Monthly Archives: March 2011

New stuff from Matt Taibbi! including whores, whores and more whores.

Recordkeeping? Not when it’s your money!

Economy about to re-swoon?

Supreme Borks split on gender lines over WalMart?

Artists question winner-take-all rules

Scheer on Obama and Immelt

News:

Privatization WTF?: prison inmates to cater high school prom

35th Anniversary of Land Day massacre

Texas’ illegal drug problem (state keeps bypassing the law to keep its death fix going)

Truthout hacked

Research suggests Christians embrace whackjob intelligent design theories because they’re afraid of death

Former PBS station to be sold to Scientologists (because there aren’t nearly enough lying fucking liars on the air already)

Steve Benen with a roundup of coverage on the New Black Panther nonstory

Politics:

When you’ve been a scold all your life, your relatives will make no effort to stop you from embarrassing yourself further in your old age: Phyllis Schlafly (and her niece) have written a new book that’s heavy on assertions, light on facts (her niece also admits that Schafly relied on nannies and housekeepers while being a professional anti-feminist housewife)

More on the amazing alacrity with which the right throws their icons’ family members under the bus

Ex-ACORN employee punks O’Keefe for likening his work to Ashton Kutcher’s [MMFA has a chart you should see] [more on the inability of people to understand that which they get paid not to understand]

Abortion: it really brings out the very worst in Republicans [even Republicans are getting embarrassed] [even as Katherine Kersten's favorite "liberal" applauds attacks women's health funding]

Attaturk on the Supreme Borks

Roy Edroso on Georgia’s racist gerrymandering (not content with “suburbs,” they created new cities to shield white taxmoney from the poor)

Courtesy of Rob Levine, a story and video about Shawna Forde (I could only take about ten minutes of it, but it’s well done and if you don’t understand where these fucktards are coming from, it’s helpful to see that they mostly look like your older relatives, well, mine anyway)

SC gun nuts

After watching Conviction and learning about how Martha Coakley screwed the innocent and dragged her heels on DNA testing, I’m almost glad Scott Brown’s numbers are up (what the fuck were Mass Dems thinking?)

WI:

Judge reiterates: the law is NOT in effect [BREAKING: Walker folds!]

GOoPers demand Sean Duffy video be pulled from internet (not because it’s untrue, but because it makes them look bad) (optics, don’t'cha know)

More on that Republican-appointed “leftist” judge

Andy Kroll: union busting or Republican busting?

Dayen on Ohio

Dylan Ratigan + the eXiled on the Kochs [video]

Rick Scott booed after throwing out first pitch of spring training game

Rick Scott to shatter personal hypocrisy record today

Michigan

Nice bit on Mpls politics from Lambert:

MPR’s transcript of an interview with Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak Tuesday inadvertently dropped a zero from His Honor’s argument about LGA. The original story had Rybak citing the “$40 million” in tax revenue Minneapolis sends off to the state. The actual number is much closer to … $400 million. And it appears, by checking with MPR’s PoliGraph blogger, Catharine Richert that Rybak has done his math: “Rybak lays out a lot of reasons why he thinks cutting LGA is a bad idea, pointing out that Minneapolis puts more in the state coffers than it takes out in state aid. He’s correct. City budgeters estimate that the state will collect roughly $380 million in sales taxes and roughly $75 million in commercial property taxes from Minneapolis. Minus the $87.5 million in LGA Minneapolis is slated to get in 2011, the city is expected to provide the state with $367.5 million this year. The Verdict: For his first PoliGraph test, Rybak earns an Accurate.”

I think what Lambert’s trying to say (but is too polite to spell out) is that most of the state is mooching off the Twin Cities, yet Republican fiscal solutions all seek to penalize the urban poor who’re just trying to get by in a place where rents and taxes are higher than they are in rural Minnesota.

Etc.:

Paul Allen calls Bill Gates a mercenary opportunist who screwed him out of part of his stake in Microsoft (MS was always about the money first, and quality last)

READ THIS IF YOU HAVE A SAMSUNG LAPTOP

Another study says cell phone radiation bad (but apologizes for suggesting that users cut back on their phone time because yes, it’s OK to be a slave to your devices) (are they worth bleeding for?)

AT&T’s fuck you loophole

Driftglass wants money

Wolcott: Pallbearers at the Orgy

Nick Coleman: volunteer MinnRoast pallbearer

Locally, Porky’s closes this Sunday (loved the grease but way too salty for this old man but clearly healthier than a vegan diet)

Louis Vuitton makes an ass of itself, cont.

The Awl on Canada

The house that looks like Hitler [bonus illo of Hitler cat]

The latest in Bits

Wolverine uploader to go to jail after being selectively prosecuted

More proof sports journalism isn’t sporting or journalistic

Trying to decide if I type faster when I have a “typewriter” program running that makes my keystrokes sound like an old typewriter.

Yes, I’m turning into an old person but that doesn’t mean I’d trade in my Mac for a vintage typewriter. That’s nuts.

The truth is I tweak my computing environment constantly. Music on or off, desktop pictures and icons changed weekly if not more often. The rug under my desk? Vacuumed at least once a year whether it needs it or not. (Note to self: did you vacuum this year because I think I forgot last year….)

