Monday, March 7, 2011
Look!
Shiny stuff!!!!
Keep us distracted by any means necessary because if they didn't we would have had our "Cairo moment" years ago.
...Why are there so many bright, shiny things sparkling at us at every media turn? Whence, and whither, come these many distractions? Why is so much blame shifted from the Masters of the Universe whose lifestyles have been affected not at all by their catastrophic asset-stripping of the middle class? Why do our corrupt media institutions, those serving the elite and those serving the passive sofa-bound infotainment consumer, spend so much time lying to Americans about who, exactly, is responsible for the collapse of the dream of our middle-class, both former inhabitants and aspirants?
Why? Because the elites atop the pyramid that is the teetering American economy are desperately afraid. They fear that Americans will all, suddenly and at once, realize that we are being set against one another in a finely honed scheme of blame-shifting and division. Those who screwed us over — and continue to screw us over by driving our government’s priorities far afield of what we all want — know that if the scales fell from our eyes, things could get very ugly for them very quickly.
...
Keep us distracted by any means necessary because if they didn't we would have had our "Cairo moment" years ago.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Gordon George Shuttleworth, Speed Demon
Through the twin miracles of 'cut & paste' and 'YouTube', I have created a video extravaganza for your viewing pleasure over at Fixer & Gordon. Enjoy!
WikiLeaks cables recount how U.S. pressured allies
EssEffChron
How d'ya say 'spineless wimps' in German?
No doubt all the perps are safe as long as the Spaniards have a guy sitting on the case with no intention of reopening it.
Note to U.S. war criminals: Have at it. Nobody's going to come after you.
They have received little attention in the United States, but a set of WikiLeaks disclosures of confidential documents has caused an uproar in Europe by showing that U.S. officials pressured Germany and Spain to derail criminal investigations of Americans.
After German prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents allegedly involved in el-Masri's abduction, a February 2007 cable quoted the deputy U.S. chief of mission in Berlin as advising a German diplomat to "weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S." if the agents were prosecuted.
The German government withdrew the warrants five months later.
How d'ya say 'spineless wimps' in German?
A Spanish judge announced a criminal investigation in January 2009 into whether six lawyers in President George W. Bush's administration had approved torture. They included former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo, the UC Berkeley law professor whose memos as a Justice Department attorney authorized the near-drowning technique called waterboarding.
WikiLeaks cables from April and May 2009 said Spanish officials were being warned about the case by diplomats from the Obama administration and by a visiting U.S. senator, Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who allegedly told Spain's foreign minister that the prosecution would have "an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship." The Miami Herald has reported that Martinez was carrying that message for the Obama administration.
The documents also quoted U.S. diplomats as urging Spain to transfer the case from Judge Baltasar Garzón, known for far-reaching investigations of suspected international law violations and for criticism of U.S. policies. The cables described Garzón as a "publicity-loving" jurist with an "anti-American streak" and said Spain's chief prosecutor was trying to remove him.
Spain's government has since suspended Garzón for allegedly exceeding his authority in another case. Another judge has taken up the case of the Bush administration lawyers but has not decided whether to reopen it.
No doubt all the perps are safe as long as the Spaniards have a guy sitting on the case with no intention of reopening it.
Note to U.S. war criminals: Have at it. Nobody's going to come after you.
A b-o-o-o-y and his g-o-o-o-ats
LATimes on environmentally friendly reforestation:
Living with goats. Man, he's livin' the dream!
Uh-oh... Time ta get ta town, Mark.
Sounds like a lead pipe cinch to me.
Grazing, low-cost and environmentally friendly, is becoming a more common practice in restoration and conservation efforts. In 2008 and again last year, goats were put to work clearing weeds near Angels Flight in downtown L.A. — though not nearly so many. In 2009, the conservancy also used goats in the preserve.
For many years, goats were removed from natural areas because they were known for eating everything in sight. Now, conservationists and fire safety officials realize that the creatures are efficient as long as they are monitored.
That is the job of the goats' keeper, Mark Choi, 41, who will basically live with them as they chomp their way across the valley as part of the Portuguese Bend Restoration Project.
Living with goats. Man, he's livin' the dream!
An additional 120 goats will arrive this week. Choi has nicknamed one friendly goat Pepper for the charcoal freckles dotting her face.
Uh-oh... Time ta get ta town, Mark.
The goats will stay around for a couple of weeks; the exact time will be determined by how quickly they eat.
"It's on goat time," Choi said. "It depends on their appetite."
Sounds like a lead pipe cinch to me.
Governor Brown Redux: The Iceman Melteth
MoDo does Moonbeam:
Less Jesuit and more Buddhist these days, I hope.
My kinda guy!
