please remove your britches

as if it wasn't bad enough to have to take off your shoes to go through the gate security check now thanks to this guy we'll probably have to take our pants off too.

Happy Winter Solstice

Unrelated to the holidays, here is one or two interesting reads about the health care reform.

Somewhat related to the holidays, below are some cheery songs to help elevate you to the holiday mood.

Unrelated to anything at all: fun with google patents

Something to be thankful for

I'm glad I don't look at porn or use p2p applications, and always use the 'safe search' setting on google search because I would hate to end up in the same situation as the guy in CA who might do from 3.5-20 years in prison for some images buried "deep within the hard drive".

In other news, Republicans are mad at Al Franken since people have 'attacked' the ones who voted no on his legislation to mandate court access to federal contractor employees who are sexual assault victims. My favorite quote from the article:

“I don’t know what his motivation was for taking us on, but I would hope that we won’t see a lot of Daily Kos-inspired amendments in the future coming from him,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, No. 4 in the Senate Republican leadership. “I think hopefully he’ll settle down and do kind of the serious work of legislating that’s important to Minnesota.”

Book Signing

Proof that we failed our collective IQ test

See it here

green mile

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - The Green Mile
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

Did Israel commit war crimes? The world may never know.

The US House today passed a resolution (seen here) condemning a UNHRC report (Goldstone Report) on Israeli and Hamas actions during its war on Gaza (Cast Lead). You can see the report here(pdf). The mandate for the report was to look into war crimes allegations by Israel and Hamas during the conflict. The reason it was determined by congress to be biased was that it did not investigate Hamas rocket attacks during the years preceding this conflict. Unfortunately for the US House and Rep Steven Rothman (D-NY), who said:

"The report was not written to talk about 12,000 rockets intentionally sent by Hamas to slaughter Israeli men, women and children, versus the Israelis trying in many respects to minimise the damage to Palestinian civilians. So there have been completely different standards applied,"

the report did actually cover this topic, as well as many other misdeeds by Hamas and the Palestinians.

The other main complaint, via Steny Hoyer, was that the report singles out Israel among all other nations. Apparently the US House believes that if there are some nations that have faced no repercussions for committing war crimes, it is then unfair to hold any nation at all accountable for war crimes because it would be singling them out. This, even though the report is critical of both sides in the conflict.

Richard Goldstone, the principal author of the report, sent a letter to Congress detailing the factual inaccuracies in their resolution, which ironically was meant to show factual inaccuracies in his report. He did an interview with Bill Moyers that i would highly recommend watching. It is slightly longish but worth a view.

The question and investigation of war crimes is not, as many would claim (including the House resolution), a denial of Israel or any other group their right to self defense. Attempting to ensure international law is adhered to during armed conflict can be construed as a denial of self defense only by an extreme stretch of logic. As Goldstone said in his letter:

It is again factually incorrect to state that the Report denied Israel the right of self-defense. The report examined how that right was implemented by the standards of international law. What is commonly called ius ad bellum, the right to use military force was not considered to fall within our mandate. Israel’s right to use military force was not questioned.

friends in low places

I would like to call your attention to an article about our Allies in Afghanistan.

attainder

Funny clip regarding ACORN and bills of attainder (See here)

reps

balloon boy incident

it has publicity stunt written all over it

Moore and Hannity

You should definitely watch Michael Moore's interview by Hannity. It's in 3 parts on FOX.

Al Franken, forced arbitration

Al Franken got his first amendment passed! It requires federal contractors to allow employess to bring sexual assault complaints to court rather than force arbitration. Forced or mandatory arbitration has become ubiquitous in both consumer contracts and employment contracts. Even small business entrepreneurs are finding themselves cornered and ripped off by it. Mandatory arbitration is antithetical to any precept of fairness or justice. The courts have been starting to challenge forced arbitration requirements and perhaps capital hill will continue doing so as well.