As mean as necessary

March 30, 2011

linkcetera

12 Comments

It’s wrong to call Justice Clarence Thomas an Uncle Tom. For starters, only African Americans have a right to make such an accusation, but more importantly, Clarence Thomas is more properly known as an Uncle Clarence.

An Uncle Clarence is someone who gets a lot of help getting from nowhere to somewhere, and then pulls the ladder up after himself lest someone else on the bottom accidentally get ahead. An Uncle Clarence ignores the racial nature of the USA’s prison and death row populations, and makes it easier to execute the innocent. And, when a man wrongfully put on death row escapes by virtue of his complete innocence, an Uncle Clarence will tell him that the prosecutors were just doing their job when they withheld exculpatory evidence that kept an innocent man on death row for fourteen years.

And yes, there are five [5] Uncle Clarences on this Supreme Court, each and every one of whom should be impeached and removed if only for this one decision.

Making a list

March 30, 2011

Republicans

8 Comments

Incredible. Even the establishment media, which makes its money by not noticing these kinds of things, is beginning to take notice of the Republicans’ insane our-way-IS-the-highway-and-everyone-else-is-roadkill approach to governance. From today’s NYTimes:

House Republicans have already won so much in this year’s federal budget standoff that they could easily declare victory and put an end to the maddening and dysfunctional cycle. Previous Congresses would have noticed that millions of people are still struggling in an economic downturn and tried to help, but Republicans have succeeded in shutting off that conversation.

They have won the philosophical war, compelling Democrats to agree to tens of billions in spending cuts. Yet that does not seem to be enough for the Republicans who now control the federal steering wheel.

With a hard deadline looming, talks to prevent a government shutdown have been stymied for a week because Tea Party members of the House have demanded everything: not just some of their cuts but almost all of them, and not just a reduction in spending but a reduction only in the programs they don’t like. Many are insisting Democrats also agree to nonbudgetary riders, like ending the financing of Planned Parenthood or health care reform.

They simply will not accede to anything that looks like a compromise with President Obama.

The country is finally catching on: Republicans aren’t playing to win, they’re playing to put everyone who’s not them into a virtual mass grave. If you’re not them, you’re not entitled to medical care. If you’re not them, you’re not entitled to eat every day. If you’re not them, your kids can rot in falling down public schools while your tax dollars subsidize religious freaks who refuse to let their kids interact with a world turned upside down by Republican jihadists.

Republicans have told Democratic negotiators that the cuts can only come from their original, rejected bill. Many are still clinging to the ideological riders that will certainly draw a presidential veto. One way or the other, Tea Party lawmakers are about to learn a lesson in how government operates; the only question is whether the public must suffer for their education.

Um, I think we’re already suffering. With the Dems we have in office, the first concessions come during the election cycle, then another round of concessions before the new Congress is sworn in, then an immediate round of conciliatory concessions before the committees begin their work, then more concessions in committee immediately followed by still more concessions to get bills reported out before the House as a whole can reject all of the above concessions as inconsistent with the Republicans’ 52% share of the 50% of the adults who voted mandate.

These America-hating fucks won’t even concede that Obama, as worthless as he’s been, is an American citizen. They insist he’s a Muslim which, as has become very clear, is the new anti-Semetism. Take any Republican screed on immigrants or Muslims and substitute “Jew” where appropriate. Yes, you’ve read this stuff before. Think how much more efficient the Nazis would have been had they had websites to help round up the Jews.

This website is Google’s #1 response when you search for “illegals.” I’m not up to speed on my German law circa 1935, but I think the Nazis viewed Jews as being illegal as well.

But maybe you’re OK with them coming for Mexicans and maybe you’re historically illiterate and don’t understand what Jews have to do with anything. Here’s the rest of the series:

But, you may be thinking, I’m not a Muslim, I don’t belong to a union, I kinda believe in God, I’ve never had an abortion and I don’t think I’m gay. What’s the problem?

The problem is round three:

Oops, sorry. That’s round zero and it started in the 1930s. Here’s round three:

Because if you illegalize lifestyles, you need to sniff out those who are predisposed to illegal lifestyles.

Once you get rid of the “illegals,” someone has to mow their lawns and wash their dishes. But all of this is getting complicated and will need to be simplified. What do all of the above have in common?

Eventually, however, it’s not enough to lock up your opponents. Eventually, every movement like this one ends up making the same demand: join or die:

The galling thing, of course, is that these Republicans are no more Republican than National Socialists were socialists. The entire “hate everyone who’s not you” movement comes from the old Southern Democrats who were invited to take over the Republican party by Richard Nixon.

Systematically they’ve gutted wages, taken away benefits and destroyed hope. The United States has never been richer or more influential but the American people haven’t been this flat-busted broke since the Great Depression. They’re stealing this nation blind and they don’t even share their loot with their own rank and file supporters.

Enough is enough is enough. How many Pastor Niemöller moments do we need?

Errands to run, links later. Use this free time to make a list of people you’d like to report.