If you want to dish on tiger blood and Adonis DNA, go elsewhere. In the fantastic, monastic world of Jerry Brown, the talk veers toward Wittgenstein, the collapse of the Habsburg Empire and preventing the collapse of the American empire.
“We’ve got to hunker down,” he says. “We’ve got to get more discipline. We don’t have a lot of time, and we’re an aging white society for the most part, and we need to get our act together.”
The shock of dark hair is gone, but Jerry Brown is still Jerry Brown. The prickliness, bluntness, questioning, calculating. That against-the-grain attitude; disdain for materialism, emptiness and politics as usual; that Jesuit-Buddhist outlook.
Less Jesuit and more Buddhist these days, I hope.
In the old days, he tried to get people to accept their limits when they didn’t think there were limits; now that they’ve learned the hard way that there are, his gospel sells well.
He’s pondering putting a drinking tent outside the Statehouse to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger’s smoking tent (which the ex-Governator took with him, along with his Conan the Barbarian sword).
If the legislators approve his plan, a mix of spending cuts and tax extensions, the big test will be a referendum on it in June. If his plan passes, California could become the laboratory for how to do things right, the anti-Wisconsin (Yay! My em). It is remarkable to watch the governors on two coasts, Brown and Andrew Cuomo, both sons of iconic liberal governors, boldly go against the grain to do what works today. They are eliminating or reforming many of their dads’ hallmark programs.
He was a precursor to the Tea Party, and he admits he tends to be a “tear-it-apart guy.” “But I feel I’m in a more constructive mode at this time of my life,” he said. “I understand hostility and alienation from the soulless bureaucratic state, but the Tea Party is a tear-it-apart group. We have to have continuity along with change if we’re going to hold the place together.”
After watching Meg Whitman squander $178.5 million of her own money, Californians seem to be getting a kick out of Brown’s cheap side. With his gift for symbolism or, some say, gimmickry, he froze state hiring, banned official cellphones and barred state agencies from giving out swag — coffee mugs, hats and cups. He flies commercial, often solo, on Southwest Airlines, with a senior citizen discount.
“It’s a message,” he says. “The medium is the message.”
Was he cheap as a child? “During World War II, to get butter, we had little ration tickets,” he says. “I thought it was kind of fun.” His uncle Frank, he says, was so tight he had a pay phone in his house.
On his way out, he grabs an apple and a banana. They’re free.
My kinda guy!
Indeed!
From Nucks' post; just follow the link:
...
If you didn't think Boehner was complete fucking anal wart before, here ya go.
...
A primer ...
A well written, easy to understand primer about how the rich have soaked us over the past 30 years:
As Paul Krugman likes to say, "we don't have a spending problem, we have a revenue problem".
...
Several examples show this. First, a good part of the money the rich save from taxes is then lent by them to the government (in the form of buying US Treasury securities for their personal investment portfolios). It would obviously be better for the government to tax the rich to maintain its expenditures, and thereby avoid deficits and debts. Then the government would not need to tax the rest of us to pay interest on those debts to the rich.
Second, the richest Americans take the money they save from taxes and invest big parts of it in China, India and elsewhere. That often produces more jobs over there, fewer jobs here, and more imports of goods produced abroad. US dollars flow out to pay for those imports and so accumulate in the hands of foreign banks and foreign governments. They, in turn, lend from that wealth to the US government because it does not tax our rich, and so we get taxed to pay for the interest Washington has to give those foreign banks and governments. The largest single recipient of such interest payments today is the People's Republic of China.
Third, the richest Americans take the money they don't pay in taxes and invest it in hedge funds and with stockbrokers to make profitable investments. These days, that often means speculating in oil and food, which drives up their prices, undermines economic recovery for the mass of Americans, and produces acute suffering around the globe. Those hedge funds and brokers likewise use part of the money rich people save from taxes to speculate in the US stock markets. That has recently driven stock prices higher: hence, the stock market recovery. And that mostly helps – you guessed it – the richest Americans who own most of the stocks.
...
As Paul Krugman likes to say, "we don't have a spending problem, we have a revenue problem".
Saturday, March 5, 2011
In der bunker
This clip has been used for all kinds of stuff. It even has a genre - the "Hitler Downfall Parody* Video". There are two of these so far about the Wisconsin power grab. Different approaches, both pretty good.
*
First one's here.
This is the better of the two according to Josh Marshall.
*
"The point of the film was to kick these terrible people off the throne that made them demons, making them real and their actions into reality. I think it's only fair if now it's taken as part of our history, and used for whatever purposes people like."
First one's here.
This is the better of the two according to Josh Marshall.
Thanks to WIGovPR.
Quote of the Day
From a MoDo column about Afghanistan:
Emphasis mine.
“Every conflict in the world today has its origin in the imagination of British map drawers,”...
Emphasis mine.
