Waaaagh!

in memorium

2011-03-15T01:14:00.000-07:00

How'd BillO get so smart? You pinheads...

2011-02-03T23:06:00.000-08:00

game over

2011-01-20T00:58:00.000-08:00

It's Not Apathy

2010-09-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

In an interview, meanwhile, Obama admonished Democratic voters, saying it would be "inexcusable" and "irresponsible" for unenthusiastic Democrats to sit out the midterm elections because the consequences could be a squandered agenda for years.

"People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up," Obama told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview being published Friday. Making change happen is hard, he said, and "if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place."

Ok... so it's that woman who's sick of defending you's fault for not continuing to give you the right to continue to give us the things we voted against - i guess this would be the audacity of hope...

How laughable that you'd accuse me of not being that serious about change.

even the obvious stuff

2010-09-26T13:45:00.000-07:00

seriously

i wonder how many of us on the left have thrown in the towel on this asshat

How to treat your friends

2010-09-21T08:37:00.001-07:00

I mean - it's not like our support for them over the years has anything to do with our current situation in the world, right?

BE THERE

2010-09-16T20:33:00.000-07:00

I should make a FFFFUUUU comic of this...

2010-09-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

but i'll use my words instead.

Tonight, Christine O'donnell won the republican nomination for Joe Biden's senate seat. This is a teaparty candidate, backed by Nutbag in Chief Palin, who has stated that masturbation is on par with adultery. I wont try to get into the rest of her platform - economics? social issues? what possible logical common ground could she share with me given her stance on masturbation.

What does it mean when someone like her can win - against the republican machine? Well, we've seen some of it with McCains campaign for his senate seat. All those moderate stances on things like the border or immigration or the economy? out the window... he had to move waaaaaay off to the right to fend off the nutters.

So not only do the pubs move right, but sometimes they still lose.

This encourages them to go way over the deep end to the right - they cant really go wrong politically with this behavior, since they can label anyone opposing them a hitler-loving communist... *cue Beck's tears*...
Seriously - every election cycle is one where the pubs move substantially right, and the dems are dragged 3/4 of the same distance the same direction.

The democratic party, as it stands today as embodied by our current president dick, is further right than the policies of GHW Bush. You expect me to vote for that? Why. Why should I. Sure - the Death Party loves it... but they love the Booze for Coats homeless program. This is a president that wanted to allow Whale harvesting. Imagine G HW Bush trying to float that one for a moment...

So whereas some look up and see the pubs being self-destructive by electing people who're deranged... i see it as more of a national problem.

On Aug 29th

2010-09-14T08:24:00.000-07:00

I called the president a dick.

Good thing I have my passport -- he's much worse than a dick.

Really? A teenager calls the president a prick by email and that results in an official visit from agents of authority and a ban on international travel? 70% of Europe thought Bush was a dick - can we ban them too?

It's ok to call him kenyan, to compare him to hitler, to paint him up as the joker and swing knotted ropes at rallies in front of the whitehouse... but you better not mention the president's penis.

I wonder if he's got 'issues' there...

Since it's 9/12

2010-09-12T20:51:00.003-07:00

In the mean time... "The terrorist threat that led to the declaration on September 14, 2001, of a national emergency continues. For this reason, I have determined that it is necessary to continue in effect after September 14, 2010, the national emergency with respect to the terrorist threat."

We will always be at war with east asia wont we...

I was undecided

2010-09-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

would i sit this election out
or would i be a dick

then i read this

I guess this year I'm a single issue voter - and that issue is 'betrayal'

Today In The Garden

2010-09-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

I found a pretty garden spider.

My mother is not amused.

Parents

2010-09-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

my mother is a reader...
she reads and reads and reads...
brought boxes of books to read while she's stuck in my forest

sticking out the top of one box was a book
that brought a flashback
and before i could consciously stop myself i found myself wailing in horror and disgust.

"He moved forward delicately, his right hand outstretched. The crucible began to settle - collapse, the silver was running over the top of the furnace like spilled milk. Johnny jumped toward it, his right hand still outstretched. Something happened, he never knew exactly what. His feet went out from under him. His hand came down on the top of the furnace."

When Glenn starts the book burning - this better be at the top of the list.

yeah

2010-08-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

he's a dick

this isnt new

Hey Google

2010-08-26T07:46:00.000-07:00

See this?

