Don't be silly (or sarcastic either if you're liberal)

That will never ever effing happen. You can never be too crazy and too conservative.

But want universal health care or God-forbid the ending of the Bush Tax Cuts and as far as the Village is concerned you might as well be singing the Internationale.

I bet these fuckers in the audience lapped up the whole "death panels" bullshit

"GIVE US BARABBAS!"



Via Digby

Although the more relevant question would not have been about the person who had the money but eschewed health insurance, but the 50-year old who lost his job and cannot afford his COBRA premium and then gets sick.

I bet the "let him die" folks would be totally okay with that one too -- they don't believe in Darwin unless it affects who gets to die.

Next Up

CNN co-sponsors the next Republican debate with Gingivitis and Intestinal Cramps.



Although they and Palin are made for each other.

via Instaputz.

Justice

From Animals (or humans apparently) being Dicks.

Here's to Creativity

How many focus groups were needed to come up with this for NBC's coming news magazine?

“Rock Center With Brian Willams” will premiere at some unannounced point during the coming season

Torturing sanity and then some

Well this was typical, the most nerve-wracking moment of Dubya's Presidency according to Bunnypants himself was tossing out a pitch during the World Series.



Which is somewhat similar to me as I was only nervous once during his presidency and that was continuously.

But that moment (give or take eight years) of insanity pales in comparison to this:

...but radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh warned Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s competitors that he will go to bat for Perry if they choose to attack him over his claim that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme.”

So says the multimillionaire to his flock of sheep, many of whom are reliant upon...Social Security.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Apparently, even for Americans, there are limits

Bucky Larson, the movie about which AO Scott wrote...

...this may be the worst movie Pauly Shore has ever been in. Think about that.

...laid a gigantic turd at the box office.

Now on to making sure that abysmal looking Adam Sandler movie (redundant?) also tanks.


(Sandler by the way has a screen writing credit for Bucky Larson).

Oh Christ on a Cracker!!!

Really?



Clearly an awesome gift for children.

[Bet it was made in China]

Head imploding

Imagine the chubby this asshole would get...



If workers at a Meth factory were paid only $3.50 an hour?

It's as if his long, long, long life suddenly has lost all meaning

Awwwww:

Say what, Krugman?

I know that yesterday most Americans were supposed to solemnly remember how 9-11 was the worst of times and the best of Giuliani Times, at least until 1 p.m. Eastern when the NFL season kicked off.

But leave it to Paul Krugman to ruin this most sacred day by being a downer (must be a Colts fan):

Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

Why it is almost as if 9/11 was an excuse to sell beer, or for free hot wings at Hooters.

Don't be such a reality-based downer Krugman.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Never Forget!

Unless, of course, you are a dickwad.

On Eve Of 9/11 Anniversary, Cantor Insists On Massive Cuts To First Responders In Exchange For Emergency Disaster Aid

Atta J. Turk's timeless NFL Predictions

1. A few teams will be better than predicted.

2. A few teams will be worse than predicted.

3. Chris Berman and Joe Theisman will still be obnoxious.

4. But not as much as the Fox Robot, now with its own twitter account where you can feel free to use the hashtag #diejustfuckingdie!

--- Speaking of which, WTF? What Michael Bey-Inspired Circle of Hell hath wrought this?!!! And Hugh Jackman this is a betrayal of what those adamantium claws stand for (other than no masturbating -- which explains what makes Wolverine so cranky*)!



5. Finally -- and most obviously -- How your team does will either be a reflection of how much your town and/or region sucks; or alternatively will be achieved despite how much your town and/or region sucks.



* Author knows nothing about any comic-book universe but still feels this is probably accurate.

And in CNN's report this was once again ascribed to be evidence

That "we are winning" -- I guess what be way to observe an anniversary than by wheeling out the ol' chestnuts:

Dozens of American troops were injured when a suicide attacker detonated a truck bomb outside a NATO base in eastern Afghanistan, NBC News reported Sunday.

The explosion occurred at 5:30 p.m. local time on Saturday (9 a.m. ET Saturday) in Wardak province, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks against the United States.

It's a special day

The day when Dick Cheney retrieves the monkey paw from his man-sized safe and pleasures himself in remembrance.

Otherwise, I don't need anyone to tell me how to feel -- especially those whose "need" let to one disastrous fuck up after another just in time to blame the new guy for it.

Just pondering

How big is Rudy Giuliani's hard-on right now?

benedictxvi@vatican.va

Dear Mein Poppenfaust:

It's been a while since I wrote you -- and in that time I hath fornicated many o' time, occasionally when not alone. You?

But that is not the purpose of this email. Not, I write because I notice you recently commented on civil disturbances in England (yet remained silent on Burlusconi, so I'm guessing hooker are alright and Italy is a shithole?).

You commented,

last month's riots in England to the corrosive effects of "moral relativism," and warned that preserving social order requires government policies based on "enduring values."

Which I guess both explains and excuses this?

Missing more than just a pulse

Also a conscience:

The American Enterprise Institute hosted a talk with former Vice President Dick Cheney -- who's been promoting his controversial memoirs -- moderhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifator Stephen Hayes talked about how President Bush nearly cried in public, Condoleezza Rice burst into tears at home, and Hayes himself "broke down crying." Did Cheney have his own tearful moment? No.