So would I ...
Jill says what I have for a long time:
I'd be more than willing to pay a couple percent more in federal taxes if we had good roads and infrastructure, good education for all our kids, and single-payer or affordable health care for everyone. But, by golly, the rich folks better kick in their share too.
...
What I've told these people is that if I had to pay, for example, $2000 more a year in federal taxes at my income level, but within five years our nation's economy would be on a sound footing, I'd do that in a heartbeat. And I don't even have children who are going to need a nation that doesn't look like a Mad Max movie. If I had to pay more in state taxes to get my state back on even keel within five years, I'd do it. And those numbers really WOULD make a difference to what I take home. So why is it such anathema to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a few thousand more a year?
I'd be more than willing to pay a couple percent more in federal taxes if we had good roads and infrastructure, good education for all our kids, and single-payer or affordable health care for everyone. But, by golly, the rich folks better kick in their share too.
Don't need no steenkin' driver...
Rare footage of the time I took Fixer for a ride. Or tried to. Don't worry, he saves the damsel in distress and comes up smellin' like a rose like he always does. I just sat in the mud puddle like I always do.
Thanks to dantedite, Mexico.
Clip is from Sherlock Jr. (1924) starring Buster Keaton.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Cajun Recruiter
I got this from my buddy Arnie. Some of the facts are wrong, it's a joke, but given the way the military is trying to cheat Vets outta their bennies the upshot is right on the money:
[Boudreaux, the smoothest-talking Cajun in the Louisiana National Guard, Got called up to active duty. Boudreaux's first assignment was to a military induction center, and because he was a good talker, was assigned the duty of advising new recruits about government benefits, especially the GI insurance to which they were entitled.
Before long, the Captain in charge of the induction center began noticing that Boudreaux was getting a 99% signup rate for the more expensive supplemental form of GI insurance. This was odd, because it would cost these low-income recruits $30 per month more for the higher coverage, compared to what the government was already providing at no charge.
The Captain decided that he would not ask Boudreaux directly about his selling techniques, but instead he would sit in the back of the room at the next briefing and observe Boudreaux's sales pitch.
Boudreaux stood up before the latest group of inductees and said, 'If you got da normal GI inshoranse an' you go to Iraq an' git yoself kilt, da governmen' gonna pay you beneficiary $20,000.
If you take out da supplemental inshoranse, which cost you only t'irty dollar a mont, den da governmen' gotta pay you beneficiary $200,000.'
'NOW,' Boudreaux concluded, 'which bunch you tink dey gonna send ta Iraq furst?']
Heh. Not far off the mark.
[Boudreaux, the smoothest-talking Cajun in the Louisiana National Guard, Got called up to active duty. Boudreaux's first assignment was to a military induction center, and because he was a good talker, was assigned the duty of advising new recruits about government benefits, especially the GI insurance to which they were entitled.
Before long, the Captain in charge of the induction center began noticing that Boudreaux was getting a 99% signup rate for the more expensive supplemental form of GI insurance. This was odd, because it would cost these low-income recruits $30 per month more for the higher coverage, compared to what the government was already providing at no charge.
The Captain decided that he would not ask Boudreaux directly about his selling techniques, but instead he would sit in the back of the room at the next briefing and observe Boudreaux's sales pitch.
Boudreaux stood up before the latest group of inductees and said, 'If you got da normal GI inshoranse an' you go to Iraq an' git yoself kilt, da governmen' gonna pay you beneficiary $20,000.
If you take out da supplemental inshoranse, which cost you only t'irty dollar a mont, den da governmen' gotta pay you beneficiary $200,000.'
'NOW,' Boudreaux concluded, 'which bunch you tink dey gonna send ta Iraq furst?']
Heh. Not far off the mark.
White House Home Brew!
From Obama Foodorama:
Menu follows. Shorter: lemme at it and screw the heart attack!
Enjoy the post, but here's my point:
Untaxed booze in the White House! Obama is a great American!
I know it's legal to make beer, ale, and wine at home. It's the, er, spirit of the thing.
Brewed with one pound of honey from this year's 160-pound harvest from the White House Bee Hive, the Ale was made by an unnamed White House chef who is a home-brewing enthusiast. The President, First Lady, and their guests sampled the special suds for the first time this evening. The label on the bottle reads "Brewed With White House Honey."
To go with the Ale, the Obamas served a menu that highlighted regional favorites from both Packer and Steeler countries--er, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania:
Menu follows. Shorter: lemme at it and screw the heart attack!
Enjoy the post, but here's my point:
Untaxed booze in the White House! Obama is a great American!
I know it's legal to make beer, ale, and wine at home. It's the, er, spirit of the thing.
Thanks to fkazz, Japan.
