A Guide for New Yorkers Experiencing Their First Hurricane
...
3. Floods are not ironically filthy fun pools. They are foul, garbage-filled, shit-containing rivers of poison. But it's cute to watch the rats drown. Ditto hobos.
...
6. If you decide to loot, go for small items. You just look stupid trying to carry a TV through the water.
Ok, let's look at this. Mr. Romney, please name any human that, like a corporation, lives indefinitely, can be in many places at the same time, and can kill large numbers of people sometimes knowingly and never get the death sentence or even prison, only a fine. Also, unlike people, corporations can be sold or dissolved. These are obvious legal differences, but cosmology -- the science of our universe as a whole -- gives us a much deeper understanding of Mr. Romney's error.
...
Corporations constantly exploit their different legal status from individuals, and they are also orders of magnitude more complex than people and operate according to different rules. It is absolutely ludicrous to imagine that corporations are nothing but people and to use this fraudulent metaphor to protect corporations at the expense of the real citizens the First Amendment was designed to protect.
Most of the fast-food places were boarded up and dim, but a local fine-dining place called Bistro by the Sea (Click it, you'll like it) was open and catering to a few clusters of locals. Dressed Carolina golf-club casual, they sipped wine, nibbled on Atlantic Blue Crab Bisque and watched the trouble spinning toward them on a muted Weather Channel.
Among the nightly specials: a $6.95 drink called “Drink Hurricane Irene Away,” which seemed as though it was concocted to use up every last spirit behind the bar in the case the place was totaled on Saturday: vodka, gin, rum, amaretto, triple sec, grapefruit juice, pineapple juice and grenadine.
I see that Nassau County, Long Island south of Sunrise Highway is being evacuated. That’s my homeland! In Merrick, Sunrise was the big east-west drag, with the Babylon Line of the Long Island Railroad running alongside. Our house was around a mile south of there, although it’s gone now, replaced with a McMansion. Anyway, given the canals running through that area, I can easily see how it might end up underwater.
Also, I’m glad we visited Coney Island and Brighton Beach a few weeks ago, while they still existed.
Wow.
Meanwhile, I’m filing Monday’s column, or at least a draft thereof, today, so that even if New Jersey is plunged into darkness, the show will go on.
In the novel, the State of Israel is founded in 1948, but is destroyed after only three months in an alternative version of the Arab-Israeli War. Without Israel, Palestine is described as a mosaic of contending religious and secular nationalist groups locked in internecine conflict; Jerusalem is described as "a city of blood and slogans painted on the wall, severed heads on telephone poles".[2] The United States president believes in "divine sanction" for neo-Zionism, a movement seeking for Jews to reclaim Israel once again.
In February 2008, Rudin told The Guardian that a film adaptation of The Yiddish Policemen's Union was in pre-production, to be written and directed by the Coen brothers.
TRIPOLI (The Borowitz Report) August 26, 2011 – In an all-out effort to capture Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, rebels fanned out across the country today dressed as former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Donning bright pink pantsuits and black pumps, the fifteen thousand rebels blanketed the Middle Eastern nation, hoping to create a honey trap of sorts for Mr. Gaddafi, whose unrequited crush on Secretary Rice has come to light in recent days.
Rebel field commander Awad Daiki said that with thousands of fierce fighters disguised as Rice, the military mission dubbed Operation Condoleezza was sure to be a success.
"Once we will have Gaddafi in our clutches, there will be cause for celebration," he said. "Plus, we can't wait to get out of these heels."
The cancer-killing properties of marijuana were the subject of discussion in a PBS documentary that aired this week to little media fanfare.
While using marijuana to kill cancer may sound like a wild claim to some, it struck Dr. Prakash Nagarkatti as a great idea. In his studies as professor of pathology and microbiology for the University of South Carolina, he tested synthetic cannabis drugs on cancer cells and developed a formula that was able to completely eradicate cancer cells in a test tube.
A follow-up on mice afflicted with cancer found that up to 30 percent in the test group completely rejected their disease, while others had their tumors significantly reduced. The same drug is now being tested on humans with Leukemia.
But it’s not just Dr. Nagarkatti who sees the medical value of marijuana: it’s the whole pharmaceutical industry. And that’s another point the documentary makes, examining the patents various companies have filed, and what they claim marijuana-based drugs could one day be used to treat.
Looking back on her career as a freedom fighter, Tubman noted, “I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”
We are ruled by so many “industrial complexes”—military, financial, energy, food, pharmaceutical, prison, and so on — that it is almost impossible to stay on top of every way we are getting screwed.
Is there an end to the stupid? It's a rhetorical question, don't answer. Eric Cantor's remarks about federal aid and Tuesday's earthquake centered in his district transcend stupid and go straight to dense.