"Not really," Cheney said.

Of course Stephen Hayes and Dick Cheney, that's a lot of fucking wrong on one small panel.

Oh, I see Matt Drudge is still alive

And a racist as usual.

I'm just surprised anyone gives a shit anymore.

That's why they call 'em Tramp Stamps

Laura Ingraham, no!




pic from here.

Nice to know moronic talk radio is international

Okay, maybe "nice to know" isn't the best way to phrase it.

Jabouri, an Iraqi exile who runs al-Rai satellite TV in Syria, had Muammar Gaddafi on the line at 4am on Thursday, rallying his supporters, attacking his opponents as "rats and scumbags", vowing "never to leave the land of his ancestors", and denying claims he had already fled Libya for neighbouring Niger.

The former MP was self-effacing about his scoop and unembarrassed about throwing a media lifeline to the world's most wanted man. It was the fourth time he has spoken to Gaddafi – sounding "strong and confident" – since Tripoli fell to the Nato-backed rebels last month.

Oh how I hope there is an expression of "al-diddo". I understand Gaddafi is also making Rugby World Cup picks.

So how was the speech?

I didn't see it, did Obama open up with a line about how many people he's killed? Because that seems a real ice-breaker with Republicans.

I don't know about you, but I'm going to avoid Sunday's news programs and shows with a real vengeance. I really don't need the folks who thought invading and occupying countries not involved in 9/11 was sound policy tell me what to think now either. Not to mention we are just now learning some pertinent information about countries that did produce most of the hijackers.

There is, however, one truly marvelous story about that day and the photo journalists that were there. It is moving, disturbing, and brought back one particularly stark picture that I had managed not to think about for several years. I cannot recommend the story enough.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Now THAT'S a supernova

In a classic and beautiful spiral galaxy some 21 million light-years away a massive stellar explosion is so powerful you will be able to see it with a pair of binoculars.

The supernova, named SN 2011fe, is the 136th seen by astronomers this year, but its proximity makes it significant not only for stargazers but to the scientific community.

The event was first observed on Aug. 24, only hours after it first became visible from Earth. Located within the Pinwheel Galaxy, the explosion happened 21 million light-years away – a relatively small distance by astronomical standards.

On the scale of astronomical magnitude, in which brighter objects have lower numbers, it was a 17.2 – about 1 million times too dim to be seen by the naked eye.

Since then, “the supernova of a generation,” has been brightening by the minute and will hit its peak this week, said Joshua Bloom, assistant professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, in a press release.

By Friday, the supernova could hit magnitude 10, still below the 6.5-magnitude threshold to be seen with the naked eye, but visible with binoculars...

SN 2011fe is located in the constellation Ursa Major, better known as the Big Dipper. "The easiest way to find it is to take the last two stars in the handle of the Big Dipper, form an equilateral triangle heading north and bang, you’ll find the Pinwheel Galaxy,” said Nugent.

He said a pair of 80 mm binoculars would suffice to view the display, but a telescope with a lens measuring greater than three inches would be better.

Just before the crowd went wild with his executions scorecard

Rick Perry said this:



Undoubtedly the Beltway then declared Perry the winner.

We are so fucked.

And meanwhile, unemployment still over 9%, global warming rampant, no cure for cancer

But hey, people can make awesome animated recreations of the Johnny Quest opening (click to see the original before viewing vid below).

Jonny Quest Opening Titles from Roger D. Evans on Vimeo.

So, um, there!

Priorities people.

Not even fit for a drinking game

I'm tired of Lucy and the football, let's have a new analogy for how tonight's speech will be perceived:

Oh the drama of a speech to Congress that gets rescheduled to accommodate Republicans only to have many of them not show up. One would think it is a sign, but in a Reaganesque move the President is sure there's a pony in that big pile somewhere.

There seems to be little hope that Obama is going to accept the reality -- or seemingly cares -- that the GOP is going to work with him on anything other than moving expenses (and they'll just pull the rug out on that one on January 19, 2013 too). Not allowing government to do anything but protect gated communities and release the predator drones otherwise is their raison d'être. The purpose of government is to show government cannot do anything -- don't take my word for it, take the word of a longtime Republican operative (the one only a few publications and we liberals have written about).

If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté. They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" - and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked.

And the only Democrats that don't seem aware of this (emphasis on seem) are the one's that don't appear to give a damn.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The pride of the American Educational System

Iowa always brags about our students high (comparatively) standardized test scores.

So explain the brilliance of people wondering why the 900 foot long, 110 foot wide battleship USS Iowa (also 38 foot draft) cannot be brought to y'know, landlocked Iowa?

Something pretty

Amazing picture of Saturn released by NASA. Take it away Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours in 2006 and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image. Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the image. Seen in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, at the left, just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth.

As opposed to the "Lighter Side" of it

Top Secret America Looks At The Dark Side Of The War On Terror

PBS Frontline is airing, Top Secret America, a documentary that explores how the government manipulated the public and expanded its powers all in the name of homeland security.

Oh how quaint, after a decade of saying this and being ignored, we've moved on to the latest "real issues" that right-wingers care about like denying the authenticity of birth certificates or editing video of anyone to the left of Sean Hannity.

