Monday, January 14, 2013

He laughs at her.  Watch for yourself.

Got pirates anyone?

via

Posted by marindenver on 01/14/13 at 04:39 PM
Comments (4) • Permalink

Sunday, January 13, 2013

The world is on fire
Your body doesn’t burn
Kill yourself before receiving
Something out of all this breathing
Don’t you ever learn

“Don’t you ever learn?” is a song about temptation, easy solutions and stupid decisions. Playing it just the other day reminded me yet again that the first 56 years of my life were a long pleasant boulevard through time, lined on either curbside by things that had fallen out of my pockets over the years. Wandering this street at my leisure after living it in real time has yielded many treasures comparable to finding money wedged between two cobblestones or a brand new Portofino cigar still in its tube. I plan to spend a lot of time here from now on, and I intend to equip myself with a pair of high-capacity swag bags to hold all the tips and trinkets and memorabilia that I encounter in my travels. ETW, this is my last self-serving tribute to Todd—at least for today. Some other day, I may feel an urgent need to write my long-delayed master’s thesis on “International Feel,” the kick-ass bookend tune from A Wizard, A True Star.

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 01/13/13 at 09:32 PM
Comments (4) • Permalink

Seeing as how it’s the Sabbath, and all, I felt it was appropriate to respond to the Catholic League‘s resident blowhard, Bill Donohue’s latest brain fart: 

Given Obama’s ideology, perhaps it would make more sense for him to swear on Das Kapital.

[hyuk,hyuk,hyuk] For those of you who are not familiar with Donohue’s ouevre [and why should you be?] this latest statement is classic Donohue.

read the whole post »

Posted by Bette Noir on 01/13/13 at 01:27 PM
Comments (12) • Permalink

If this Treasury Secretary thing doesn’t work out for Jack Lew, he can always play Grandpa Harry Potter in an unauthorized sequel to the series. Or maybe Lew really IS a wizard and can take care of the debt ceiling nonsense with a clever spell. “Republicanus Embrainiamo” or something…

I’m taking the teen to see a matinee showing of “Zero Dark Thirty” today. We’ll see for ourselves how the torture issue is handled and discuss the truth (as we know it) and politics of it afterward. What are y’all up to this fine Sunday morning?

[X-posted at Balloon Juice]

Posted by Betty Cracker on 01/13/13 at 09:37 AM
Comments (1) • Permalink

Saturday, January 12, 2013

I don’t know why Adam Ant’s signature video, “Goody Two-Shoes” and the happy-happy stomp dance made me think of Sarah Palin, except to note that nothing else makes think of her at all anymore.

Certainly, there had to be some significance in Adam Ant’s retro-couture Napoleonic settings and costumes, apart from the lightning-fast assumption that Adam was going to usher in the second coming of Paul Revere and the Raiders, featuring Mark Lindsay.

Whether or not Adam was singing about Sarah Palin in 1982, it goes without saying that whatever about her was ever truly unique, one-of-a-kind, name-brand or timeless, has wound up where it was always destined to be—somewhere between Clark Kent’s costume closet and Al Capone’s Vault.

You don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do? Nothing to see here. Move along.

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 01/12/13 at 08:54 PM
Comments (9) • Permalink

Who knew that two years ago I’d shoot myself in the head, go blind, rack up a two-million dollar hospital bill, suffer the non-fatal effects of cold-turkey withdrawal from cigarettes and alcohol, die a half-dozen or so non-clinical forms of clinical death, and resurrect myself months later in a world where Sarah Palin wasn’t even running for magistrate of the sanitation division, and the GOP had just placed all of its mismatched irreplaceable sulphur-stenched eggs in Mitt Romney’s spectacularly ill-woven basket.

What can I tell you? Time flies when you’re dead.

Here’s what else I can tell you: God bless the Pips for taking up the gauntlet of being fired by Gladys Knight with a stunning medley of And The Pips top 40 hits, entirely driven by toasty harmonies and occasional woo-woo! sounds, and unencumbered by the usual, predictable, elevator-worthy one-mike stand. This was a memorable moment from Richard Pryor’s summer TV variety series in the late 1970s.

Given the fact that I don’t remember 90% of what happened last week, the fact that I thought to include it in this post is testimony to Pryor’s uneraseable presence in American minds.

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 01/12/13 at 08:26 PM
Comments (6) • Permalink

Friday, January 11, 2013

A pair of mouth-breathing morons strolled around the streets of Portland this week to “educate” the public about the 2nd Amendment. That pair of idiots is lucky someone wasn’t positioned in an upper floor window with a heavy object at hand. Upon seeing heavily armed goons strolling around city streets, a sensible person might have made the (entirely reasonable) assumption that they were up to no good and dropped something heavy on their heads as a “Good Samaritan” gesture.