Right

March 29, 2011

linkcetera

10 Comments

News:

$100 million a day to interdict Ghaddafi’s cosmetics shipments (no links to Obama’s speech as I really don’t give a shit: three wars and you’re out!) [Peter King no doubt approves] [how the Republicans have flip-flopped and back again on Ghaddfi] [more] [guns v butter]

Pictures of how the Pentagon spends your tax dollars

Knesset reserves right to take away citizenship if you’re convicted of treason (also known as what comes next after the Republicans successfully suppress everyone’s votes)

Explosion at Yemen ammo factory (didn’t Tom Clancy write about this? steal the ammo then blow everything up to cover your tracks?)

Opposing Afghanistan after you’ve voted to continue funding for the war

Syria’s also a very nasty place — should we invade them next? (probably better ask Israel for permission first)

Wired’s Danger Room says that in Ivins case, details create an overwhelming presumption of guilt

Politics:

Walker has state cease union dues collections and jacks up employee pension and health care contributions in direct defiance of judge’s orders [which maybe has something to do with the fact that of the 53% of Wisconsonites disapproving of Walker, almost all of them are very disapproving]

The latest from the land of Haley Barbour

Jay Coggins gets some Strib space to debunk their recent pro-rich propaganda (if the media never tells you that your bank account is empty, you’ll never figure it out on your own, right?)

Prosser lies, ties

WI Supremes update

It’s not news if the subject of your story is paying you

Gov. Bridgefail admits to flip-flopping (curiously picking an example where he flipped from right to “let’s kill the fucking planet” wrong)

Republican senators admit that defunding Planned Parenthood will kill women

Abortion

IN Dems prevail [Weigel on the flee-a-buster]

Mischievous speculation arises about Bill Sammons’ unhealthy obsession with young farm animals [speaking of which]

Fighting back (or stuff we’d be doing if we’d elected Dennis Kucinich)

DeMint takes union-busting national

Trumped and Trumpededer [ABC embraces the Trumpededer]

Cheating for Superman [more], and yes, MN wingnuts are eager to tie teacher pay to test scores

As the right nutters out, Alex Jones gains greater popularity

Top GOPers see popularity slide

That hate crime in Fairfield? The Des Moines Register followed up and learned that 1) there was no party, 2) the “offending” parties were teens watching a horror movie, 3) Alshaibi was drunk, 4) the owner of the house was present but asleep, 5) it was a mixed family (white husband, Japanese wife) with no record of negative racial interactions.

A twelve-minute video of Alshaibi makes it clear he didn’t really know what was going on but he does remember to hype his video about seven and half minutes in.

In other Iowa news, Riverside’s Trek Fest is at risk due to insufficient funding. That and the non-Terran cast members weren’t sure if they’d be well received by the all-white community.

And maybe that’s inappropriate snark on my part. A rights group is still demanding to see Iman Obeidi who is being held incommunicado and who is now being sued by the militia members she accused of rape. An ugly situation that will surely get uglier, especially if the American right wades in.

Yes, the right’s twigged to the PR advantages of accusing regimes of rape and crimes against women. In today’s L.A. Times Jonah Goldberg blithely dismisses American feminism (equality has been achieved!) and then identifies jihadism as “largely a male problem” before ripping Islamic culture for its treatment of women.

Um, I think those are our allies Goldberg’s talking about. S’OK, let him talk, and when their pundits are done gassing on and on we can compare notes and determine out ALL the countries that fail to meet the right’s new feminist standards.

The longer they lie and bullshit and flip flop, the more people notice.

Plus, more proof that Utah’s polygamists are just child molesters, not that Mormonism doesn’t traditionally embrace child molestation.

And, in breaking news, lefties are being mean to Michelle Malkin. Sorry to hear about her cousin, but last time I looked she’s never apologized for smearing a twelve-year-old boy for living in a row house with nice countertops.

17 named in clergy sex-abuse case? Not if you read it in the Strib where only two of the 17 are identified by name. (Brother Pascal Brisson who has left the abbey, and the Rev. Pirmim Wendt, who is dead.)

I guess before they tell you all the names you have to identify yourself as a victim, then point to the different parts of the doll that the monks touched. Then, after the Strib’s published your name, maybe they’ll let you see the list.

UPDATE: Apparently the Strib had a link in a sidebar that I didn’t notice even though I was looking for it. And that was enough to get them ripped by some Catholic apologist.

Etc.:

2,500-year-old brain found in British Iron Age pit (the news story, as usual, leaves out the part about the brain glowing ominously and Constable Markley’s subsequent aberrant behavior)

Best library photo ever

Critics go after new Jane Eyre

Boing Boing links to Schmelzer (great cause, glad to see the A-list run with it)

After years of innuendo and suspicions, Scott “Dilbert” Adams outed as nerdcore sexist

And here’s a video of the band I was watching the first (and only) time I did e. (Way too much fun but two days later I was profoundly depressed and seratonin-depleted.)

Over the weekend I watched and fell in love with London Boulevard, a Tarantinoesque Colin Farrell movie. The London underground patois is hard to follow and there’s lots of mumbling, but I was leaning forward in my chair most of the time anyway. Great contributions from Ray Winstone and David Thewliss, but Keira Knightley’s role is more of an extended cameo and almost incidental to the movie.