Just another meaningless act of violence

Made more destructive by the easy availability of weapons.

God forbid we make it as difficult to get a gun than it is to drive or fish.

An accurate representation

Of much of ESPN's afternoon programming:

He also blew up the Maine

You would think once the Republican elites had rationalized away any responsibility they have had for 9/11, the economic collapse, and any other ill to befall America after the Civil War, they could be satisfied just going after the Obama Administration on its limited economic accomplishments (which at this point amount to 'well we prevented a complete collapse').



But if folks like Mitt Romney did that they wouldn't really be Republicans.

The chart [used in supporting Romney's plan], however, calls the period of time from 2007-2009 the “Obama recovery,” blaming him for the poor job numbers over that three-year period. As Romney surely knows, however, George W. bush was serving as president in 2007 and 2008, and Obama did not take office until January 2009.

Knows? Maybe. Cares? Not so much.

Besides you cannot beat the Romney plan, which is to triple the square footage of all houses owned members of his Administration (and also the houses of all nominal leaders of any occupied nation)...and to adopt all parts of the Ryan Plan, except those which are not awesome. It's quite the stimulus package.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

More shoes dropping

Not that you'll hear much about it over in this country.

Former News of the World legal manager Tom Crone has told MPs he was "certain" he told James Murdoch about an email which indicated phone hacking at the paper went beyond one rogue reporter.

Mr Crone said the email was discussed and "it was the reason that we had to settle the case".

In a previous hearing, News Corp bosses Rupert and James Murdoch said they were not told of an email.

This glittering I approve of

I generally disagree with public-pies in the face or glittering (though I reserve the 'Kristol Exception') but in regard to the Minnesota State Fair one, I whole-heartedly approve. Somehow last minute space was found for the anti-gay marriage group -- but NOT for the pro-gay marriage group. Nice going Fair when the issue is equal treatment.

And now, a good use for those chair-lifts:

I know he is no longer involved

But this Labor Day I remembered Jerry Lewis by imagining how terrible "The Day the Clown Cried" must have been.

Winner of the Dick Cheney Collective Shrug Award

Another glorious story of the collective war on a noun:

A Libyan rebel leader who was rendered to Tripoli with the assistance of MI6 said on Monday that he had told British intelligence officers he was being tortured but they did nothing to help him...

[Abdul Hakim] Belhaj was captured by CIA officers, in co-operation with Thai authorities, inside Bangkok airport. He says he was tortured at a site in the airport grounds and then sent to Libya, where Gaddafi had long seen him as one of the biggest threats to his tyrannical four-decade rule.

This was all part of the Bush Administration's loudly trumpeted "victory" against global terror by getting Gaddafi to give up his non-existent WMD program in return for being treated like an eccentric ally to the United States and avoiding all those nasty lawsuits.

Like all Bush Administration foreign policy, this attempt to fight reality had the results you would expect.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Stupid Things To Attempt One Week After a Hurricane

A walk in the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. Yes, I had huge welts all over my face and neck courtesy of not-shy mosquitoes! The hike wound up lasting less than ten minutes, at which point my fellow hikers and I did a one-eighty and fled to a drugstore in search of something to stop the itch.

No, I don't get out in nature much.

/scratches self

Totally unrelated: best feature films about the Civil War? Put 'em in comments, please. No "Gone With the Wind" and/or "Glory". Need less obvious stuff. Thanks.

Labor Day

Figure I might as well be one of the few locations to acknowledge the hard work of people in this country that manufacture things. I hope you can all get together to fill out a lineup in a softball game.

We all know there's no way this had been made a holiday nowadays -- it would be all
too reflective of a "socialist" attitude.

It's Happened Before

"Cheney Laughs off War Criminal Threat".

Here's the video:http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

It figures

Nearly a decade before there was one legitimate news organization -- ignored in the cacophony of a world of Villagers like Fred Hiatt -- who showed the Bush Administration overplaying the facts supporting military action against Iraq. That organization was McClatchy (then Knight-Ridder).

Move to the present day and the current non-stop Republican talking point that "regulation" prevents small businesses from creating jobs (almost as much [almost] as rich people losing some of their tax cuts).

And here comes McClatchy exposing it as the lie it is -- what do small business owners think of regulation?

None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it. Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-09 and its grim aftermath

And, of course, they are correct.

Which means, the White House will do what the Republicans want any time now.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The Headline says it all

And there's support for it as well (so you know it isn't from FoxNews)

Executioner Perry’s Murder Train Often Picks Up Teenagers and Disabled

He's a living (mouth) breathing exemplar of a T4 program.

It's a scam people

Sarah Palin isn't running...but she wants a few more months of grifting to continue to fill her coffers from pathetic dupes.

She's far less popular than say Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, yet they might as well not exist.

It's almost as if the media have priorities other than reality.

But, of course

Via Juan Cole:

Human Rights Watch found documents in Libya after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi that it passed on to the Wall Street Journal, which is analyzing them. The WSJ reported today that the documents show that Qaddafi developed so warm a relationship with George W. Bush that Bush sent people he had kidnapped (“rendition”) to Libya to be “questioned” by Libya’s goons, and almost certainly to be tortured.

