Sunday, February 8, 2009
A Way To Revive Spending
Dan Newman in WaPo
I'm down with this idea. I just got a $100 rebate card from AT&T for something I bought six months ago. What I had to go through to get what they promised me is a story all by itself, but I finally got it. The point is, it has to be spent. I can't put it in the bank or cash it. It's just money back that I already spent, but spent it will be, tomorrow at Costco.
Give everybody back a reasonably significant amount of money and let them spend it on whatever goods and services they want, but not save it or pay down debt. It will get into the economy in a New York minute. Call it 'trickle-UP economics'.
That's where the government can help right now. Investment in infrastructure and education may pay off in the long run, but those jobs and projects take time to create. What small businesses need, immediately, is healthy demand for their goods and services.
The rebate checks of last year aimed to provide just that, but most Americans saved the money or used it to pay down debt. Less than 20 percent went to bolster consumer spending. There's little reason to expect more from the proposed $1,000-per-household tax cut in the current stimulus bill.
A better choice would be something Americans are likely to spend, and without huge logistical headaches: a gift card. By sending every taxpayer a $2,000 debit card, the government stimulates spending directly. The card doesn't get deposited with a bank, a step that greatly reduced the use of last year's rebate checks for new spending, and with a defined expiration time, perhaps a year, the program could help precisely while other programs get underway.
And such cards allow people to spend where they find it most valuable, obviating debate about where the government "should" spend money. Consumers will choose what things they need most, and, whatever those are, they would be more affordable.
I'm down with this idea. I just got a $100 rebate card from AT&T for something I bought six months ago. What I had to go through to get what they promised me is a story all by itself, but I finally got it. The point is, it has to be spent. I can't put it in the bank or cash it. It's just money back that I already spent, but spent it will be, tomorrow at Costco.
Give everybody back a reasonably significant amount of money and let them spend it on whatever goods and services they want, but not save it or pay down debt. It will get into the economy in a New York minute. Call it 'trickle-UP economics'.
"George W. Bush's penis has made it to Broadway"
I hope you have a nice fresh full bottle of bleach. Pour it in your ear now.
The Political Carnival
Bush managed to give this country a pretty good buttfucking despite that cocktail weenie he's got instead of an actual pecker. I think he substituted a telephone pole as soon as our backs were turned.
The Political Carnival
There are some visuals I never, ever want inside my tiny little noggin. Here's one now:
As The New York Times reports this morning, former President George W. Bush's penis has made it to Broadway. And it was not demure in saying so.
Must've been a small screen.
I assume Broadway got around the penal-- or in this case penile-- code.
One reviewer noted, "There is full frontal male nudity, ostensibly to imply that President Bush is compensating for something."
Understatement.
Get ready... Here comes my "shortcomings" line. Nah, never mind. You've heard it before. I obviously need to bone up on my penis jokes before I really blow it. Although, I have to admit, I'm having a ball thinking of them. But it's harder than I thought... really hard. Maybe I should pour myself a stiff drink.
I'll be heading off now, before I get myself into real trouble. I wouldn't want you guys to give me the shaft.
Bush managed to give this country a pretty good buttfucking despite that cocktail weenie he's got instead of an actual pecker. I think he substituted a telephone pole as soon as our backs were turned.
We Tried
Our Mom gves the Repugs what for on their obstructionism and flogging the dead horse of their failed criminal conspiracies:
Please go enjoy the rest.
We tried courteous. We tried inviting. We tried group hug. What'd we get?
The same pit bull Republican extremism that got us into this mess. Okay. Plan B. Time to take the gloves off and take these petulant corpses to task.
"Corpses" because that's what they are. The walking dead. The Republican Party is utterly out of ideas, hope, vigor and the stamina needed to pull this country through her critically dangerous hour of economic peril. Their leaders are codgy, ghost white advertisements for funeral home makeup....Mitch McConnell? John McCain? John Boehner? Newt Gingrich? Tired relics of nearly two decades of failed financial Darwinism. Wallowing in the bitterness of defeat, this whole crew knows they likely won't live long enough to see their worldviews ever regain prominence. It's their leafless, cracking dried up tree, and they despise the fact that they're sitting in it. Their solutions are as dead as Milton Friedman, and so are they. It's just that no one bothered to tell the oxygen in their lungs.