Even my movie buff friends hadn’t heard of this one so maybe I’m overrating it but I know what I like, and I loved this movie.

Insanely good news video

March 28, 2011

capitalism, economy, fraud

Und vhat vas your mutter’s religion?

March 28, 2011

linkcetera

8 Comments

Gary Fine, the Strib’s resident Arabist, takes it upon himself to define who is and who isn’t Palestinian. An interesting subject, one that leads me to wonder how many Strib employees are Jewish? Which sounds like a rude question, at least until you read Colin Covert’s review of Miral in which you’re introduced to the “controversy” almost before you find out what the documentary is about.

The children of the victims continue to grow up to be just like their elders’ oppressors. Zionists teamed up with South Africans at a time when that Apartheid practicing nation forbid archeologists from exploring whether or not black Africans had lived in South Africa before the Dutch arrived (the answer: hell yes). Fine and friends are equally invested in proving that “so-called” Palestinians have no more claim to Israel than the transplanted Europeans who settled there after being “thrown” out of Europe, and they’re willing to hang out with some unusual allies in the process. [more] [And here's a sample of the swill the major media dispenses daily.]

And no, you still can’t mention Helen Thomas’s name in polite Beltway society. This is a complex game with ridiculous rules and only two outcomes: the continued ruthless suppression of Palestinians, or the bloody destruction of Israel.

More politics:

Krugman on the thought police

Five dead babies (but it’s OK, they were illegals) (it could have been worse, they could have grown up to become Mississippian juvies)

No surprise here: Iowa Gov. Branstad conducted very narrow searches when hiring new dept. directors (I don’t think any Palestinians — or liberals — made the cut)

Easily the trumpest asshole on the planet [trumperer]

Yes, it’s a dirty ad, but how do you do a clean ad about a Prosser-tute? especially when the Breitwhores are invading?

Mom fined $200 because kids held up a Solidarity Forever sign

ThinkProgress with a brief history of rightwing voter suppression

Clusterfuck Nation on Inside Job [Steven Benen: "on purpose"][Bernie with the cure]

Glenn W. Smith on Fuddism

The latest in Steve King-a-ling news

Blue Texan on the Kochs [much more from Glenn Greenwald]

Bill Maher crosses several lines

Howie the Whore sighting

News:

Five arrested for rape of Eman al-Obeidy (but it still appears that no one has a handle on what’s going on) [more]

The Kill Team

Profits up, economy down — thirty years of Republican economics bear fruit

Kinder, gentler . . . does anyone still believe that crap?

World leader finally says global warming is real

Global allergies

Half a million march in London (no big deal, at least not according to the U.S. media)

Just sayin’

Fool me once….

Etc.:

When’s the last time you saw a picture of Dick Clark?

Geico, btw, was one of the last big corporations to stop advertising on Glenn Beck’s show

emptywheel on marriage (having been privileged to meet both Ms. emptywheel and her charming Irish partner, all I can say is, most married people should be so happy)

ChiTrib links to a story about Wrigley Field switching hot dog vendors three times on its online front page (but not under Health or Food & Dining)

Suppressing findings when research doesn’t go the way they wanted

Meet Her Honor, Judge Macropodidae Kangaroo

How corporations fight for their freedom to not tell us what’s in our food

Slipknot-Justin Bieber mashup? No, I don’t think this was necessary, but having been made I find it utterly fascinating (feel free to share this link with pre-teen boys and girls whose parents you really, really hate)

Sir Indulgence?

Another 12-year-old safely locked up, this one in Vermilion, Ohio

A crack in the wall? NCI becomes first NIH agency to OK medical marijuana (but a five-year sentence is still a five-year sentence — good thing we’ve got more doctors than we need)

Harry Coover, R.I.P.

He invented a useful product. Higher praise than that is hard to come up with unless it would be for inventing the internet, which Paul Baran, R.I.P., played a role in

Dorothea Puente, Rot in Hell

Revising my comments

March 27, 2011

linkcetera

4 Comments

So I spent part of yesterday being an asshole and questioning the story of Iman al-Obaidi, mostly because I found it incredible that even gang rapists would literally shit on one of their victims. Even among rapists that’s the kind of behavior that wins you funny looks. Then again no one makes you pass a psychological test when you take a job enforcing order for a dictator (or guarding a prison in Iraq).

The tipping point for me was this bit of new reporting:

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim initially suggested that the woman was drunk and “suffering mentally.” Later, after being pressed by reporters to be allowed to interview her, he said she was found to be sane and her claims were being investigated.

“It’s not a political case whatsoever,” he said. “It’s a criminal case.”

Frankly, I’d expected the Ghaddafi folks to deny any of it ever happened. That they’re responding to the incident in this manner legitimizes it and now I expect this to get more coverage. The downplayed initial coverage, as much as anything, made me suspect that the news orgs had their doubts.