Oh no, they're not bigoted at all

And the winner of the "he said it all in Mein Kampf Award" to:

Conservative columnist Matthew Vadum is just going to come right out and say it: registering the poor to vote is un-American and "like handing out burglary tools to criminals."

"It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country -- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote," Vadum, the author of a book published by World Net Daily that attacks the now-defunct community organizing group ACORN, writes in a column for the American Thinker.

American Thinker always has been my favorite oxymoron of a website so there is that.

And finally more from America's #1 Deadbeat Dad:

Tea Party Rep: Obama Is President Because He’s Black

I guess instead of having more of us punching a clock

Our leadership will settle for us punching a hippy.





Just rephrasing Atrios.

Austerity is clearly AWESOME!!!

The evidence is as long as the unemployment lines.

Employers stopped adding jobs in August, an alarming setback for an economy that has struggled to grow and might be at risk of another recession.

Austerity, IT WORKS EVERYWHERE!!!

All the more reason to tighten our Galtian belts even more!!!

Taking some time off

To avoid spending any time (or money) with his family -- America's #1 Deadbeat Dad.

It appears

That the current economic environment is not supportive of professional lacrosse.

Wait, there is professional lacrosse?

No hard feelings Silvio

Okay, maybe they have framed an American or two recently (maybe), but in this day and age of Republican hyperventilation and foot-stomping dominating our politics posed as "scandals" (terrorist-fist bumps for all!) it is in a way refreshing to see how Italy's leader just puts it all out there:

In a sign of his frustration at the investigations into his alleged crimes and misdemeanours, Silvio Berlusconi vowed in July to leave Italy, which he described as a "shitty country" that "sickened" him.

Which is quite an endorsement for a country when it comes from its Prime Minister.

Although to be fair, half of Wisconsin's Supreme Court justices are saying the same thing about Madison.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

I'm not a big film nerd

I'm not obsessed with them, I don't overly recite their dialogue, I usually -- but not always -- find a way not to feel ripped off when I see one.

But George Lucas is becoming more and more of a goddamned moron. Having produced about two-thirds shit with his prequels and that's generous, he's determined to re-write the original trilogy with as much stupidity as possible.

Take his determination to firmly ruin the last of the prequels (which was the only good one to that point -- but only in comparison to the first two really) with one of the most ridiculous moments ever.



Well, now he has decided that moment was so awesome he will repeat it in the coming Blu-Ray release of the last of the original trilogy (which, let's face it even in its original form was a clue to how bad the prequels would be):



Pretty much summed up in "Spaced"



But like I said, I'm not a big film nerd, as this post clearly proves.

Words to live by

Dennis G. at Balloon Juice summarized someone quite succinctly:

One thing shines through—Ed Henry is one of the stupidest fuckers working in any profession. He is an epic idiot. No wonder Fox News “hired” him away from CNN.

And why they have big plans for him. Once O'Reilly finally kills someone in a fit of rage (caveat, may have already happened for all I know) and gets caught (it's the second half of the premise that's the substantial thing, knowing how to dispose of a body only impresses Roger Ailes all the more) they're going to need someone to replace him (tired of parentheticals yet?). Ed Henry followed by Sean Hannity, there's two hours of struggling to color within the lines broadcast.

Allow me to say

I don't really give a shit.

Not a good sign

About those youth protestors in Great Britain this Summer (and France last Summer -- and yes North Africa and Syria this Summer) all driven in no small part by economic frustration and a feeling of powerlessness combined with abuse in varying degrees.

And now WELCOME TO MODERN AMERICA!

In July, the employment-population ratio for youth—the proportion of the 16- to 24-year old civilian noninstitutional population that was employed—was 48.8 percent, a record low for the series, though only marginally lower than in July 2010. (The month of July typically is the summertime peak in youth employment.)

Completely fell off the cliff in the latter Bush years and has not improved, and there's no impetus to improve it.

But hey Washington, you just go on letting the tea party decide things.

(h/t Amped Status)

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Some might call it "Treason" but IOKIYAR

Former Bush Administration official gave advice to Gaddafi about how to lie to NATO and specifically America.

Just look at those "job creators"!!!!

They've done pretty well for themselves:



Self-described patriots one and all I'm sure.

I see she's twittering in tongues

Anything for some attention:

The ultimate Rupert Murdoch News Corp Clip

Having Bill Nye (the Science Guy) on and then accusing him of confusing their viewers with scientific evidence.

Evidence and fact is not how they roll.

"It would be irresponsible to speculate, it would be irresponsible not to"

Heavens to Peggy Noonan, Bill O'Reilly believes in falafel for me, but not for thee!

Bill O'Reilly came to believe that his wife was romantically involved with another man. Not just any man, but a police detective in the Long Island community they call home. So O'Reilly did what any concerned husband would do: He pulled strings to get the police department's internal affairs unit to investigate one of their own for messing with the wrong man's lady.

Apparently the Roger Ailes' Fox Security force was busy intimidating Ailes' neighbors.

So what the hell, let us start extrapolating, via Jeff Bercovici at Forbes, how this is related to other recent FoxNews scandals:

To build a case that News Corp. constitutes a corrupt organization under anti-racketeering statutes, prosecutors have to show that there exists a pattern of wrongdoing sanctioned at the highest levels of the company.

