[INSERT LYING GRAPH HERE]

Lots of cheerleading for economic indicators in the papers this morning. Nothing that impacts you or I, so fuck the links.

I’d be in a good mood this morning were it not for the recent construction trend in which the railroad workers put a vehicle into reverse, then sit there with their brakes on letting the backup beeper run incessantly. Even more so than a phone ringing, I respond viscerally to the sound of a truck backing up beeper. (the construction’s scheduled to wrap by the end of next week, all thanks to the flying spaghetti monster)

That and my not-pink-eye but something damned similar runny left eye is irritating the heck out of me. So no, don’t tell me the economy is getting better. The world I live in knows better, even if Wall Street senses a new round of opportunities.

The stimulus money has, to an annoying degree, gone to the same bottom feeding parasitical shitheads who helped put us where we’re at today. Any signals that the economy is turning around aren’t coming from start-up construction on new health food stores or electric car dealerships.

Not to mention Joe Lieberman doing all he can to prop up the corrupt and complacent healthcare insurance industry.

Wall Street cheers when the wrong people are winning. If your 401(k) is looking better, keep a hand over your ass when you bend over.

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I hope Toles is right about this, and that the global warming exceptionalists are dying out faster than sealife in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Funny shit happening at the post. I think someone stuck a finger up and figured out that the winds of Village-ousity have shifted.

That or their pet liberals are getting braver but this is the closest the Post has come in recent years to spanking the insufferable Antonin Scalia.

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Vance Opperman and Glen Taylor both became billionaires by screwing the rest of us with their successful monopolies. Opperman and his dad essentially obtained a de facto copyright on all U.S. law books, and Taylor dominated the wedding invite printing industry in the upper Midwest.

Don’t be happy that they’ll be major players in the effort to keep the Strib afloat. They’re not the kind of folks who’ll be upset when the “help” does political rewrites of business stories.

When it comes to huge piles of money there is no left or right, just greed and more greed. And declining dead tree sales.

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Politics:

NY-23: DeDe Scozzafava’s golden shower continues (the base really, really hates moderates)

Gay bashing campaigning in Maplewood, one of the nastier outposts of weaponized evangelicism in the Cities

Bill Sparkman murder investigation update

Bachmann the babysitter

Thuggery in Chicago: hard to tell the felons from the prosecutors sometimes (and let’s not even talk about chicken-eating judges)

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Exciting night for sports and yes, I’m glad I spent most of my time watching the Wolves season opener instead of that World serious thing.

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Edward Brooke is still alive.

Glad to hear it. Growing up during the Civil Rights struggle he made me proud to be a Republican.