“Claims rape, seeks coverage” is hardly a ringing endorsement. When the media tells as many lies as ours does, it’s hard to sort these things out. Most of the links I share are to stories I’ve seen lots of coverage on. This story had a lot of witnesses but the circumstances were incredible to the point of being unbelievable. I wish I’d been right the first time. I’d rather believe in CIA scumbag tricks than this kind of inhumanity.

Now I’m just wondering why this story isn’t getting more play. Could the media be downplaying this out of fear of offending the Republicans who are now firmly on the record as opposing whatever Obama does in Libya? Check out today’s newspapers: this story is there, but nowhere near as prominently as you’d expect it to be.

My prediction? The moment a big name Republican asks WTF?, this will be front page news for weeks on end. No WTF?, and this story will hang around on page 28a for a while before disappearing entirely. News that doesn’t fit the Republican agenda doesn’t get covered.

WI:

Inflammatory garbage from Katherine Kersten (it’s almost as if she’s trolling for a brick through her front window so she can take her victimhood to the national level but if the comments are any indicator, she’s just making a pariah of herself) (incredibly, she has a link to this, and the nerve to claim that racist muckfaker Lee Stranahan is a “liberal”?!)

Workers talk back to Gov. Walker (next week Kersten will O’Keefe their remarks until she wrings a death threat from them) [more]

The bill [more]

Unionizing on upswing

WI’s labor history

Kochtopuses (Kochtopi?)

Florida

Guns and Disney: AZ wallows in their apostasy

Virginia: brought to you by Depends and Metamucil

Trump and Trumperer

Gingrich keeps digging

The latest in Bachmann [red meat edition]

Beck goes full Birch

Hannity goes full Birther

Idaho’s Republican Superintendent of Public Education’s resume:

Education:

Classes at Boise State and Ricks College, Bachelor of Art (2002) in Weights and Measures from Thomas Edison State College, a non-accredited on-line degree factory supposedly based in New Jersey.

For real. As is your permanent record.

The Strib’s C.J. witlessly repeats everything Stan E. Hubbard told her about The Kennedys miniseries, the malicious reichwing smear on America’s first family of liberalism. Stan E. Hubbard being an expert on miniseries, modern history and journalism? Nah, he’s just the guy who’s going to inherit the station and daddy’s billions.

I just remember him as the first person on my end of Midway to buy a Hummer. I remember because I saw him driving it a couple of times and each time he had a look of sheer terror on his face as he tried to avoid sideswiping parked cars while missing oncoming traffic.

Oh, and ~~Preston~~ Prescott Bush traded with the Nazis. Every story about the Kennedys should be paired with a story about the Bushs, but we’re never going to see a truthful miniseries about that family, are we? Too bad, the scene of George H.W. Bush in Dallas on December 22, 1963, would have been interesting. Sadly, most of the right’s worst behavior is covered up by our secrecy laws.

After the Phelpses leave the pain remains.

I love the 1st Amendment but we need to enshrine the right to privacy in the Constitution as well. Weddings, funerals and kids’ birthday parties really should be completely off limits.

The Phelpses are sick, twisted people. They’re all related for a reason: if you didn’t grow up being mentally and emotionally abused by Fred Phelps, why on earth would you buy into his gospel of hate? There are times when the state should take children from their parents, and physical and sexual abuse/incest shouldn’t be the only criteria. Raising children to believe in hate should be grounds enough to place them in a foster home.

That special state senate election is this Tuesday. Saturday’s mail brought me a handwritten plea from D.J. Danielson to vote for John Lesch but that was trumped by a Saturday night call from Mary Jo McGuire asking for my vote.

I’m leaning McGuire but any of the three candidates could sew up my vote by promising to legalize marijuana, illegalize Mary Kiffmeyer, and bring peace to the world. Also puppies and cupcakes with sprinkles.

Our two-tiered society has arrived:

No, it’s not wise to bite off more student loan debt than Republican wage stifling will permit. Those jobs aren’t for your kids: only the affluent may send their children to college now. Them and lottery winners so yes, there is upward mobility but only if you play.

Etc.:

This is a complicated country and we need to rethink voter registration requirements — would it be bad to let people have the option of voting where they were born even if they no longer live there?

Household wealth plummets (but only for most of us)

You would think there would be riots every day….

My bad, the last round of pederastic priests were actually Jesuits

Your weekly dose of heartland, with a side of Mick Arran (and Avedon with your coffee)

This is exactly the kind of stupid shit that never accomplishes anything other than letting so-called leaders off the hook for their inaction

Making truckers pay to listen to music in their cabs (seriously)

I’m not big on ecology, but this missing bees stuff is seriously disturbing (also Ellen Page seems like a great kid, so much so I’m surprised the right’s not smearing her yet)

Bill Maher’s no Mencken, but he’s about as close as we’ve got

GLBT Gandhi

From WINston: “Joy Division cover by Macedonian Serbs playing bagpipes”

Vote for Blue Gal (she’s with Driftglass).

Liz has gone beyond the obits and now is being used:

I’m done being mean now, she obviously had many, many fans, some of whom are killing her other fans.

Geraldine Ferraro, R.I.P.

A grudging acknowledgment.