And what have we here?

the charges against O’Reilly make it that much less unlikely. As Gawker notes, his boss, Fox News chief Roger Ailes, has a habit of using local cops as though they’re his personal employees. Ailes has also been accused of instructing an employee, Judith Regan, to lie to federal investigators who were vetting former New York City police commissioner Bernie Kerik for the job of running the Homeland Security Department.

All a mere coincidence I'm sure.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Good material for her act

"They're not dead, they've done be raptured!"

38 people have died from Hurricane Irene and its fertile supply of Bachmann stand up material.

I'm still outraged

Michelle Bachmann, anti-dry bigot!

And yes I'm raising my hand because I'm SURE dammit!!!

Non-living space? OMG, he's building a holding pen for a zombie army!

Mitt Romney, just your average guy:

Last week, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that presidential hopeful Mitt Romney had filed a permit application to bulldoze his $12 million, 3,009 square-foot “oceanfront manse” in La Jolla, California and replace it with a two-story 11,062 square-foot structure...

Romney himself told the New Hampshire Union Leader’s Joe McQuaid that he was merely doubling the “living space” of the home and the rest of the additional square-footage to be added was “nonliving space, including a basement and garage.”

5,000 square feet of "non-living space?"

BRAINZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Apparently we are not getting a chance to say "Oh fuck, NO THANK YOU!"

CostCo unleashes...I kid you not...the "Guy Fieri Marinated Meat Variety Pack"

Tack Righter

I go out of my way to ignore FoxNews. But my father is visiting me and well, he's also suffering from a bad cold and watching hour after hour of FoxNews drones seems to be his cup of tea (as opposed to actually y'know drinking tea when you're sick, that's Republican logic for ya'). I spent most of the morning at my office working so it may not have been a continuous thing, but every time I passed by the TV yesterday afternoon there was some GOP talking head or Eric Cantor talking about Obama implementing "job destroying regulations". Why it is almost as if they decided on a theme together!

Why this sudden tactic?

Oh...

The White House appears to have achieved one of its primary goals following the debt ceiling deal, with congressional Republicans showing little interest in extending budget fights through the fall.

Somebody...not the White House...can read polling. Meanwhile, "leadership" to the Administration continues to mean only criticizing your base, not the ostensible opponent America wants you to confront.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

How shrill, how accurately shrill

Oh dear, there goes that damn Krugman being all accurate again on the GOP:

Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect.

Heaven forbid we allow a good corporate political donor to be at all inconvenience

A year after a prominent Iowa Egg producer tried to use salmonella as a WMD, how's that reform going?

Ca-ching!

Iowa egg producers don't have to disclose salmonella test results to state or federal regulators, egg farms are told days in advance about inspections, federal regulators don't fine or close egg farms where violations are found and some egg farms refuse to tell government inspectors what brands their eggs are sold under.

Evidence

Well in additions to their patent crimes against spelling, the Gaddafi regime, or more the Gaddafi family running the regime is about as bad a collection of Fredos that could be imagined...without any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

I do worry about some level of "tossing babies from incubators" in these stories, but considering this case is documented with some actual journalism it seems pretty legit. One does wonder just what nightmares the House of Saud (our buddies) and the Assad family are hiding as well -- and one does wonder how such things will be exploited by our nation's caste of perpetual war whores to see something gets done about it...selectively (and expensively without any thought of blowback).


Video is disturbing

Well yes...and your various apologies are where exactly?

Oh, I see, George Will says Cheney should apologize.

Well, yes...and more than that also.

But where, I wonder, are the column millimeters of apologia from George Will? For example, why he shouldn't be placed on one of our planet's rapidly disappearing ice flows...the ones he has no understanding of?

Showing the kind of leader he'd be

Apparently Rick Perry figured now was the time to get out his dumbest statements. While much of the nation -- but most importantly the national media -- was obsessed with their own problems.

And this is Rick Perry and dumb on the Rick Perry scale is pretty impressive.

“It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people. The idea that they’re working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie,” Perry said. “It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can’t do that to them.”

Put that together with his declaration that Social Security is unconstitutional and you have an idea of just how right the far right has become. Even touching the program used to the the third rail, now the arguments made by conservatives in the mid-1930s are STILL cutting edge conservative ideas.

If our national media was paying attention this weekend you could assume that would be it for this candidate, he'd be politically finished (not to mention he conveniently makes the Cat Food Commission look like the moderates they dream of themselves as being). But, of course, the national media paid no attention, so it might as well have never happened.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Give 'em hell Mike

This kind of principled obstruction I can tolerate, human rights instead of the usual purpose:

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal said he'll once again use the power of his position to block any debate over gay marriage when lawmakers convene next year.

Unless the Council Bluffs Democrat changes his mind or is removed from his position, his stand will prevent a statewide vote to ban gay marriage for at least several years. Most Republican legislators want to refer a proposed constitutional amendment to voters, but Gronstal says he thinks public sentiment on gay marriage is shifting.

Some Republicans said Gronstal's stand will hurt him in his re-election bid, but the Senate president says he's not worried.