Southern Conservatives Reveal Their True "Family Values"
Legal Schnauzer
The Schnauz goes on to describe these instances, stuff I've never even heard of in fifty years of hangin' out with bikers and dopers and other degenerates like Libruls and mechanics. Jackin' off near a park where kids hang out, fer chrissake!
So you may well ask, "Whaddya bother with this shit for? It's a well-known fact that all Repugs are hypocritical perverts."
The answer lies deep in Schnauz's post:
Fuckin' A! Er, I mean, Amen, Brethren!
Perhaps nothing delights progressives quite like having a conservative Republican proven to be a fraud on "values" issues. It's particularly delightful when a conservative is outed in the deep-red South.
Two such outings have happened in recent days, and I'm so broken up about it that I can't wipe the smile off my face.
The Schnauz goes on to describe these instances, stuff I've never even heard of in fifty years of hangin' out with bikers and dopers and other degenerates like Libruls and mechanics. Jackin' off near a park where kids hang out, fer chrissake!
Conservatives always have a ready excuse when they get caught with their pants down--or unzipped, as the case might be:
(Lamest excuse I ever heard, and I've heard a few! - G)
Probably didn't want to use the restroom because there might be perverts in there.
So you may well ask, "Whaddya bother with this shit for? It's a well-known fact that all Repugs are hypocritical perverts."
The answer lies deep in Schnauz's post:
It's too much fun to pile on when the opportunity arises.
Fuckin' A! Er, I mean, Amen, Brethren!
Question of the Day
Why Can't Republicans Just Tell the Truth?
There's an article, but the short answer is:
Because it would put them out of business. Or worse, they'd sound like Liberals! Gasp! Either way it would derail the gravy train.
Jon Stewart Nails Fox News Hypocrisy On Teachers Vs. Wall Street Pay Levels
TPMLiveWire
Given how much Fox News has called teachers unions greedy for their pay and benefit packages, Jon Stewart expected them to have a consistent record of calling out greed in other sectors as well -- perhaps even in the financial sector.
Big surprise: the record is hardly consistent.
On Thursday night's Daily Show Stewart began by pretending to buy into the Fox argument that teachers are grossly overpaid.
...
He then played footage from just a few months ago that showed Fox anchors wailing that the Bush tax cuts must be extended for people making over $250,000 per year because those people, as one anchor put it, were almost living in poverty.
"See the difference?" Stewart asked. "Regardless of the greed-based, slightly sociopathic job bankers did wrecking our economy, those people were there every single day, twelve months a year."
A Day Without a Mexican
MoJo
The difference is that the Onion folks have to think to come up with ridiculous stuff like that. Apparently the lack of a thought process works too. Repugs are especially gifted that way.
Texas state Rep. Debbie "Terror Babies" Riddle has introduced a new bill that would make it a serious crime to hire an illegal immigrant. But her bill allows one exception:
Under the House Bill 2012 introduced by a tea party favorite state Rep. Debbie Riddle — who's been saying for some time that she'd like to see Texas institute an Arizona-style immigration law — hiring an undocumented maid, caretaker, lawnworker or any type of houseworker would be allowed. Why? As Texas state Rep. Aaron Pena, also a Republican, told CNN, without the exemption, "a large segment of the Texas population" would wind up in prison if the bill became law.
"When it comes to household employees or yard workers it is extremely common for Texans to hire people who are likely undocumented workers," Pena told the news giant. "It is so common it is overlooked."
No, this is not from the Onion. It's from a Texas Republican. Though it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference these days.
The difference is that the Onion folks have to think to come up with ridiculous stuff like that. Apparently the lack of a thought process works too. Repugs are especially gifted that way.
"let your freak flag fly"
The Rude Pundit on the Supremes' WBC decision:
Let's get a couple of things straight here: Almost no one actually supports the Westboro Baptist Church, a handful of inbred, dick-faced, walking cumstains whose accumulated intelligence and number of teeth drag the human species a few rungs down the evolutionary ladder to that level where throwing one's own shit is seen as a valid expression of dissent. [...]
But, ah, shit, much as it sucks, the Supreme Court's 8-1 decision was correct to affirm the right of the inbreds to wave their retard signs of hate. "This nation's destruction is imminent," cackled one of the inbreds like Walter Brennan on a meth binge. That was in appreciation of the decision and completely without irony.
So you see that sign up there at the Wisconsin State Capitol? It reads "Walker Sucks Koch," in reference to Governor Scott Walker and the wealthy conservative financiers whom he blows. What the Supreme Court also said was that, as long as it's in a public space, let your freak flag fly, man. "God Hates Fags" is now where the bar has been set. Surely we can be more creative when it comes to more of our causes. Justice John Roberts told us to go for it.
Be careful. For once, Rude-Man misses the point: IonlyOKIYAR.
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