Commenter Aimai over at Balloon Juice said the following:

The portland guys really piss me off, and freak me out. I think several schools went on lockdown? What are you supposed to think, ordinary citizen, when two young men walk by you armed to the teeth? You’d be crazy not to start running for the exits. Why is it that in half the country they would arrest you for breastfeeding in public but this kind of “disturbing the peace” and creating a nuisance/danger to the public is forcibly legal?

Why indeed. If I decided to walk around a city wearing sticks of dynamite in a bandolier and holding a detonator, passersby would flee, and the cops would probably be summoned to blow my fool head off. That’s because strolling around in public displaying a weapon designed to kill a large number of people quickly is rightly seen as an extreme danger to public safety.

Well, so is walking around with a weapon that can fire dozens of rounds per minute. It’s shameful that people are allowed by law to terrorize their fellow citizens in this way. Even nutso Florida generally prohibits open carry in public. Sounds like it’s time for Portland to pass an ordinance.

Posted by Betty Cracker on 01/11/13 at 03:00 PM
Comments (14) • Permalink

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Meet James Tracy, [no, not the photo, that’s Joe Biden] a communications professor at Florida Atlantic University and a serious man who has dedicated his career to academe and guiding the development of upcoming generations of journalists.

Like many of us, Prof. Tracy has his very own blog, the Memory Hole, on which he shares his personal insights, opinions and ideas. 

And that is where Tracy first espoused his theory that the Obama administration was either complicit in or had direct oversight of the December 2012 mass murder at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, CT. 

According to Tracy, this was because the Obama administration wanted to spark a national debate on gun control for its second term. BECAUSE! Everyone knows Obama wants to take away our guns to pave the way for Agenda 21 and the United States Socialist Republic.

A key proof of Prof. Tracy’s theory is that no surveillance video or pictures of bullet-riddled babies were ever released to the media. 

In Prof. Tracy’s own words:

Moreover, to suggest that Obama is not capable of deploying such techniques to achieve political ends is to similarly place ones faith in image and interpretation above substance and established fact, the exact inclination that in sum has brought America to such an impasse.

It comes as little surprise that Prof. Tracy also questions the official versions of: President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks and the mass shooting at a theater in Aurora, Colorado last year.  He has not commented on the validity of Neil Armstrong’s walk on the lunar surface.

For its part, Florida Atlantic University is keeping a safe distance; media director Lisa Metcalf told the Sun Sentinel:

James Tracy does not speak for the university. The website on which his post appeared is not affiliated with FAU in any way.

Not to worry, though, Professor; I suspect you’ll be getting a job offer from Alex Jones any day now.

Posted by Bette Noir on 01/10/13 at 09:58 AM
Comments (2) • Permalink

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Part 3 of my roundup, after the fold, spans the “Good grief, is Mitt really relying on the Breitbartlets to win this thing for him?!” of early July to the plaintive “Are we there yet?” whimper of the end of September.

Part 4 will follow before the Inauguration, shoulder injury and acts of the FSM willing. Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.

read the whole post »

Posted by YAFB on 01/09/13 at 12:04 PM
Comments (5) • Permalink

Trending topic from the “That’s News?” department:  Congress Approval Rating Lower Than Cockroaches, Genghis Khan And Nickelback, Poll Finds.  Now this is hardly “breaking news” to most of us who have been tuned in to the embarrassing three-ring circus that we call “Congress.”  And most Americans understand the tacit implication that “Congress” = the Republican Majority in the House, because 2010 is clearly when the wheels fell off . . .

Nevertheless, Huffington Post reports that Democratic-leaning firm, Public Policy Polling, has come up with a colorful new way to depict the fear and loathing that most Americans feel toward Congress.  PPP recently asked respondents to compare their favorability of lawmakers with a long list of decidedly unpopular things.  According to the firm, “what we found is that Congress is less popular than cockroaches, traffic jams, and even Nickelback.”

read the whole post »

Posted by Bette Noir on 01/09/13 at 10:40 AM
Comments (4) • Permalink

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

For Immediate Release*

SMALLWOOD, TEXAS (January 8, 2013) – A gun rights organization called the Society of Heavily Armed Resistance Troopers (SHART) wants Americans to remember that not all the victims of last month’s mass shooting were angelic first graders and dedicated educators now mourned by their bereaved families, friends and a shaken nation: Gun owners are also “collateral damage” of the shooting spree, says Flint Capp, SHART’s regional coordinator.

“As soon as we laid eyes on Obama, we knew he was coming for our guns, even after he signed legislation to expand carry permits into federal lands. Well, now he’s busted,” Capp opined. “Gun Grabber Biden is coming up with plans to collect our personal property, and Gabby Giffords is in Connecticut whining about someone shooting her in the head as if SHE’S the only one who has ever suffered.”

read the whole post »

Posted by Betty Cracker on 01/08/13 at 01:59 PM
Comments (8) • Permalink

Monday, January 07, 2013

The Rethugs are acting like badasses again and threatening to shut down the government, destroy the economy and wreak whatever havoc is necessary upon our hapless nation unless President Obama yields to their will and throws social security under the bus.  Sounds like the plot of an old time melodrama but in fact it’s just life in Washington DC these days.