How the Public Option is similar to Brett Favre and Bill O'Reilly

They are all nouns proper. There's now at least two confirmed Fox News TV personalities that like a public option. Both Bill O'Reilly and Shephard Smith seem to back one. Is Fox News slowly converting to favoring it? Seems unlike them, but they do know their audience

Weekend Viewing

Send them to Baucus

Out of the closet

Rory Stewart on Afghanistan

Ken Burns National Parks(limited time)

Joe the Plumber stand-up comedy

Story of Stuff

Kicked out

Child prostitution, both real and imagined

Over the last few weeks, as you probably know, short youtube style videos have been coming out that seem to show ACORN employees offering tax advice to two undercover conservatives disguised with dime store pimp-and-ho outfits.

Over the last decade, at least two defense contractors have been investigated over involvement with foreign child sex slaves. Others have cases of rape, debauchery, more debauchery, and coverup. Some notables are Dyncorp from Bosnia, Blackwater(Xe), KBR(a former Halliburton subsidiary), and ArmorGroup(this one is the most comical).

(Is it coincidence that the Armorgroup and ACORN scandals, which happened to be the ones with funny pictures and videos, received substantial puiblicity, while the others much less? Or is it some sort of sign of the reality-teevee times we live in?)

Last week, as the ACORN videos were gaining prominence, both the Senate and the House voted to cut off all federal funding for ACORN, and the DoJ is launching an investigation.


Congressional actions to cut off funding for pretend child prostitution: 1
Congressional actions to cut off funding for real child prostitution: 0


An Update: It turns out that I was wrong, and the legislation meant to end ACORN funding actually cuts off funding for any organization that has been charged with certain misdeeds. Turns out if it is enacted, it will de-fund the entire private defense establishment. Can it be re-written or re-interpreted to apply only to ACORN? If it is then it may be a 'bill of attainder', which would then be unconstitutional. Heavens, what a pickle!

sublime

I did hear right

It seems that Mr O'Reilly actually would like a 'public option'. Who knew?

Best news story of the week

All I can say is, that if someone punched me twice, and after the second punch their finger "ended up in my mouth", I might be tempted to bite the sucker off too.

Just who are these dirty fucking hippies?

I want to know who these people are that are angry about the indoctrination video Obama made to show children next week, that allegedly brainwashes them into believing in education, hard work, and being a productive member of society (aka a conformist corporate slave). hippies.

An Update: The near and dear to my heart Elmbrook School District did not show the video in school.

Another Update: A Texas school, that would not show the video during school, is planning later this month to bus kids to the local domed sporting complex to hear George W Bush, among others, speak. A Nested Update: They have now canceled the trip.

Yet Another Update: If interested in a case of real and worrying political indoctrination of schoolchildren, see this article of the fight to put Newt Gingrich in Texas Textbooks.

Plenty of outhouses (13:04)

I wish I would have gone for the free Faygo. Mmmm that's good.




motherfucking

An Update: I had a tip

Time to come home?

Yesterday the NYT ran a cover story about Obama's need for GOP support in the continuation of the Afghanistan occupation. Perhaps it is an ominous omen then even that support is showing signs of ebbing. One of the higher profile conservative columnists, George Will from the Washington Post, just wrote a column making the case for withdrawal; and just as surprisingly also published this week another column making the case for withdrawal from Iraq. At the same time, former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel writes a column in the same paper, a paper not known for its anti-war stance, highlighting the futility of our efforts to bomb the Middle East to peace. No one realistically should expect this to signal an imminent mass shift of the GOP's commitment to our indefinite involvement in these two countries, but if more unelected conservatives find the sense and/or courage to lose the strong on national security schtick and accept the wisdom of disengagement it is definitely an encouraging step in the direction of hastening the day of withdrawal. I thought Will's Iraq piece was especially well written, and while it would have been better had it appeared 5 years ago, it's better late than never.

Jersey

Can there be any room for a centrist at a health care reform town hall meeting

An erotic journey from Minsk to Milan

SC governator Mark Sanford's Lt. Governator is calling for him to quit. No word yet on who the successor would be.

Robert Novak needs a ballad.

To anyone who says not to speak ill of the recently deceased, I would like to say that Robert Novak was a useless waste of human flesh. I would also like to say that Gerald Ford did the entirely WRONG thing in pardoning Nixon, and it is a shame that everyone felt the need to whitewash that fact when he died.