The boss of US

March 26, 2011

linkcetera

3 Comments

More madness, and I’m not talking college basketball. Gov. Walker and the Fitzgeralds have resorted to extraordinary measures to implement their union crushing bill. Yes, it’s complicated, but end-arounds restraining orders usually are.

From the petty to the perverse, when Republicans are in charge it means they get to be the boss of everyone and that includes reading your email. [more] [more] [more] [you know you're losing the PR wars when even Boing Boing throws up in its mouth]

This too will pass. [Driftglass on payback]

Prosserphilia

Prossernoia

ProsserMart

Meet the Prosser

Frottage fest in Des Moines (unless you’re Mormon)

Trump and Trumperer

Bachmann hires Birther to run her Iowa campaign

Steve King and Michele Bachmann sitting in a tree (o-f-f-e-n-d-i-n-g Chuck Grassley) [more from King]

Sharia + Gov. Bridgefail = Pawlentyria?

Indiana update

New Hampshire out to out-Wisc WI

Privatizing debtors prisons?

More on Joe Arpaio and Steven Seagal’s cockfighting adventures (Bachmann looking forward to meeting Arpaio)

The eXiled on the Kochs: Dylan Ratigan gives credit, Koch-Whore Archipelago, and war profiteering

Other news:

Bob Herbert calls it quits and bails before the paywall hits (it doesn’t make any difference how large or small your readership, you hate to see it diminished by corporatist boneheads) [his last column is here]

Libyan woman raped, possibly by the same fiends who killed the incubator babies in Kuwait (not saying it didn’t happen, just reminding folks that the CIA’s trying to boost our hearts and minds and yes, one-act plays like this one are part of their standard repertoire right down to the “re-apprehension and removal” of the victim before she can answer any more questions)

John Adams on isolationism, a.k.a., minding your own business

Obama going full Bush on secrecy

Latest pedo-priest victims to settle get $166 million, making me wonder why Catholics bother with a collection plate when all the money goes to buggerees (meanwhile, in Iowa, a non-Catholic preacher gets into Dutch) [yes, I'm going to hell for that last pun—see you there]

Long story on anthrax asks if Ivins was innocent, but spends most of its time making the case against Ivins (surprise! people who make weapons of mass destruction are somewhat sick and twisted at home as well)

Killing banksters is a crime?

Even the WaTimes thinks the TSA is a rogue agency

More on GE’s tax evasion [still more from bmaz]

Too “hot” for TV? Even the spin is libelous:

[Harv] Furman [director of market investments for Compass Point Media] said advertisers may be more nervous about the ethnic slurs that fly out of patriarch Joe Kennedy’s mouth than JFK’s bedhopping. “Advertisers are very sensitive about being politically correct in today’s media environment,” he said.

Hey, this piece of work got four stars from the NY Post Fine Arts columnist even if historians think otherwise. Especially egregious is the movie’s claim that JFK blackmailed Dr. King even though FBI surveillance of King didn’t begin until just a month before JFK’s assassination.

No good deeders can ever go unpunished, especially not when it’s politically convenient. The hard right has been demonizing this family my entire life. When Teddy died I had to speak sharply to my mother to stop her from launching into a litany of Fox-repeated libels, reminding her that I’d worked for Ted.

As much as anything, the Kennedys are reviled for sharing their wealth instead of hoarding it (which is why the family’s nowhere close to being billionaires). Not a perfect family, but when yours has done more for this country, feel free to say so. In the meantime, this should drive a nice wedge between Catholic Republicans, most of whom were probably raised with a picture of Jack in the living room.

The ChiTrib reminds us that while reichwing dirt can always get aired, our TVs are still being censored:

No, nothing to see on that channel, just keeping clicking until you come to a corporately approved news disinformation station.

Special legislative election coming up in my neighborhood. The DFL declined to take sides in the Lesch-McGuire primary. Lesch smells more DFLy to me, but McGuire’s certainly rank and smile as well. Leave a comment if you have one.

Etc.:

UK to call it quits on the War on Drugs? (but it’s OK in Texas if the prosecutor likes your music)

Education is, hopefully, thwarting inroads the anti-vax idiots have made into the local Somali community (I’m surprised more Republicans aren’t anti-vax given their extraordinary, Sharia-like hatred of non-military science)

Food dyes triggering hyperactivity in kids?

Where I come from, you do not name cattle after people (and no, I did not know someone had named a cow after my friend Robin Marty which bothers me because Robin is not a good name for a cow anymore Angus is for a parakeet) (my favorite? a turtle named Fluffy)

Sucker Punch (CGI as god) (and no, superheroines in fishnet stockings is NOT the opposite of steroidal guys in tights)

Microsoft tries to re-Deathstar itself

Kindlefish (the devices strike back)

Crack dealers who make $7k a day go to prison for life: why do spammers get away with it? [see also the best Meth poster ever!]

Dick Cavett on Liz [less than 24 hours after she was buried, the gossip rags ran with Liz's "don't repeat this 'til I'm dead" James Dean story]

ChiTrib on “which version of dead Liz do you fantasize about?”

The Mississippifarian, R.I.P.

The other white meathead (no, not that one, not that one either, no, further to your right, further, further….)