The Prez, for his part, has said “no dice”.  He will have no negotiations over raising the debt ceiling (which after all is NOT new spending, it’s just paying the bill for spending already incurred.  By, you know, Congress.)  Whether you believe the president or not depends pretty much on whether or not you believe his presidency has been just a series of betrayals of true progressives. 

Some people just don’t even want to find out and are once again bringing up the alternative option of minting a one trillion dollar platinum coin, depositing it with the federal reserve then continuing to write the checks to keep the government going and, happily, *not* default on the public debt.

But can he even do that?  Because it sounds pretty crazy.  Apparently it’s the result of a law which allows platinum coins to be minted in any denomination.  As has been pointed out, the purpose of the law was to make, and sell,  commemorative and/or collectible coins.  But still, it says what it says.

Paul Krugman, for one, thinks that we not only can mint that coin but should mint that coin.  And let’s face it, he’s no light weight on matters fiscal.

Should President Obama be willing to print a $1 trillion platinum coin if Republicans try to force America into default? Yes, absolutely. He will, after all, be faced with a choice between two alternatives: one that’s silly but benign, the other that’s equally silly but both vile and disastrous. The decision should be obvious.

read the whole post »

Posted by marindenver on 01/07/13 at 08:30 PM
Comments (17) • Permalink

Sunday, January 06, 2013

Color me crazy but I have to admit there was a small portion of my feral brain that believed that, somehow, Republicans would behave just a little better post-election.  Silly me.

Rather than moderating, the batshit-crazy elements of the GOP are now flying in formation, practicing for their next blitzkrieg on the nation.  To make matters worse, one of the senators from my own state, Pat Toomey (R-PA) is playing a starring role in Debt Ceiling: the Sequel.  For him, it’s actually a reprise of his previous “What? Me Worry” role from the last GOP hostage-taking which was designed to inflict maximum harm, before caving, and doing what they know they have to do anyway.

But that’s showbiz . . .  You’ll recognize the basic plot of Debt Ceiling: The Sequel as the same fiendishly clever two-pronged approach in which half of Republicans threaten to throw the government into default, while the other half claim that defaulting really isn’t that big a deal.  Simpleminded but effective with low-info voters and colleagues.

read the whole post »

Posted by Bette Noir on 01/06/13 at 09:00 AM
Comments (8) • Permalink

Saturday, January 05, 2013

Finally, an overprivileged tax-avoiding whiner has the courage to “go Galt”- Ubuesque actor Gerard Depardieu has finally gotten sick of all the merdre he’s put up with at the hands of the money-grabbing French government and moved to the capitalists’ paradise (you read that right) of Russia to enjoy their 13% flat income tax.  Of course, Tea Party types love their flat taxes, largely because flat taxes are regressive. 

Perhaps the Tea Partiers can be convinced to move en masse to Russia, where they won’t be taxed excessively.  The fact that Russia is an oligarchy led by corrupt kleptocrats backed by armed thugs should be no problem for the Tea Party supporters.  Now, besides playing up the flat tax angle, how do we convince the ‘baggers to move to Russia?  Maybe we can convince George Soros to fund the construction of a Potemkin Branson in Siberia.

Alternate post title: Depardieu.s.s.r.

Cross-posted at my eponymous blog.

Posted by Big Bad Bald Bastard on 01/05/13 at 08:50 AM
Comments (8) • Permalink

Friday, January 04, 2013

Deficit scolds enjoy a public opinion advantage because people (egged on by politicians) draw analogies between government revenues and spending and household income and spending. “We have to tighten our belts when less comes in,” goes the reasoning.

Of course, it’s a lot more complicated than that when we’re talking about government revenues and spending and how it interacts with the domestic and global economy. But simple analogies are appealing, and the scolds use this as a cudgel to whack stimulus proponents.

As we know, in the upcoming debt ceiling fight, the Republicans will position themselves as the fiscally responsible people who want to stop borrowing money for spending we can’t afford. This is a lie, of course, since the debt ceiling concerns money that has already been appropriated by Congress.

But hardly anyone knows that. Maybe it’s time to steal a page from the wingnut playbook and craft a simple analogy of our own.

The president has pointed out that the debt ceiling isn’t about new spending. But maybe he should say not raising it would be like a family that wanted to cut its overall spending refusing to make mortgage and car payments on their existing home and vehicles instead of making smarter choices about future purchases.

The Republicans are threatening to ruin our credit and throw the global economy into turmoil by refusing to make good on credit that has already been extended for money that has already been spent. Maybe if more people got that, they’d see this as the radical and irresponsible behavior it is rather than just another boring round of endless DC squabbling. Or not.

[X-posted at Balloon Juice]

Posted by Betty Cracker on 01/04/13 at 08:55 AM
Comments (3) • Permalink