Calling out edgrimly

I think this post had edgrimly in mind, pretty sure.

Death Panels

Have you heard the scary talk about the "death panels" and euthenasia that will be in Obama's health care overhaul? Have you heard breathless reassurances that it will not, in fact, have these death panels that will kill grandma?

While it is true that there are no signs that the proposed reform will have panels to determine whether or not you are worthy of saving, it is my opinion that they should. Everybody wants 'reform' and 'lower costs' for the country's health care system. However, very few want any expense spared when their loved one is about to die. If you have had any experiences with health care in this country, I am probably not telling you anything you didn't already know. When death is imminent, it is commonplace to take drastic measures and use expensive methods to squeeze out just a little extra time, time which is often spent unconscious and braindead, being kept alive by machines, or just as often someone is brought back from the brink to live out the few remaining months of their life as an incoherent shell of their former self that struggles to even put shoes on.

As Newt Gingrich pointed out, 1/3 of Medicare spending is spent in the last year of life, and half of that amount is spent in the last 2 months.

If universal insurance of some form is enacted, should everyone have to pay for these practices? Chances are you are currently doing so with your health insurance premium, and definitely are with your medicare tax dollars. It seems to me that a rational standard for end-of-life care should be established, and those wishing for expensive and extraordinary end-of-life measures to be taken should purchase supplemental insurance to cover these costs.

Did I hear right?

I thought I just heard Bill O'Reilly endorse the public option. I'll see if I can find video of it.

Talking Heads Healthcare Edition

Billy and Johnny are in a heated argument at the local school recess area.

Billy's dad is a greedy CEO and his older brother is Angry Guy.

Johnny's dad is a union thug and his older brother is Don't taze me bro dude.

Edifying hilarity ensues


My dad said you're a socialist


No mine said you're a fascist

Nu-Uh, your a socialist

No your a socialist

Am not

Are so

Yea? Well your a nazi

No way you're the nazi

Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler


{playground supervisor approaches}


What's going on here? I've been receiving viewer complaints.

He called me a socialist

He called me a nazi

Do you know what nazi's and socialists are?

Yea he is one of them

Yea he is one of them

Did you know that one tried to exterminate Jews and one is a worker's paradise that disincentivisis productivity?

I can't believe you called me that

I can't believe you called me that

Now apologize and shake hands

I can't stand this horseshit anymore

This, sir, I should not, cannot, and will not stand for

Your participle is dangling, pinhead

Up yours! You're the wost person in the school

{dramatic music}

Fuck your mother

kiss my bunghole

lick my teabaggers

....

some people have no common decency these days

Apparently someone is stuck arguing on a third grade level.
Some of us successfully passed on to the fourth grade

Well, I hope you two have learned an educational lesson today,
and thanks for being with us this recess.

If you haven't visited yet, you better hurry up

If you haven't yet made it to the creationist museum I mentioned a while back, time is running out because the IRS is preparing to confiscate it. (C&L)

Best news story of the month

Tasers and gasoline, together at last.

Nutbars, to paraphrase edgrimly

You may have heard about the "birther" movement, which is a group of fucksticks that think Obama wasn't born in the US and have "questions" about his birth certificate. Lou Dobbs can be counted among their esteemed membership. That's right, Lou Dobbs, taking his immigrant paranoia to a whole new level.

This week has seen some interesting developments in the saga. An increasing number of GOP Congress members have slyly encouraged the birthers, as can be seen in this entertaining short story:



John Stewart, as usual, did a hilarious debunking of it all that you should see.

When asked about the controversy, Gibbie-san had a pretty good rebuttal:



Today, Democrats in Congress came out with a resolution to honor Hawaii's 50th that also mentioned the Obama was born there, only to find it temporarily blocked. It is good to see them calling the crazies bluff, the frivilousness of it all notwithstanding. One can only imagine whats next with these crazy antics. This stuff is almost as good as Road Rules/Real World Challenge, and also almost as mind numbing, if not more.