March 25, 2011

linkcetera

4 Comments

[Note: a little late this morning because I was enjoying myself way too much.]

Carlos Lam.

In an email from February 19, Indiana deputy prosecutor Carlos F. Lam told Walker the situation presented “a good opportunity for what’s called a ‘false flag’ operation.”

….”If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions,” Lam said in his email.

“Currently, the media is painting the union protest as a democratic uprising and failing to mention the role of the DNC and umbrella union organizations in the protest,” he continued. “Employing a false flag operation would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions.”

Yes, a Republican prosecutor recommended faking an assassination attempt and then framing the unions for it. Which is absolutely nothing at all like dressing prisoners in Polish uniforms and leaving them dead on your border.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,ha, ha, ha,ha, ha, ha,ha, ha, ha,ha, ha, ha,ha, ha, ha,ha, ha, ha,ha, ha, ha,ha, ha, ha,ha, ha, ha. Not to mention bwahahaha! [more] [more] [more] [more]

Front page attention from major newspapers? Our easily gamed media can’t wait to take Michele Bachmann apart. The Daily Glean:

David Weigel (who once had Rubin’s job), now writing for Slate, says: “Pollster and political guru Frank Luntz flew to Iowa last month to conduct a survey for Fox News. Twenty-six Republicans, likely to vote in the next caucuses, were shown video clips of 11 politicians who might run for president. They twisted dials, scored from 0 to 100, to rate the candidates. One of the clear winners was Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann. … The Iowans couldn’t twist their dials fast enough. ‘She hit 90 at the end,’ said Sean Hannity. ‘Those are solid numbers for anybody.’ Luntz explained that the voters liked Bachmann’s talk about business and constitutional principles. ‘Sarah Palin came in with significant support,’ said Luntz. ‘But after these voters watched Michelle Bachmann, Palin’s numbers came way down and Michelle Bachmann’s numbers shot up.’ “

It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Michele.

Mi-mi-mi-mi-chele, belle du droit, sont des mots qui vont trés bien ensemble (si vous etes un corn-fed idiot). In other news, one of her many, many former chiefs of staff says he’ll vote for the other white meathead.

Last night the Strib linked to the news that General Electric not only did not pay taxes last year, they forced the IRS to give money to GE! That story’s disappeared from their front page but was replaced with an op-ed so duplicitously pro-rich the comments are running 10 to 1 WTF?!

Yes, Haley Barbour would be worse but why limit your choices to the bottom of the barrel? Especially not now that Newt has detweeted himself? (untweeted? detwatted? twatbag? — Blue Texan says just go with trolls). Not to mention Trump and Trumperer.

If only they could stop everyone from voting, they’d never lose

It’s always about the money and the more they talk about God, the more it’s really just about the money (unless you’re sincere, in which case you’re probably fat)

And Obama’s not giving Shelby an itemized bill for $250 million because…?

I don’t think I’ve ever been more ashamed of Apple

More on why Republicans aren’t conservative, or anything like it

Taibbi on how CEOs only have to testify about some stuff but definitely not that other stuff

And ye shall know them by their unindicted felonies [more]

Pledging your Windex to a child who should have been Ziplocked (see also the Archbishop who fantasizes about marrying his mom)

Crushing labor one jackboot on one throat at a time

Abe Sauer on WI’s spring cleaning (I’m really loving Sauer’s coverage)

When you’re a reichwinger, the jobs find you

Dateless in Maine

Never apologize, especially when you’re making it up

And today’s best worded blog post title: Former Ensign Love Triangle Aide Indicted For Post-Senate Lobbying. Yes, that really does say it all.

Classic WTF moment while skimming L.A. Times heds this morning: Ex-Illinois state senator changes mind on U.S. government causing Middle Eastern regime change. Wokay, that’s kind of weird but then I clicked and discovered it was just Andrew “Laura Bush’s press hack” Malcolm’s latest stab at embarrassing himself and the L.A. Times.

File this one next to, Former newspaper carrier says Joe Biden gets grouchy if you throw his newspaper into the rose bushes. See also the WaPost’s interview with MMFA’s Matt Butler for more insights into the truths the right can’t bear to hear about.

I’m not at all cool with the no fly zone or any part of this fucking with Libya because they’re Libya crap, not when half our fucking Third World “allies” are just as scummy but are never called out for it. And speaking of scummy, Israelis debated J Street Wednesday and much spittle was had by all.

And bowlers: they should be wearing bowlers.

Also, anthrax, and a reminder of the awesomeness that is DHS.

Amanda Hocking cuts a $2 million deal with St. Martin’s Press (just as Barry Eisler turns down a deal from St. Martin’s in favor of self-publishing. This isn’t about self-publishing, this is about money.

I also found it interesting that the Strib story on Hocking had a sidebar of links to literary sites. ?! When did the Strib start linking out? If they keep that up, good things might happen to them. (They’ve probably been doing this for a while: links are so ubiquitous in my world I don’t necessarily pay any attention to them.)

And, for the umpteenth millionth time, if the Strib would unlock their archives, they’d clean up. Opening a new Cuban restaurant in the Twin Cities? Wouldn’t you love to buy ads only on webpages hosting old Cuban restaurant reviews? (Of course the real money would be in selling insurance ads on pages featuring stories about fires and natural disasters….)