Please show some backbone

Funny, but more Americans while unhappy with everybody, are particularly unhappy that nobody is taking the Republican Congress (as popular as a nasty chancre) to task. Including Obama.

Stand up to them, is the new mantra.

We'll see, though I have my doubts, whether Obama has the demeanor to do so.

Manna from Idiot Heaven

It's enough to make your nervous system secede from your cerebrum:

During a campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa today, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) reaffirmed all the views expressed in his book Fed Up!, including that Social Security is unconstitutional, despite previous attempts by his campaign staff to walk back the candidate’s words.

These folks remain the best unintended friends of the Obama Administration.

Irene Prep Open Thread

Was very busy these past few days. In addition to navigating the usual insanity of work, attending this strange, record-breaking baseball game, and treating The GC to dinner at this vegan restaurant (it was good!), there was hurricane prep, i.e., making sure I had flashlight (check), portable radio (check), batteries for both (check), containers of water (check), and a full bathtub (well, the plan was to do that when things really get going here, i.e., later this evening). But then some friends got a mandatory evacuation courtesy of Mayor Bloomberg, and so I lent them my place for the weekend. They'll get the benefit of my prep, and I'll spend today at The GC's, bringing in outdoor potted plants, securing the screens, putting the outdoor furniture in the basement, and harvesting whatever can reasonably be harvested from what's left of my sad little veggie garden), and then it will be cooking, watching movies, reading, looking at the cat, and not a whole lot else.

What to read? Well, a number of people have recommended this John Tierney, article called Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? , so I'll check that out. I'll finish the Teju Cole and maybe start on Good Neighbors, which two friends have recommended. As for movies, there's the latest Mike Leigh -- Another Year -- as well as Queen To Play. The movies are contingent on the power supply, of course. As long as a tree doesn't fall on The GC's house, I think we'll be okay.

Some people here are fed up with the media hype and muscular government-mandated precautions (e.g., widespread, evacuation of low-lying areas, an unprecedented mass transit shut-down, and even casino closings (/eye roll) etc.), but this is my calculus: during a severe storm, maybe fifteen out 100 people do something ill-advised (e.g., drive through a puddle of indeterminate depth, go to the beach to watch the surf, walk across the George Washington Bridge), but with this degree of media and official anticipation, maybe only five will do so. That seems worth it to me. Or maybe I'm dreaming.

Stay safe and dry, everyone

Taint that something?

Puerto Rico's Republican Commonwealth Senator Roberto Arango is determined to "bear" down and surpass any candid Anthony Weiner junk show. He started posting pictures of himself on a gay dating cite. Now if he wasn't such a hypocrite and belong to the party of hypocrites, this would just be rather embarrassing, but whatever, live and let live -- But, he does. Meanwhile, he doesn't deny it really, but he has an innocent explanation:

You know I've been losing weight. As I shed that weight, I've been taking pictures. I don't remember taking this particular picture but I'm not gonna say I didn't take it. I'd tell you if I remembered taking the picture but I don't.

The picture that showed up posted of him?

Let's just say, he's ready to play catcher...oh, and thank goodness for pixilation.

So really, your classic weight loss photograph right, the one of how much weight you've lost in your taint?

Huh, imagine that

That Gaddafi guy spread false propaganda as fast as the Pentagon:

FOR DECADES her name was invoked by Muammar Gadafy and his apologists as proof of his personal suffering as a result of the US bombing of his Tripoli compound in 1986.

After US aircraft struck the Bab al-Azizia complex on April 14th that year, in revenge for the bombing of the La Belle nightclub in Berlin by Libyan agents, the regime announced that an adopted infant daughter of Col Gadafy, named Hana, had died in the raid...

I found an examination paper from a Libyan university medical faculty which was signed “Hana Muammar Gadafy” in Arabic. A photograph showed a woman who seemed to be Hana with a group of people, including Col Gadafy’s blood daughter Aisha.

A British Council certificate, dated July 19th, 2007, showed that a Hana Muammar Gadafy had completed an English language course at its Libyan centre, achieving an A grade.

Also, spelling alternative number 156 for Gaddafi.

I know I'll be fine

But I'm waiting for Chuck Todd to talk about how hurricanes on the east coasts aren't news.

The Virgin Suicides

Keep going Boehner, you can catch up to cancer if you keep trying (or tanning)!

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll shows Congress’ approval rating dropping to just 12%. It’s the lowest ever recorded in an AP poll.

Banned Words of 2012™: Another Update

New items in BOLD.

Because it's never too early to put the world on notice.

1. Foodie (When I was a single gal, if a date would describe himself this way, I would run in the other direction, not because I don't enjoy good food, but because such sorts were invariably boring moralizers and/or just big pains in the ass. They also tended to treat waitstaff like shit, and this is something that drives me nuts.) (See also, No. 9.)
2. Grand Bargain.
3. Social Networking
4. Tablet/eReader/iPad.
5. Facebook/LinkedIn/FourSquare/Twitter.
6. Tweet.
7. Sexting.
8. Smart Phone
9. Amazing (when used to describe food). (See also, No. 1.)
10. FAIL.
11. Too Big To Fail
12. This and this.

Put your suggestions in comments. We'll update this list as 2011 progresses.