Last night on the floor of the Senate, Lindsay Graham....bitter neo-Confederate, failed guardian of our well being...actually said 'America's best days are behind it.' No, Senator. Your best days are behind you. You & the fawning cowboy capitalists, the chuckling power company execs, the high flying Wall Streeters, the smirking hedge funders, the pious free marketeers, the menacing oil oligarchs. The best days in America for all of you was when you could operate unhindred, unregulated, at will and for your own greedy ends.
You're right, Senator. If those were the days you thought were the best, they're dead. As dead as you look & sound.
Please go enjoy the rest.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Rescue at sea ...
Wanna see the Coasties pluck someone off a cruise ship? Check this out. Going to dinner, see yas tomorrow with more from Westie.
Saturday L.A. Country Rock History
The lesson beginneth...
Also see The Adios Lounge YouTube channel.
Since the Adios Lounge person gives his (I assume) age as 39, it musta been the generation just prior, although it would be interesting to know what his Mom and Dad were listening to when he was conceived...
That's just snark on my part. He probably listened to this stuff while he was growing up. Anyway, he does a good job of promoting the music.
Not only am I completely taken by L.A. Country Rock of the era, I was there. At about :28 into this video you'll see a nighttime shot heading west on Santa Monica Blvd. On the left is the familiar red, white, and blue chevron of a Standard Station directly across the street (and railroad tracks at the time) from the Troubadour. I worked at this station in 1967, age 21 and not long out of the service. Total hippie time. The gas station was at the intersection of Sta. Monica Bl., Melrose Ave., and the source of a lot of amusement for us, Doheny Dr.
A little L.A. geography here - The Sunset Strip is about a mile north of Sta. Monica Bl. and considerably higher in elevation. Doheny Dr. is its western border. Sunset Bl. continues west about 15 miles to the ocean, but it's residential past Doheny, so Doheny was the last street the hippies could coast down off of Sunset in their broke-down VW Microbuses (or whatever), overheated from the perpetual evening traffic jams on Sunset. Right into my gas station. Let's just say I learned a lot about VW Microbuses whilst enjoying the then-new phenomena of weed and the double-whammy, so to speak, of bra-less young women. Heh.
Since the video is just a link to YouTube, click on it after it starts and it will take you right to YouTube where you can easily find many more clips from the Beeb doc and anything else you may desire.
The lesson never endeth...
Gram Parsons, Linda Ronstadt, and The Troubadour nightclub all play a role in the rise of LA country-rock in the late '60s and early '70s. From the BBC documentary, "Hotel California: From The Byrds To The Eagles." To read more about country-rock, please visit www.adioslounge.com.
Also see The Adios Lounge YouTube channel.
This is where fans of The Adios Lounge can knock back some beers and watch the videos that shaped a generation.
Since the Adios Lounge person gives his (I assume) age as 39, it musta been the generation just prior, although it would be interesting to know what his Mom and Dad were listening to when he was conceived...
That's just snark on my part. He probably listened to this stuff while he was growing up. Anyway, he does a good job of promoting the music.
Not only am I completely taken by L.A. Country Rock of the era, I was there. At about :28 into this video you'll see a nighttime shot heading west on Santa Monica Blvd. On the left is the familiar red, white, and blue chevron of a Standard Station directly across the street (and railroad tracks at the time) from the Troubadour. I worked at this station in 1967, age 21 and not long out of the service. Total hippie time. The gas station was at the intersection of Sta. Monica Bl., Melrose Ave., and the source of a lot of amusement for us, Doheny Dr.
A little L.A. geography here - The Sunset Strip is about a mile north of Sta. Monica Bl. and considerably higher in elevation. Doheny Dr. is its western border. Sunset Bl. continues west about 15 miles to the ocean, but it's residential past Doheny, so Doheny was the last street the hippies could coast down off of Sunset in their broke-down VW Microbuses (or whatever), overheated from the perpetual evening traffic jams on Sunset. Right into my gas station. Let's just say I learned a lot about VW Microbuses whilst enjoying the then-new phenomena of weed and the double-whammy, so to speak, of bra-less young women. Heh.
Since the video is just a link to YouTube, click on it after it starts and it will take you right to YouTube where you can easily find many more clips from the Beeb doc and anything else you may desire.
The lesson never endeth...