Etc.:

The Triangle Waist Company fire is so hot right now, you can even read about it at sports blogs (unless, of course, you’re a dead Marianas Islands textile worker) [more from Driftglass]

There are principles, and then there’s HuffPopulism (promote whatever you like, just don’t expect them to pay for it)

James Joyce’s fucked up greedhead heirs strike again (no honor for Joyce is so awesome it shouldn’t have to pay in advance)

FDA bans shit not because its dangerous, but because monopolies are being diluted

Jacob Lusk is the new American Idol dreampie, and The Awl studies and annotates his moves with some awesome old youtubage

Fuck, no sooner than do I finally start watching Dexter on Netflix than Showtime assholes out and pulls Dexter from the Netflix streaming lineup (as of this summer) (gosh, how will I ever find episodes now he said while mentally reviewing all the online sources for copied content….)

NYTimes paywall delusions grow deeper (the underemployed will steal it too, and anymore that’s most of us)

Phone calls a relic from the 20th century?

Mpls is for flamers, St. Paul just has gas

Kids today . . . are mostly alright

OK, this is a Red Sox thing, but it’s still brilliant: bottoms up beer

Andrew O’Hehir with more of what I said, while Wolcott has a more heartfelt R.I.P. to ol’ Violet Eyes

A little late, but Lanford Wilson, R.I.P.

I didn’t connect the name with Hot l Baltimore, a play/TV show I thought very highly of. It was too good for TV and got yanked before the usual whiners could form a mob to object to the open homosexuality of some of the characters. [more about Baltimore (read graf #14 closely)]

Also, Dorothy Young, R.I.P., for being there

God, the Devil and Liz

March 24, 2011

linkcetera

1 Comment

Two posts yesterday because there was a lot going on so, of course, today’s newspapers have got zip — unless you find it interesting that the L.A. Times gave Elizabeth Taylor’s passing triple the usual coverage.

Online obits usually run in threes so my thought is that this isn’t a tribute, just a fat joke. Otoh, it could be argued that Taylor’s career pretty much ended in the ’60s, and that she spent the last 40+ years living off her celebrity (half her post-’60s output was for TV, and some of that voice work only [Maggie Simpson]).

Yes, remember National Velvet if you must, but remember also that her last three movies were These Old Broads, God, the Devil and Bob, and The Flintstones.

More etc.:

Lying anti-vax sumbitch visits refugee community suffering from measles after taking his profoundly wrongheaded advice (a Prof. Harold Hill for our times?)

NYTimes paywall is more expensive, but maybe that’s the point [TechDirt takes exception to that point]

Not a joke: Target’s in-store brand, Archer Foods, is watery, too salty crap (I’ve never bought a single Archer Foods product twice)

The dark side of Groupon (imho, ALL coupons are bullshit: fair prices coupled with stringent truth in advertising laws make for the best marketplace)

Vick interviews the author of The Tiger’s Wife, Téa Obreht

A shirtless Captain America

News:

Europe tougher on banksters

ABC has a long story on Bruce Ivins that rehashes every rumor and bit of dirt, but — as PW and others keep pointing out — the case is short on actual proof

Liberal news sites: fairly unbalanced?

Sheriff Joe teams up with Steven Seagal to choke chickens

A Tom Friedman evisceration courtesy of Driftglass

Allen Stanford drops suit (and in return Feds promise he won’t get the shit kicked out of him again — as long as our prison system is broken, it’s good to know that bankster ponzi scum suffer too)

If the money is there, Wall Street will follow

Reagan International Airport was without a controller last night (bust the union and then put the country’s most strategically important airport in the hands of a lone overnight guy who, for some reason, disappeared for a while)

More of the usual:

The new one drop rule: if one member of your family is a striking worker, no one can collect unemployment!

NPR fights back (kinda, sorta . . . you know what I mean)

Corruption, Incorporated

More on Walker’s private army

Nick Coleman on presidential aspirant Bridgefail

Kasich: still cratering

David Dayen on Wisconsin’s craterific business climate

I didn’t notice that Iowa elected a GOoPer SOS last year so yeah, now they’re trying to push picture IDs in a state with ZERO history of vote fraud

Jason Lewis called out on globular warbling lies

The more time the media spends factchecking scumbags like Haley Barbour, the better douchebags like Romney and Pawlenty look

Brand Obama, R.I.P.

	Lisa Finkelstein on 2011 in review
	Hydraulics are fun. on 2011 in review
	Hydraulics I guess on 2011 in review
	jonerik on An Immodest Proposal
	Tiny Montgomery on An Immodest Proposal
	jonerik on An Immodest Proposal
	Tiny Montgomery on An Immodest Proposal

—Norwegianity

Archive

Monthly Archives: March 2011

Late links

As mean as necessary

Making a list

Right

Insanely good news video

Und vhat vas your mutter’s religion?

Revising my comments

The boss of US

The other white meathead (no, not that one, not that one either, no, further to your right, further, further….)

God, the Devil and Liz

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