...
On Fox & Friends Sunday, anchor Clayton Morris admitted that Fox News factcheckers have confirmed that man-made global warming is “certainly” real, but argued that it “doesn’t matter” because climate denial is popular among Fox News-watching conservatives. Morris contrasted Jon Huntsman’s defense of the National Academy of Sciences with Rick Perry’s claims that scientists have “manipulated data” to concoct manmade global warming:
MORRIS: If you dive into the weeds a little bit on this global warming thing, you see that it seems that facts are certainly on Huntsman’s side on all of this and fact checkers have come out, we’re actually having our own brain room look look at this right now that any of Perry’s comments don’t seem to hold a lot of water. It doesn’t matter. What’s resonating right now in South Carolina is helping Governor Perry tremendously and he fired back at Huntsman on global warming and gaining traction, facts or not. [em in orig]
...
Miles away, under the same sweltering sun, a grandmother is standing on her front porch, watching her dog pee. She and her husband bought their house fifty years ago. They paid off one loan, then took out a second to get the kids through college and paid that one off, too. Now, she can no longer afford the property tax. Next month, she will have to move in with her daughter and grandson---the one who is allergic to dogs, so she’ll have to give up her pet. On the other side of town, the burger joint has applied for a property tax abatement for its regional distribution center. It has plenty of money to pay its taxes, but why pay taxes if you can get homeowners to do it for you? It’s too bad Grandma can no longer afford the “luxury” of owning a home. She should have planned better for the future. She should never have allowed herself to grow old. And the autoworker should have thought twice before going blind, and the teacher should have chosen some other profession and the veteran was a sucker for volunteering for Bush’s war.
The veteran is feeling a little dizzy today, the result of too much sun and too little water combined with the fistful of pills that the VA gives him in lieu of counseling. He takes a wrong turn and ends up in the upwardly mobile neighborhood where the burger joint has just opened. People on the sidewalk avoid his gaze or grumble angrily. Sometimes they do both. He doesn’t hear them. He is back in Baghdad, watching his best buddy get blown to pieces, only now he’s the one who is dying. Bone and flesh explode. A hero’s death, that’s how it was supposed to be. His country never meant for him to come back home. It has no place for him and his nightmares. It has no place for the blind or the downsized or the elderly. These folks are inconvenient. They make rich bankers look greedy and selfish. They make drug company executives think about their own frailty and mortality. They make oilmen tremble in the night, afraid of what will happen when the crude runs out---
If they were real Americans, they would crawl under a rock somewhere and die, and leave the light of the sun to someone more deserving of it.
...
Apparently what we really needed was the strength and inner toughness to let our old folks just die in misery and poverty. The ones who hadn't been smart enough to get rich, of course. The smart ones, the ones who valued Hard Work and Bootstraps and Eating Beets and whatever, would have enough money to live in their mansions with their servants until the end of time, or (and this is my personal fantasy of my late 80s) die in a hammock someplace warm, preferably of rum consumption.
...
Note: The Rude Pundit always feels disgusting after he writes something that includes even mild praise for Reagan, who set us on this path of doom. But that's how filthy our discourse has become. You have to give credit to a cannibal serial killer when he doesn't eat all of his victims.
Within hours of an earthquake striking the eastern U.S. Tuesday, a rabbi that has spoken for the anti-gay group National Organization for Marriage (NOM) was already blaming homosexuals.
In a video posted to YouTube, Rabbi Yehuda Levin asserted that “one of the reasons God brings earthquakes to the world is because of the transgressions of homosexuality.”
“An email went out in my community just a few hours ago, ‘How long will it take Rabbi Levin to tie this earthquake in with homosexual marriage?’” he began. “Not very long at all. I’m happy to see that people — even if some of them are scoffers — are starting to see the connection.”
“Yes, there is a direct connection between earthquakes and homosexuality. There was in Haiti and it is here, in New York, in Washington, D.C., where they passed homosexual legislation ordinances, in New York City and state, where they opened, especially on Sunday early, where they passed the homosexual marriage law.”
Condoleezza Rice photo album discovered in Gaddafi compound
Eric T. Schneiderman, the top prosecutor in New York, was removed on Tuesday from a committee of state attorneys general investigating mortgage abuses.
In recent months, Mr. Schneiderman has voiced concerns over a proposed settlement between major banks and a coalition of federal and state officials over claims of foreclosure abuses. He has come under increasing pressure to approve the deal.
...
...
Mr. Schneiderman has said that he opposes any deal that gives participating banks a release from other litigation surrounding their mortgage activities. Attorneys general from other states have also questioned aspects of the deal, including Beau Biden of Delaware.
...