Don't they use the buddy system over there?

Retired cheesedick Ralph Peters had a case of verbal diarrhea on the air and wished for the execution of an American soldier taken hostage. Shortly thereafter, he went on The Factor to regurgitate his shtick. I hope this pathetic excuse for a man was never actually in charge of a combat unit of any size. I think I will classify him as the asshole of the year.

Quick Poll

Hotter Press Secretary:

Dana Perino or Dee Dee Meyers?

Ode to Sanford

Amid a clamoring cacophony of calls for SC Gov. Mark Sanford to resign after word of his Argentinian amorè became public, he braved the meta mælström with this op-ed apology; proudly proclaiming his deep shame and regret for his prurient purlieus, and tempering the lamentations with a pledge to humbly do his part in God's larger plan for him throughout the remainder of his term in public service.

If sincere, perhaps Sanford- who was considered a GOP up-and-comer- and fraulein McCain could begin a new generation of Republican politicians, free from the overcompensation complex suffered by so many hypocritical puritan peoples' representatives, able to tolerate and forgive all the various and sundry godless sodomites out there.

Then again, perhaps not.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
House DC - College Bowls & Hate Crimes
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

Will this be the fruition of freeperness?

The time has come to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for [our] future security.

Thumb's up

This one is good too

What about empathy?

So there has been a big furor over the Sotomayor SC nomination. There's been much squawking from the GOP about this 'empathy' word and the necessity of the "objectively applying the law" where personal feelings play no part. Ironic coming from the political party that wants no criminal inquiry into Bush's interrogation policies that include some obvious war crimes, since there were the good intentions of protecting us.

During Sotomayor's confirmation hearings this week, one GOP senator after another took the opportunity to grandstand about judicial neutrality and empathy and race politics. And that is all it was--grandstanding. It's established wisdom that she will get confirmed, and many of them even hinted they would still vote to confirm. No one expected her confirmation not to go through. If the Senate Republicans were actually interested in criticizing her they would not have had turned down this guy to come testify. Jeffrey Deskovic was wrongly convicted and Judge Sotomayor refused to hear the evidence based on a late paperwork technicality. After seeing the facts of that case, is there anyone who would have serious concern about her 'empathy'?

Instead, they have dyslexic Frank Ricci testify since his case is more of the GOP base red meat about affirmative action than about wrongful convictions (something the pro-death penalty part would rather ignore). The whole uproar over empathy and race politics has been an opportunity to grandstand and has little to do with the actual nominee.

Sarah Palin has angered the Blob

Shortly after Sarah Palin resigns the Alaska governership, an unidentified amorphous blob of mystery goo is seen floating near the Alaskan shoreline. Coincidence?

Fish Tank Update

David Brooks had a bromance

with a US Senator he sat next to at a dinner once. This is one of the funniest interviews I have seen in a while.

Why can't we have a fuck-cam at Miller Park?

Somehow I am sure it is Bud Selig's fault.

The least interesting breaking news item ever

Does anyone actually give a shit if Roland Burris runs for the Senate next year?

Happy belated birthday America

Yet another sad case of cruelty to cute animals

The cruel, inhumane tradition of clubbing fuzzy wuzzy seals to death continues even in 2009. Can you watch the video below and not be moved to tears?

After 7 months, the votes are tallied

Today the MN Supreme Court ruled that Al Franken won the senate election there. I can't help but wonder what might have happened if Bush v Gore were allowed even half this much scrutiny. The thing I find most ironic about the ordeal is that the day after the election, when the small difference in vote counts mandated a recount by state law, Coleman was calling on Franken to move on and concede. Then he proceeded to drag the process out 7 months to the MN supreme court.

Doc I need some oats

Obama's FDA is threatening to regulate Cheerios as a drug, due to their "heart healthy" labeling. I wish I could say something funny about this, but I can't top the raw material.

Another sad case of cruelty to cute animals

An Oklahoma couple is accused of killing a puppy then skinning it to make a belt. (I don't think they finished it so they were unable to sport the belt) A local deputy expressed his outrage thusly:

"We're talking about a seven-week-old puppy, defenseless, seven-week-old puppy that can't fight for itself," says Muskogee County Sheriff's Deputy George Roberson.