Krugman: Can't have bipartisanship when most GOP senators take marching orders from Limbaugh
Think Progress, with video
Zero. Zilch. Zip-point-shit. Bupkis. Fuck 'em.
Look at what just happened, we had a proposal I think it was McCain’s proposal for an economic recovery package, his version of it which was all tax cuts, a complete, let’s do exactly what Bush did, have another round of Bush-style policies. After eight years which that didn’t work and we got 36 out of 41 Republican senators voting for that which is completely crazy. So how much bipartisan outreach can you have when 36 out of 41 republican senators take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh?
Zero. Zilch. Zip-point-shit. Bupkis. Fuck 'em.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Doin' The Perp Walk
A HUGE! tip o' the Brain to John Gall who passed this on to us from Shamanaqua, who apparently is in the other enlightened mountain range out here, via a roundabout route from our pal 'Nucks the Ornery Bastard. You will agree with the sentiment, I am quite certain.
Fourth track from the album Shout Down the Wind, by Seattle street musician Jim Hinde, may he rest in peace.
Thanks also to jizman71, and no, I'm not going to ask...
Thunderheart for NM Guv?
The Boston Globe
Mr. Kilmer starred in Thunderheart. He was OK, but Graham Greene as the sardonic Sioux tribal cop who outsmarted all the Feds whilst cruisin' the rez on a 650 Triumph dirt bike was priceless.
Sheila Tousey (play the trailer on the left) as a Native American environmental activist was good too.
I hope New Mexico fares better with an actor as Governor than California has. We've had two of 'em and both were spectacular failures. I think Kilmer may be smarter than Reagan and Ah-nold.
SANTA FE, N.M.—Holy hornet's nest, Batman! The New Mexico governor's mansion?
Fresh from the inauguration, actor Val Kilmer is pondering running for governor in 2010, when two-term Democrat Bill Richardson will be forced from office by term limits.
Mr. Kilmer starred in Thunderheart. He was OK, but Graham Greene as the sardonic Sioux tribal cop who outsmarted all the Feds whilst cruisin' the rez on a 650 Triumph dirt bike was priceless.
Sheila Tousey (play the trailer on the left) as a Native American environmental activist was good too.
I hope New Mexico fares better with an actor as Governor than California has. We've had two of 'em and both were spectacular failures. I think Kilmer may be smarter than Reagan and Ah-nold.
Bunk woody pills for the GOP
From Tina Dupuy's The Sardonic Sideshow - Taking Eternal Vigilance Too Far…
“I just popped a Limbaugh." I got an awful visual of popping the world's biggest zit! Shudder.
FOP? Flaccid Old Pols?
Things were so much simpler when a "Woody" was a surfer's old station wagon. Sigh.
In June of 2006, nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh on his way back from the Dominican Republic, was caught with a prescription bottle (not in his name) filled with the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra. By fall, 2006 Details Magazine pronounced that ‘Limbaugh’ was the new slang for the drug. As in, “I just popped a Limbaugh. Now what do I do?”
“I just popped a Limbaugh." I got an awful visual of popping the world's biggest zit! Shudder.
So isn’t it now fitting that Limbaugh has become the de facto voice for an increasingly impotent Republican Party? Like Viagra, Limbaugh gets a temporary surge of controversy - a boost in rhetoric. Side effects include dizziness, irrational hatred of liberals and erratic knee jerks
And Limbaugh wants to see President Obama fail? The guy that touted all of Bush’s policies and ‘ideas’ unequivocally for eight years? How many times do you let someone sell you a lemon before you stop buying from him? (author’s note: I was going to say ‘sell you bunk Oxycodone’, too cheap?)
Limbaugh will get a rise out of the GOP faithful (if it last longer than 4 hours…call your doctor). Then he wears off and leaves the party…well…deflated.
FOP? Flaccid Old Pols?
Things were so much simpler when a "Woody" was a surfer's old station wagon. Sigh.
Greeter W. Bush
The Political Carnival
This is funnier than anything I could come up with. Why wouldn't little Georgie jump at this? He'd even get his own parking space. And it's local! He could ride his bike over, Pickles could pack him a nice lunch, he'd get a discount on them brush-clearin' saws. Maybe he'd even get a name tag! That way nobody will forget who he is. On second thought, forget the name tag:
Elliot’s Hardware — a local Dallas hardware store — has “appealed to former President George W. Bush to spend his new-found retirement working as a part-time greeter at its Maple Avenue store.” [...]