But amidst all the hardcore politics, grisly details and hugely cinematic spectacle, one vital detail swung by almost without notice like a thief in night-vision goggles; it was a potent flash of insight so devastating and telling I re-read the passage a few extra times to really let it soak in, to induce a deeply felt shudder and sigh.
It was this: We do this sort of thing all the time.
The truth remains: To the mainstream, America is all flag waving patriotism and God-sanctioned moral righteousness, and any blood or misery or harrowing "Hurt Locker"-like suffering is reserved for some faraway place most can't locate on a map. Americans remain, along with a few almost equally well-pampered allies, perhaps the most coddled, blindfolded, happily ignorant populace on earth.
And then comes the kicker: This is how we like it.
For the most part, it's an ignorance most of us gleefully accept, encourage, even happily pay for, both in taxpayer cash and in wary, informed understanding. "Here," we seem to say, "take all this money, use our billions to pay for the most advanced, bloated military in the world; just promise to never, ever tell me the full details or (especially) the moral ambiguity of what we're doing. Deal?"
Deal.
We know, but we do not want to know. [...]
So it goes and same as it ever was. But what happens when people start denying facts en masse? What happens when larger and larger numbers of Americans band together in their willful ignorance, going beyond mere foreign policy and the military to start championing a lack of education, demonizing books and learning and science? What happens, in other words, when collective ignorance gets institutionalized and becomes a dangerous cultural force?
Why, you get fundamentalist Christianity. You get the Bush administration. You get the Tea Party. You get Palin and Bachmann and Rick Perry. And lo, the nation shudders and fractures even more painfully.
Put it this way: For anyone who values peace and moral progress, who resists using our military as pre-emptive attack force, who cares about fostering humane sensibility in the national dialogue, with Obama, this is about as good as it gets.
The sad news is, it's still not very good at all.
1. You hate science and the corrupt scientists who manufacture data in nefarious schemes
...
3. You think there are hundreds of Nobel Peace Prize-winning scientists who believe in Intelligent Design
...
17. You think governors who advocate their state's secession from the Union would make great presidents of the United States.
...
22. You love America but scowl when your opponents exercise the very Democratic principles which make it great, like free speech; separation of church and state; a free and open press; freedom of religion; checks and balances; freedom from persecution; and civil rights for all
23. And most of all, unlike your founding Tea Party brethren 238 years ago, you think "No taxation without representation" really just means "No taxation."
2. Who the fuck cares what kind of backwards ass country shitkicker stuff Rick Perry says? He's a dumbass hick from the barren wastelands of west Texas. Of course he's gonna say stupid shit. It's what he's hardwired to do. And because we've fetishized dumbass hicks in this country as having some kind of wisdom, people lap it up like dogs on cat turds. No, he's an idiot. He needs to be treated like an idiot. And anyone who supports him needs to be dunce-capped and beaten in the streets.
3. Who the fuck cares about demented, uber-Christian, Jesus ball-licking Michele Bachmann? Just...who the fuck cares?
The entire Republican nomination has already devolved into bullshit like who hates evolution and who wants to take health care away from old people, who loves Jesus and who really, really loves Jesus. The whole degrading affair is less an absurd circus than a version of "The Aristocrats" that ends up with all of us covered in blood and piss.
Could we just get to the Mitt Romney nomination already?
For all the braying by the Senate’s top three hawks about how the U.S. wasn’t doing enough to oust Libyan dictator Col. Muammar Qaddafi from power, one might be surprised to learn that exactly two years ago, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) were in Tripoli meeting with the erratic leader and giving him assurances that relations between the nations were on the mend.
According to a recounting the Senators’ junket, the neoconservative Connecticut Senator captured the dynamic of aligning with a brutal dictator:
Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends.
God Smites GOP Leader Eric Cantor’s District with 5.8 Earthquake
If this latest visitation from God won’t open their eyes, what will? If they won’t heed the 130-year curse of kudzu, the recent bouts of record heat, the droughts, floods, hurricanes, oil spills and now an earthquake, what will it take to force them to mend their wicked ways?
Cue the swarms of locusts.
Obama may yet be saved by the sheer extremism of the likely Republican nominee. But we should not bet the farm on that either. I vividly remember being reassured that Ronald Reagan was too far-right, and George W. Bush too dumb, to be elected. So much for that theory.
...
Meanwhile, it's worth remembering how Ghaddafi thanked Republicans for their help in defending his regime in June:
Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi has written to members of Congress thanking them for criticizing President Obama last week over his involvement in the NATO-led military campaign in Libya.
...
If national Democrats have an ounce of intelligence, they will hang this issue over the heads of Republicans at least 1/10th as vociferously as Republicans would have done to Democrats had the roles been reversed. [my em]
...