As the deputy knows, animal hides should come from animals that are killed in a fair fight, much in the same way as the cows his belt and shoes came from were killed.

The worst part of the story? It appears that the rest of the puppy was thrown away, wasting valuable natural resources.

The local sherrifs office want's to make it clear that it has zero tolerance for such savagery:

"If you go out and kill a dog, skin him, dog dumping, any kind of animal cruelty case, it will be investigated to the fullest we find out you done it we're going to put you in jail."

Veal mongers beware, the Muskogee sherrif's office is watching you.

They're all gonna laugh at you Dick

The Obama DOJ thinks that statements made by very important people in criminal investigations should be kept secret because: if made public people might use it to make fun of them. Heaven forbid that (hopefully) candid statements from politicians might be made public. We must protect our leaders by making (again hopefully) truthful statements secret otherwise people might criticize them and hurt their feelings.

What is the world coming to these days?

Some hoodlums vandalized my yard last weekend

Priorities

My suggestion to the feds: Focus more on the people with real bombs and less on the people with fake bombs.

Ambassador Ventura

If you haven't seen the Larry King Jesse Ventura interview yet it is worth watching.



Of course the money quote being talked about, which is near the beginning, is 'you give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.'

White House Correspondent's Dinner

not bad but no match for Colbert in '06, even though I think your supposed to make fun of the current wh mainly



the teleprompter bit wasn't bad

fish tank @ 1 month

Charlie Sykes, Milwaukee's Joe Biden?

On the Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes on of the subjects was Joe Biden's statements that were offensive to the planes, trains, and mass transit industries. The general consensus was that the irascible Joe Biden says stupid things often, and it is funny. That's quite a Sunday insight. After moving on the discuss the swine flu in a general sense, Charlie Sykes said 'it's deadly, it's fatal'. I think if Biden had called it fatal that might be considered quite a gaffe too. Since it doesn't directly offend some large industries, the apology probably would not have been necessary, but it still would have required a 'clarification' saying he mis-spoke and that it is only potentially fatal.

Twittering Teabagger

The first and probably only arrest due to a combination of teabagging and twittering.

by the way

Happy Maiden Day everyone.

Movie Time

A few new movies I am anxious for:

Caprica, a direct to DVD prequel to Battlestar Galactica. I was just released and now at the top of my DVD queue. Basically the pilot for an upcoming series for SciFi channel (I think Syfy is rediculous).

Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio for Brave New World. Appears to be on the shelf for another year or two, but it could have potential. There's been some lackluster classic scifi adaptations before but if anyone could redeem the theme it would probably be those two.

unreality TV

One of my pet peeves is movies and tv shows that try to be all scientific but do a poor job of it. One of the worst offenders, in my opinion, is the movie Signs.

(spoiler alert)

So after a long struggle to find the aliens weakness, at the end of the movie they discover the aliens can be defeated with plain old water. Very dramatic and exciting as they spray water at them all and they die from it. What is wrong with this picture? I'll tell you. The aliens are out and about roaming the earth throughout most of the movie without protective gear. As you may or may not know, the air you breathe contains water vapor. It's called humidity. Would the aliens really be done in by water, then wouldn't the water vapor in the air kill them too? Or condensation? Or just a human touch would harm them from the sweat on your skin. It does not make sense, so you must acquit.

The reason I bring this up is because there was some logical inconsistencies last night on 'Chuck', which I usually enjoy watching. Not to be mistaken, the episode was still pretty good, but it just had a few issues that a minimum of thought should have led the writers to think twice about making it seem more plausible.

One of the 'good guys' was being held in the 'bad guys' underground bomb shelter. The general on the 'good' side decided to call in an F-16 airstrike. The main characters then were in a race against time to save their friend before the airstrike killed them all.