And he wouldn't even have to organize his pea brain enough to mumble "Want fries with that?"...
If I ever walked into the hardware store and that son of a bitch greeted me, I'd turn around and walk back out and I don't give a damn how bad I needed a part for my leaky toilet. I might take one step past him so I could turn around and walk back out over his supine toothless form.
The owner of that hardware store must want out of the hardware business in the worst way, for that's the worst way I could think of.
On the Edge
Paul Krugman on Repug obstructionism to PBO's stimulus plan:
The Repugs will do whatever it takes to ensure the failure of a Democratic administration, particularly this Democratic administration headed by an uppity young buck who doesn't know his place. They want to regain power for the white Southern party that most of us have rejected and damn the folks who rejected them.
Gloves off, Barry. You're a Chicago politician. Act like one. Think Lake Michigan and cement galoshes.
A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.
Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.
So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.
It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.
The Repugs will do whatever it takes to ensure the failure of a Democratic administration, particularly this Democratic administration headed by an uppity young buck who doesn't know his place. They want to regain power for the white Southern party that most of us have rejected and damn the folks who rejected them.
Gloves off, Barry. You're a Chicago politician. Act like one. Think Lake Michigan and cement galoshes.
WXYZ Bill Bonds
Our pal Sizemore sent us this in 'comments'. It's from October, but still very relevant.
WXYZ Detroit Bill Bond came out of retirement and did a newscast. Bill Bond spoke on the two parties.
Thanks also to streetboyzinc.
A shout out ...
To the great lady who makes it possible to go on these great cruises twice a year. Just because I own a piece of this barge doesn't mean I don't have to work for a discount on these fucking things.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Special Comment on Dick
In case you were out in the middle of the ocean or something, here's Keith Olbermann calling bullshit on The Dick for his latest round of delusional self-serving lies and fearmongering:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Curacao
Curacao today. Bandwidth sucks. I guess everybody had to email home at once. Such is the life of a blogger on a cruise. See you tomorrow after I throw some people overboard. Heh ...
Speaking of that, an observation. How is it that non-smokers can stand next to the exhaust pipe of an idling diesel bus for a half hour waiting for their shore excursion without a problem to leave, yet get all freaky the second you light up a cigarette 200 feet away? Guess what's worse for you, twits?
Speaking of that, an observation. How is it that non-smokers can stand next to the exhaust pipe of an idling diesel bus for a half hour waiting for their shore excursion without a problem to leave, yet get all freaky the second you light up a cigarette 200 feet away? Guess what's worse for you, twits?
Sessions: GOP Taliban-like Insurgency "May Be Required"
Tie something around your head so your jaw doesn't break when it drops...
National Journal
No doubt the aide 'interrupted' him with one of those long hooks they used to get really bad vaudeville acts off stage and a GAG!
It's one thing for us to do it, but for a Repug to even come close to comparing his own regressive, reactionary, and increasingly irrelevant and powerless party to the Taliban is in the realm of surrealistic black comedy that actually hits the mark. Perhaps he feels that the Taliban's resurgence is a good role model. Amazing.
Let the Repugs roll! This shit is just getting sooooo good!
National Journal
Frustrated by a lack of bipartisan outreach from House Democratic leaders, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said House Republicans -- who voted unanimously last week against the economic plan pushed by President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- will pitch a "positive, loyal opposition" to the proposal. The group, he added, should also "understand insurgency" in implementing efforts to offer alternatives.
"Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. "And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with."
When pressed to clarify, Sessions said he was not comparing the House Republican caucus to the Taliban, the Muslim fundamentalist group.
"I simply said one can see that there's a model out there for insurgency," Sessions said before being interrupted by an aide. [...]
No doubt the aide 'interrupted' him with one of those long hooks they used to get really bad vaudeville acts off stage and a GAG!
It's one thing for us to do it, but for a Repug to even come close to comparing his own regressive, reactionary, and increasingly irrelevant and powerless party to the Taliban is in the realm of surrealistic black comedy that actually hits the mark. Perhaps he feels that the Taliban's resurgence is a good role model. Amazing.
Let the Repugs roll! This shit is just getting sooooo good!
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