...
That Republicans still somehow retain the mantle of national security is a testament to a massive lack of political courage on the part of Democrats to tell the truth about who is effective even in military policy, and who is not.
...
Analyses of large representative samples, from both the United States and the United Kingdom, confirm this prediction. In both countries, more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to be liberals than less intelligent children. For example, among the American sample, those who identify themselves as “very liberal” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 106.4, whereas those who identify themselves as “very conservative” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 94.8.
Even though past studies show that women are more liberal than men, and blacks are more liberal than whites, the effect of childhood intelligence on adult political ideology is twice as large as the effect of either sex or race. So it appears that, as the Hypothesis predicts, more intelligent individuals are more likely to espouse the value of liberalism than less intelligent individuals, possibly because liberalism is evolutionarily novel and conservatism is evolutionarily familiar.
...
...
Lord & Taylor on Fifth Avenue was also evacuated.
...
Michele Bachmann Bizarro World is an attempt to organize her insanity, bigotry and lying into categories.
We don't claim that she is insane, a bigot and a liar haphazardly -- we can point to many specific examples. We would like anyone who just discovered Michele to get an idea of the depth and breadth of her wackiness, hate and lack of honesty. For anyone familiar with her, we hope you'll find this helpful.
...
CONCORD, NH August 22, 2011 (The Borowitz Report) – he mystery surrounding Col. Muammar Gaddafi's whereabouts was resolved today as the dictator announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in a town hall meeting in Concord, New Hampshire.
...
"In those final days in Tripoli he was becoming increasingly disconnected from reality," said the aide. "So I think he'll fit right in."
...
"Unfortunately for Muammar Gaddafi, he might be out of step with the current crop of Republican candidates," one pollster said. "There's a perception that he's too moderate."
Analysts: Perry Could Win if Things Break His Way
If Jesus suddenly appears and debunks global warming, he's in.
Rep. Paul Ryan Charging $15 Per Person to Speak to Him
Considerably more if you want him to listen.
Perry Hopes to Bring “Texas Miracle” to Rest of Country
The miracle of low wages, lousy schools and fewer public services.
Billionaire Funding Project to Establish Sea-Based Libertarian Nations
Each would be just like America except no taxes, no regulations, no lawyers, no ex-wives.
REMINDER
Safety nets are for sissies.
...
The GOP is also coming out against extending the payroll tax cuts. Yes, I know that takes some special chutzpah considering that they have made the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy a sacred cause. But giving tax breaks to workers will cost ...
...
Moments later my teevee made a long, pleasant dopplerish sound as it sailed out the window.
...
The new cult of the uniform began with the call to "support our troops" during the Iraq war. The slogan played on a justified collective desire to avoid repeating the mistake of the Vietnam era, when hatred of the conflict spilled over into hostility toward the people who were fighting it. Now the logic was inverted: supporting the troops, we were given to understand, meant that you had to support the war. In fact, that’s all it seemed to mean. The ploy was a bait and switch, an act of emotional blackmail. If you opposed the war or questioned the way it was conducted, you undermined our troops.
As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged on, other purposes have come into play. The greater the sacrifice that has fallen on one small group of people, the members of the military and their families, the more we have gone from supporting our troops to putting them on a pedestal. In the Second World War, everybody fought. Soldiers were not remote figures to most of us; they were us. Now, instead of sharing the burden, we sentimentalize it. It’s a lot easier to idealize the people who are fighting than it is to send your kid to join them. This is also a form of service, I suppose: lip service. [my ems]
...
A majority of the committee, equally split between Republicans and Democrats, must agree on the proposal to send it to the whole of Congress who will vote either up or down with no amendments or filibusters allowed: meaning one member has to cross party lines, which is about as likely as pimento flavored Velveeta taking first place in the 2012 World Championship Artisan Cheese Contest.
Now, this group has been called many things. Useless. The Supercommittee. Business as Usual. The Twerpy Twelve. A Dozen Punters. The Craven Caucus. Esteemed Assembly of the Ill- Advisable. League of the Unexceptionally Pontificating Pool of Party Hacks. But most commonly, it is referred to as: "Super Congress."
"Slower than a slug on Thorazine; less powerful than a soggy Kleenex; unable to compromise in a million years. Look! Up in that swiveling leather club seat of that private jet. It's a ruse, it's a sham, it's... Super Congress.
...
And when their capes are discarded and utility belts back in storage, we can move onto the next level of logical suspension and form the Super Duper Congress. Then, Son of Super Duper Congress. And call in Batman or maybe the Justice League or reconvene the Watchmen or that little guy who talks backwards and doesn't make any sense. Mr. Mxyztplk. You may know him as: Ron Paul. More scorpions, please