After sneaking in and getting to their hostage friend, the bombs started falling. I know it is TV, but the explosions from an F-16 airstrike that were supposed to take out an underground bunker were barely bigger than a hand grenade with a little more smoke and fire and sparks. Not the type of thing you would imagine would destroy an underground bomb shelter constructed as a secret fortress by the resourceful bad guys. How these puny explosions were supposed to take out an underground bomb shelter is hard to imagine. Aren't bomb shelters designed to withstand bombings? Especially bombings that look like they wouldn't leave craters more than a few inches deep.

To make matters worse, when the bombs start falling, the heroes proceed to flee the bomb shelter and make a mad dash for their mid-size sedan and drive away. Somehow they weave their way through the falling mini-bombs and get the the car and escape. I would think, if you are in an underground bomb shelter when bombs start falling, you would stay in it not run out into the open. Call me old fashioned, but a bomb shelter just seems like it would be the safest place to be when bombs are falling. Especially puny little ones. Somehow the F-16 squadron "missed" them as they ran away.

sob stories from the new entitlement program

Maybe I am not empathetic enough, but none of these 3 stories I read makes me feel the slightest bit concerned. I just wanted to laugh at all of them. Maybe slap them upside the face and say hey welcome to the world the rest of us live in where you can't spend millions a year if you are not gainfully employed. Where being successful is something that happens when you are good at something and use those skills to do something that makes money for your employer. A world where a fancy house comes after you work hard and save money, not before just because you deserve it.

The first one to catch my eye was from Ben Stein. Supposedly it is in praise of imparting honest values and self-sufficiency to his child. It reads more like a lament about how tough it can be to have to worry about money when you are making none. Not that that should be an excuse to live a lifestyle that is less than luxurious. That just isn't for Ben Stein and the people he knows. they deserve to enjoy the finer things in life. Just because his friends or child may not actually make any money per se, that should not stop them from spending it like they do should it?

Then there is this one from the NYT, which came on the heels of Obama floating the idea of limiting executive pay at bailed out banks to a paltry half million a year. Which really is not enough to live on in New York. As the article asks, can you really expect a successful bank executive to take public transport? Could they really maintain the confident cocksure air that is expected of someone in such a lofty position if they had to ride with the plebes on the train? The writer of the article thinks not. After the mortgage and co-op fees, nannies, private schools, cheuffers, private security, charity galas and the associated fancy clothing, personal trainers, Brooks Brothers suits, $250 an hour tutors, and, of course, the frozen hot chocolates, that half a mil is all but gone. These extremely successful people need to keep up a certain lifestyle to fit in and it would be just so inconvinient and embarrasing to have to give any of that up. These people are successful and deserve the things that go along with that success, even if Uncle Sam and the taxpayer have to help out a bit to get them through a rough spot for a while.

Lastly, there is the resignation letter from Jake DeSantis here, he wrote an open letter to AIG informing them of his decision to quit. He is just so upset about the mean things people have said about the bonus payment AIG made to him and some others that he has to get out. Even though he deserves the 3/4 million bonus he was promised he would receive after working for a year at a $1 annual salary, he has decided to give it away since he saved a lot during the few previous years and has enough that he doesn't need it that bad. I am not sure in what way he thinks he worked for a $1 annual salary, when the whole time he was promised by contract the $3/4 million payment. It sounds more like you are working for 3/4 of a million salary to be delivered as a deferred payment, what is the logical reasoning that makes you think this situation can be classified as working for $1 a year?

He does make a good point when he makes the analogy:None of us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house.

The only thing I would change up is to have the plumber receive giant kickbacks on every house for a few years for looking the other way on the electricians shoddy work which is what caused the house to burn down. Then, the plumber gets paid $742,000 to sort through the way all those houses burned down and help supervise their reconstruction all paid for by the federal government.

I find it extremely hard to believe that someone as high up in the AIG organization as he was, "head of business development for commodities," would not be aware of the financial shenanigans going on there. Iin that way his cries of innocence ring hollow.

A common thread in these and many other writings about the financial crisis and the compensation in the financial industry, is the sense of entitlement. We achieved the American Dream™! We worked hard and went to good schools and therefore deserve to make gobs of money and live a certain lifestyle. I can't really speak for each individuals specific merits, but hte unmistakable theme comes through that for whatever reason some have given themselves, they are entitled to a certain lifestyle, and even if they may not actually be successful in business or the business they work for is not successful, since they worked hard or came from a priveledged background, they deserve to get paid lots of money.

