumors that Marcus Bachmann and Phil Hinkle used to be college roommates
Someone should take a golf club to Louie Gohmert’s face (why hasn’t Congress impeached and removed this eliminationist piece of shit?)
The Republican party has gone batshit insane, and no one in the media can make themselves talk about the giant pile of elephant shit on the living room floor.
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David Atkins writes about the Democratic Dolchstoßlegende which, apparently, Jeff Fecke has invested in. You do not owe loyalty to incumbents who lied as candidates. [After posting this I reread everything and decided this sounded maybe a little too harsh. Defend Obama if you like, I just really don't understand why anyone would bother, at least not before the fall of 2012.]
Personally, I have ALWAYS believed that it is not disloyal to criticize incumbents right up until they have overcome their primary opposition, and then only if you admit to being a member of the same party.
What’s at stake? Who wants to be the next UK? [more] Obama’s living W’s thug life all over again, and it’s only a matter of time before he graduates from torturing terrorists and defunding welfare recipients to giving medals to citizen-killing thumpers. No, I wouldn’t vote for Michele Bachmann over Barack Obama, but don’t make me pick between him and Ron Paul because if we’ve got to have a racist president, I’d rather he was white and anti-Wall Street. (Too harsh? WTF do you call a black President who has yet to do one fucking thing for beleaguered minorities in this country?)
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Life in the United States of after George W. Bush:
1 out of 4 car owners can’t afford to fix their cars (I’m guessing they would be among the 66% of all Americans without $1,000 in their savings account) (for more perspective, $1,000 in 2010 = $187 in 1971)
Global cult leader Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times portrays Obama as Dopey from the Seven Dwarfs (personally, I think this Dopey looks more like Ron Paul)
Strategies for dealing with global warming deniers
emptywheel on how outsourcing lowers everyone’s wages
WI State Fair rioters: meet Paul Captain, white rage-a-holic
In These Times on suppressing the vote
John Dean on Rupergate lawyering up
Is “mail” dying? or just under nonstop assault from assholes who refuse to accept that grown nations have post offices, even if they have to subsidize them
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Etc.:
Amazing but true: you can fuck up a monopoly so bad people will go without rather than put up with your shit
Case studies in journalistic ethics
If you’re surfing on a Mac, you may be wondering about all those MacKeeper popups….
Apple sued for price fixing, as well they should be
Been pretty productive the last couple of days, and my out of town trip has been canceled so I think I’m going to go straight from time off to posting erratically.
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A big shout out to PZ Myers, the 2011 winner of the International Humanist Award!
Based on a recommendation from the former Mr. Sponge, I’ve been reading Janet Reitman’s Inside Scientology. I did not think it was possible for me to hate this cult more than I already did, but now I do.
Scientology sucks up to Louis fucking Farrakhan
Scientology held their own members prisoner and treated many of them abysmally
Scientology is first and foremost an investment racket in which they shake down members for money and then invest in more tax-free property
Scientology routinely terrorizes their opponents — even the IRS backed down on Scientology’s terms
A simple IRS forensic audit of Scientology would put an end to this cult, but for that to happen we would need:
A President with balls (figuratively speaking)
A Congress that would instantly impeach and remove any judge issuing any court order stopping an IRS audit of Scientology
A mobilization of combined local and federal law enforcement to protect each and every individual involved in auditing Scientology
They are, simply put, some of the worst people in the world, and their leader David Miscavige, is human waste personified.
How evil is Scientology? I finally got around to watching Hobo with a Shotgun last night, and the over-the-top bad guys kept reminding me of Scientologists. Just to give you an idea of how bad the bad guys are, they make a psychotic hobo with a shotgun look like a credible good guy by comparison.
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On schedule with my other stuff so I thought I’d commemorate my finishing the Reitman book with a quick links dump:
First new 9/11 news I’ve seen in years
PZ’s new blog home is here
If I did have money to invest, I’d seriously consider putting some into Amazon
I would not, at this time, invest in a restaurant
And if I wanted some money, I’d look to see which cheap labor-seeking European companies are building plants in the U.S.
USPS considering laying off 120,000 because they’re too fucking stupid to bump 1st class stamps to 75¢ while cutting overnight deliveries to $5 (thereby putting FedEx and UPS out of business forever)
This map of state by state cigarette taxes looks remarkably similar to a map I saw a while back of which states have the highest mortality rates (think red) (and I suspect this healthcare bar chart broken down by state would follow the same pattern)
Hungary does not, apparently, have any laws about using earthmoving equipment to turn industrial tanks into water parks
From the Iowa State Fair, Michele Bachmann as Dorothy, deep-fried butter on a stick and corn in a jar
And from Dave Trott, which candidate would you pick?
Candidate a) He’s been known to associate with crooked politicians. He’s consulted astrologers for help with decisions. He chain smokes, and drinks 8 – 10 martinis a day.
Candidate b) He’s been kicked out of political office twice. He stays in bed until nearly noon. He used opium in college. He drinks copious amounts of whiskey and champagne. People accuse him of being a warmonger.
Candidate c) He’s a decorated war hero. He doesn’t smoke, and only drinks an occasional beer. He’s a vegetarian and he’s never committed adultery. He’s a charismatic leader.
Answers here, but I suspect you all knew better than to go with C. This taps into new research that suggests all our great leaders are somewhat messed up in the head. The longer I stay off antidepressants, the more I’m beginning to realize that most of what I know that’s really good to know, I learned only because I’m bipolar, and that the only reason I don’t go up and down anymore is because I stopped taking meds and instead learned more about myself. If your life has always been swell, you probably don’t know yourself or your capabilities as well as the less perfect folks among us.
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Posting to this blog is my lowest priority right now, but then again, it’s what I do did do. Did.
Do.