Banned Words of 2011™
Banned Words of 2010™
Banned Words of 2009™
Banned Words of 2008™

Space Diamond

There's a planet a mere 4,000 light years away that appears to be made out of diamonds.

People are wondering what Newt Gingrich would tweet?

Well, hell that's easy:

Newt Gingrich is going to tweet any minute that we send a spaceship full of poor African men to go mine it.

Aw, dammit all to hell

The bond between people and their animal companions is truly special, and often heartbreaking.

Just wondering

In addition to having joint custody of Condi's portfolio, do you think Bush and Gaddafi shared notes over the best late night Cinemax movies?

I'm pretty sure Gaddafi didn't give up those WMD's and come away empty-handed...alone perhaps, but not empty-handed.

There was class warfare

And we lost, to those who were saying "you are engaging in class warfare"

$2 of every $3 in income growth from 2002–2007 went to the upper 1%

Thanks Bush Tax Cuts, good thing you gave us the deficit that means the middle class and poor have to have their governmental services reduced.

The "I got mine, screw you files" continue

A recent report found that one of the most important and least noted public programs is coming under massive funding pressure:

New congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts.

To say that SSDI is the thing that millions of unemployable Americans rely upon to live is an understatement.

But the future of SSDI and its funding is in the hands of people like Republican Representative Chip Cravaack of Minnesota. Last seen quivering in fear and spewing out blatant falsehoods about funding Pell Grants. Representative Cravaack is a full-on TeaParty baby, who thinks things like government assistance to the needy has already taken this country to Marco Rubio's land of ruination.

So just who is he who will judge those who are in need of disability assistance?

Cravaack's earned income for fiscal year 2010 topped out at $92,273; the cash comes in the form of disability payments for sleep apnea, which ended his flying career with Northwest Airlines, now Delta Airlines, in 2007.

Oh he's well positioned to be a hypocrite -- how completely unexpected. I bet he's anti-Union too, guess who got him his disability?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Hey just like Dubya's secret porn stash!

In Fapping News:

The ransacking of Moammar Gadhafi's compound is turning up some bizarre loot. Following on from the Libyan leader's eccentric fashion accessories and his daughter's golden mermaid couch, the latest discovery is a photo album filled with page after page of pictures of Condoleezza Rice.

"Mahmood, I tell you, this page is hard to turn, it's like it is glued together"



picture Sergey Ponomarev / AP

Yep, the Washington Post runs the place

Will the last competent writer left at Slate please turn off the lights so William Saleton can have some private masturbation time?

I'm guessing that will be you Dahlia Lithwick.

Just realized the proper FoxNews headline

He's going out like you would figure

Dick Cheney's book is coming out next week, I excerpted it some time ago, but there you go...

“There are gonna be heads exploding all over Washington,’’ Cheney told NBC’s Jamie Gangel in an exclusive interview that will air on NBC’s “Dateline”

Dick knows how to make heads AND hearts explose...and where to apply the electrodes to your package.

Excerpts from the forthcoming Dick Cheney bio

Written with the incredibly inaccurate and syncophantic Stephen Hayes, the Laurie Mylroie of ink.

Chapter 1:

Dick was born in the house his father built. Dick's father was a sort of a little man, common man. He was a streetcar motorman first, then a farmer, and then he had a lemon ranch. It was the poorest lemon ranch in California Wyoming. He sold it before they found oil on it. And then he was a grocer Lion-Tamer. He was a great man, because he did his job, and every job counts up to the hilt, regardless of what happens.

Nobody will ever write a book, probably, about Dick's mother. Dick's mother was a saint. A saint with eight teats and a dewclaw.

Chapter 2:

When Cheney was just a year and a half, he intercepted Japanese codes that stated they were preparing to attack Midway Island. He promptly sketched a crayola-gram to Admiral Chester Nimitz and changed the course of the war in the Pacific. For his heroism, Nimitz recommended Cheney for the medal of Freedom, but he was denied the award by Fascist-apologist Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Dick got his revenge at the age of four, when on a trip to Warm Springs, Georgia he introduced the resting Roosevelt to his pillow. [Sorry, classified]

Chapter 3:

1948, seven year old Dick Cheney tries to volunteer for the United States Air Force to participate in the Berlin Airlift, the attempt to keep West Berliners fed is known to young Dick as "Germany's second chance to get National Socialism right!". But just before he can bicycle down to the recruitment office he stubs his toe on the coffee table, suffering a nasty hangnail that would likely compromise his flight status. Darn the luck. Fortunately, Dick is able to turn to other priorities and engage in the war at home with incessent red-baiting of fellow second grader milk monitors and playing in Whittaker Chambers' pumpkin patch.

Chapter 4:

Dick hits puberty:

Chapter 5: The College Years

1960: Dick attends Yale, having won a scholarship for his High School Senior thesis in late 1958 "Castro's 26th of July Movement, an insurgency in its Last Throes". However, Dick has to leave school early after participating in the 'Kill a Commie for Nixon' program. Neverthless, it is determined by a council of Skull & Bones that Cheney will not be prosecuted because, after all, his victim was a liberal and from a mere middle class family. Dick drinks from Geronimo's skull and departs for Wyoming in 1962.