One lesson I see in the whole crisis is that the oft heard term 'too big to fail,' is too big. If any business makes bad decisions and takes actions that cause it to fail, it should fail.

While I am ranting, executives that fail should not get paid as if they are great, no matter how smart they are and what school they went to. If you drag a company down and get canned how is it sensible to give them a huge payment on the way out, the golden parachute?

Maybe some of the people like the resignation letter guy should be less upset about the furor over their lavish payments and more upset about the fraudulent money grab that permeated their industry and which now the taxpayer is being forced to subsidize. The common folk who lost almost half of their meager savings are supposed to feel pity for people like him who, if they are as intelligent as they think they are, must have been aware of the fraud going on, and directly or indirectly benefited from it and want to continue doing so when the fed is giving them a lifeline.

as grass roots as american idol

Maybe you have heard about the tea parties planned for tomorrow. Promoted as a grass-roots uprising (oxymoron anyone?) it appears they are the brainchild of two DC lobbying groups run by conservative heavyweights Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey, oh and FOX News. How are rallies planned and promoted by a huge TV network and DC lobbying groups, with pre-coverage more ubiquitous than octo-mom possibly considered grass-roots? I guess if the teevee says it enough it must be so.

Jesus died for your sins, Peter Green did too much acid for your listening pleasure

Take a look at this one too

Paper and corporate welfare

From a transportation bill meant to reduce the use of fossil fuels, paper companies have perverted its intent to obtain windfall payments from the government. The bill appropriated payments for using mixtures of fossil fuels and non-fossil fuels. Ostensibly intended to encourage users of fossil fuels to mix in various other fuel types, some paper companies have done the opposite. Traditionally they used a by-product of their process as fuel to make paper, they have now added some diesel to the mix to qualify for the 'mixed fuels' incentive. THe funniest part from this article is when a paper company spokesperson was asked about the ethical nature of this, their response was "It is what it is"

movie trailers

I am convinced that Judas Priest made their Painkiller album with the express purpose of being used in movie montages.







Update: Another addition to the lineup, this one for I am Legend



And a shoot-em-up song with trailer too



Another Update:
This one is begging for a vampire movie montage:



And this one would go good with some exorcist footage:

Ibuprofen is the root of all evil

How long before kids start keistering Aspirin?


Obama and Geithner are finally doing what Bush should have done 6 months ago.

this is a funny

It must have been the stealing of office supplies that brought AIG down

There's been controversy lately concerning earmarks in appropriation and budget bills. They received a lot of attention during the 08 campaign, and now the perennial earmark crusader, John McCain, is still going as strong as ever. He has recently taken up to twittering on the subject, and for some reason reading about John McCain 'tweeting' makes me nauseous. Whoever the hell named that website allowing that verb to come into being should be excommunicated.

In McCain's list of the 'porkiest' projects, and just about the majority of the anti-earmark rhetoric there is no indication they actually gave more than a few seconds thought to which budget item they would choose for their scorn. Just pick some that sound funny and make a mockery of them.

The list starts with money for a 'honeybee farm'. Boy is that silly...honeybees. What possible legitimate purpose could that serve? Pure pork. Who cares about pollination? Try again if there is a shortage of bees because some are dying off. You also have, at #6 of ten, the now infamous 'Mormon Cricket" earmark. No better example of pork than controlling a pest that causes large scale agricultural damage. What a waste of money.

Everyone seems to agree that the federal budget is a bit bloated. Yet the only thing the critics can focus on is earmarks. As John Stewart pointed out, make up less than 2% of the budget. The country has blown untold sums in the last decade on foolish wars, fraudulent defense contractors, tax cuts for the wealthy, bailing out failed investment banks, impractical unfeasible non-functional missile defense systems, unnecessary defense projects, and god knows what else. The valiant congressional crusaders still , somehow, can only come up with a war against earmarks. Political theatre at its finest.