Make it run on android.

Otherwise you're just being dicks.

Cat in the Trash Update

2010-08-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

Crazy horrible bitch quote of the day:
"I wish to reiterate that I am profoundly sorry for my actions and wish to resolve this matter to everyone's satisfaction as soon as possible."

She's not sorry she did it...

she's sorry she got caught...

Lady - i'm profoundly sorry - but i hope you get hit by a bus... and dragged 7 miles... alive.... while the friction of the road surface slowly converts you to a long red streak. That thought, of course, is really 'just a split second of misjudgement on my part'... so please dont mind me.

sigh

2010-08-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

another day in the life of the american healthcare industry...

You didn't think it was fixed did you?

For Profit Low Bidder healthcare - with 'any drug you want, just name it'...
yeah...
that works well dont it...

Happy Monday

2010-08-23T04:02:00.000-07:00

I think every parent probably wants to spoil their daughter... but using a little girl's obsession with things frilly and pink as a tool of indoctrination? I guess I shouldnt be surprised...
Then again we have Disney taking the ball and running with it - somehow baking up a gender norm melange that only our Capitalist Overlord Mouse could pull out of it's ass.

(sorry - i'll put away my breastplate of righteousness now)

you know

2010-08-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

in china...
if you poison the food supply for profit they hang you

here they fine you the price of a new Audi A3.

20 years this company has been fined...
we need new rules... either increase the fines 50000%...
or start shooting people

Visitors

2010-08-20T06:20:00.000-07:00

One of the disadvantages to having a father that gets up at 6am so he can move things around in your garage...
leaving the garage door up at 6am is an invitation to forest critters.
Of course, this is promptly followed by:
'Wake up! There's a snake in the garage!'

This makes sense to me

2010-08-16T16:14:00.000-07:00

i know... it sounds strange... but for some reason i'm just not surprised

Another one of these...

2010-08-12T12:39:00.001-07:00

Greek economy in shambles...
"Economic activity seems to be declining at an accelerated pace due to high uncertainty and the gradual implementation of austerity measures,"

Americans not paying their debts...
"The amount of bad home equity loan business during the boom is incalculable and in retrospect inexplicable, housing experts say. Most of the debt is still on the books of the lenders, which include Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase."

Well on the bright side at least one thing is improving... oh wait

Good thing Obama has his priorities in order...

Second Worst President Evar

Stuck Inside the Box

2010-08-04T09:48:00.000-07:00

There you are, at the edge of the Klingon neutral zone. Just inside is the Kobayashi Maru, a Class III neutronic fuel carrier with 81 crew and 300 passengers. The ship has struck a gravitic mine and it's systems, including life support, are failing. When you decide to attempt the rescue - 3 Klingon D7 battle cruisers begin to emerge - and no matter what you do more and more show up to the point that you are defeated.

Sometimes the game is rigged.

Every day has gotten harder for her. No matter what I do - no matter how I approach this - her parents will not accept the situation and the pressure steadily mounts. I think they expected it to die on its own - that they wouldn't have to step in and put a stop to it... but I kept leaping the hurdles and seemed to be building a real plan for going forward.

Now her family fights. A family that never fought before.

Now her father yells. A man who never yells.

They are not going to let this happen.

There's no way to win in this scenario.

I can't do this to her - no matter how much I want it or how good I think it can be.

Beyond Stupid

2010-07-29T04:01:00.000-07:00

From PRI

"... you got these huge 40,000lb fuel trucks rollin' down the road - those are very very enticing targets to our enemies. At least a thousand Americans have been killed moving fuel. In essence what we're doing is we're air conditioning the desert over there. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places - DoD will spend about $20 billion annually to air condition tents and temporary structures in Iraq and Afghanistan."

If you combine all the money the govt s putting into Solar/Nuclear/"Clean Coal"/Carbon Sequestration/Renewables etc - you wouldnt get $10b
Obama's big loud edumacation plan is Race to the Top - that's a paltry $1.35b by comparison. Hell - we only spent $18.7b on NASA.

The current "market value" of the NFL is $30.6b... So it would be cheaper to BUY THE NFC and give it to the soldiers who are stuck in the tents than it would be to air condition them (not to mention the whole 'now you dont have to drive that fuel truck over any IEDs this week). How do you think the soldiers would react to the whole 'hey, you dont get any air conditioning, but you own the Detroit Lions'....