Dick takes time off from school, working for an electrical company as a lineman. However, in reality, Dick is listening in on phone conversations involving the Kennedy Administration. Later that Year, Dick visits Hollywood and gets a job as Marilyn Monroe's housekeeper going by the name "Eunice".

Dick and his High School Sweetheart Lynne begin sending each other letters and gifts. Lynne sends Dick the heart of a local farmhand, Dick sends Lynne the pelvic bone of a vagrant whose flesh he had boiled away. Their co-dependency grows stronger. On Valentine's Day 1963 Dick sends Lynne a letter that reveals the poet in Dick Cheney's soul:

Miss Vincent,

My regards to you on this February 14, 1963. Without you, my will to power would have stopped when I assumed hall monitor duties in junior high after Tim Wilson's 'little accident'. You have given me the drive to attain the highest levels of executive authority as well as introduced me to the consumption of human flesh. I look forward to maintaining a respectful distance from you for years to come.

Sincerely,

Richard B. Cheney

Dick returns to college this time at the University of Wyoming, to be closer to Lynne and available for late night sessions of passionless dry humping and random euthanizing of the pets of Wyoming Democrats. In the Fall of 1963, Dick who is double majoring in Unethical Behavior and Embezzlement, proposes to Lynne, saying the only thing he wants to do more than get in her pants is get the United States into a War it cannot win. Lynne chuckles, accepts and tells Dick he'll have at least two opportunities to do each. But first, she asks for a blood sacrifice to prove his devotion. Dick is puzzled as to what to do, but then just before Thanksgiving, he hops a train to Dallas.

To be continued...

Imagine the furor

If American senators tried to procure weapons for a vile dictator in the middle east?

Good thing that could never happen.

IOKIYAROJL

Dear Apple

Maybe you could rehire John Scully, or hey, Carly Fiorina is available.

Sincerely,

HP

Familiar Playbook

Hey, why don't I Mark Knoller make the most patently lazy and bullshit argument possible?

Good I idea Mark.

And before you impose any duty upon me to correct my silly and stupid errors, SUCK IT BIATCHES!



Make sure that lie spreads around the world a few times so you don't have to correct it.

Get your cheeto dust fingers ready Doughy Pantload

For the richest people of France think they should be taxed more, CLASS WAR EXPENSIVE CHEESE EATING SURRENDER MONKEYS that they are:

A group of 16 of the richest people in France has signed a petition asking the French government to increase their taxes. The group includes Liliane Bettencourt, the billionaire heiress of L’Oreal; Christophe de Margerie, the head of oil giant Total; Frederic Oudea of bank Société Générale; and Jean-Cyril Spinetta, president of Air France KLM SA...

The group says the government should create a “special contribution” that would target the rich.

“We are conscious of having benefited from a French system and a European environment that we are attached to and which we hope to help maintain,” the petition said.

Oh well, Jonah may still have support of the descendants of Coco Chanel.

It's just a flesh wound

If not for the bombing, the looting, the maiming, the pillaging, the raping, and of course, the killing, this whole thing would start to be relatively humorous.

...quasi-deposed, quasi-exiled former strongman Moammar Gaddafi addressed Libyans by radio this evening from an unknown location claiming his withdrawal was but a "tactical move" in the face of NATO aggression.

Hopefully he will be joined spiritually (from Hawaii) from Al Qaeda detecting quasi strong-man Newt Gingrich.

How will they be able to afford their sterling list of columnists?

The Washington Post Corporation's scam plan for maintaining a profit is not going to be so profitable anymore. Took a while, but people did have to rely primarily on word-of-mouth, instead of what they read in the paper.

For-profit colleges are facing a tough test: getting new students to enroll.

New-student enrollments have plunged—in some cases by more than 45%—in recent months, reflecting two factors: Companies have pulled back on aggressive recruiting practices amid criticism over their high student-loan default rates. And many would-be students are questioning the potential pay-off for degrees that can cost considerably more than what's available at local community colleges...

Some companies are feeling pain not only from students shying away but from their own tightened admissions standards. Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan Higher Education, like Apollo, now requires certain students to participate in a trial program before enrolling and paying tuition. Kaplan reported a 47% decline in new-student enrollment for the June quarter. Even without the orientation program, new-student enrollment would have dropped 36% in the quarter.

That'll teach 'em to even pretend to have a conscience!f

But the important question is how will this affect the ability of the paper to continue paying Richard Cohen, Robert Samuelson or Fred Hiatt?

Oh, silly me, they'll just let go of more actual reporters.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Funny

I felt something.

Being on the twenty-fifth floor of a swaying, crappily constructed office tower (the fucking thing leaks when it rains even a little bit) is a tad disconcerting, but the borg-mates and I were all cracking jokes pretty quickly.

Speaking of which, I loves me some Alex Pareene, but PourMeCoffee is pretty damn funny, too.

Funny

I felt NOTHING!

But I'm old and bitter, so that's what I normally feel.

Alex Pereene won the quip contest.

He's leaving to spend more time "downgrading" his family

Rimshot!

Standard & Poor's President Deven Sharma is leaving the credit-rating firm at the end of the year, the company said Monday night...

The moves come as S&P faces questions about its controversial downgrade earlier this month of ...