...

ok, yeah, maybe they'd rather have air conditioning.

Being Unreasonable

2010-07-25T20:16:00.000-07:00

2 moar years...

2010-07-24T13:36:00.001-07:00

The Week in Review

2010-07-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

So the week started off with a series that should be up for awards from the Washington Post on the disaster our National Intelligence organization has become since 9/11. Most of this stuff probably comes as no surprise to those on any side of the political spectrum - it has all the hallmarks of a classic washington horror story. Well intentioned move by government to make things better becomes moneypit, loses efficiency, and becomes a behemoth that's so big it cant be reined in.

I worry about what happens to the country when, as a result of programs like these, that the money spigot in congress will be unable to turn itself off (whether from fear of lost jobs in one's congressional district, or from the positive reinforcement of major campaign contributions from firms getting paid to sift through my phone records). At what point is 'keeping america afraid' such a big part of the economy that it cant be changed - or are we already there.

Does government get out of control when it spends without a backstop? of course it does... pretty much every time... but so do private sector companies awash in cash without any responsibility to productivity (90s internet VC play anyone?). This is generally the argument against giving people money for unemployment - that those people's marginal propensity to spend might be very high, but they're not doing anything productive themselves while they spend - so it's not a good use of money in the economy. Of course, this isnt the argument used by the MSM talking heads - rather it's 'they wont get work when they're getting paid to sit at home'. Of course, that doesn't square with the data at all - but that never stopped the idiots from spewing their opinions as facts...

The first big distraction this week was Jessi Slaughter trolling Good Morning America. An 11 yr old girl played the 'i've been bullied by 4chan card' on her youtube channel, became a meme, was yucking it up with 4chan a couple hours after... but has played the drama card for all it's worth.

Speaking of which, the other major trolling distraction this week was the utterly manufactured Sherrod story - take a girl, take a quote out of context, spew hatred, get girl fired, spew hatred for firing, ask each other questions about why questions weren't asked sooner... about as effective a smokescreen as I've seen the media kick up in a long time...

Why the smoke? Because the president passed 'sweeping' legislation to reform wall street - that didnt reform much of anything. Regardless, the right didnt want to talk about the 'victory' and this latest Bush administration didnt want to own up to how useless it all was, or talk about some of the other nightmares...

Like former BP executives sitting on the board of the company that makes Coreexit....

or the increased jobless claims for the week...

or the way the financial reform bill shut the asset backed security market down...

or that the climate bill is dead... and we get nothing but an exploding john kerry in r eturn

in the end - being reminded of how screwed up the entire system is - whether by how goldman starved millions playing games with commodity prices or seeing racists and bigots be upset because calling them bigots is discriminatory... or how the oligarchs through Obama through Geithner have gamed treasury to screw the public out of a colossal amount of money.

Seriously... why do i even try.

How do you begin to fix this place.

learning something new

2010-07-22T09:39:00.000-07:00

this...

2010-07-18T22:01:00.000-07:00

a hundred times this...

not for the discussion of warren... but for the 'this is what treasury is doing' - it's succinct, easy to read and understand, and damnably accurate.

If the US were playing this game in a vacuum - maybe they could pull it off in a half dozen years or so... but china is slowly acquiring real assets the world over - and europe is right at the verge of a massive crash... these policies, in the context of that backdrop, are a truly terrible idea.

They should have nationalized the damned banks

sigh...

2010-07-13T12:12:00.001-07:00

you've probably seen it....

2010-07-11T22:34:00.001-07:00

but it's monday, and we all need a unicorn chaser to start the week

The R'lyehians have spoken

2010-07-09T08:24:00.001-07:00

fault

2010-07-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

you hear a lot of people who've been saying 'it takes a lot of time to change things' when they defend the current administrations policies - but time and again the administration has had courts give them an opportunity to deviate from the path W put the nation upon, and failed to do so.

This oil spill, it turns out, is yet another one.

Given the nature and the details of this article - i think it's simply another case of 'business as usual' - perhaps with the sense that if something did go wrong the administration would be able to claim cover for their actions by the proximity to the prior administration. I think Rahm has a sense of realpolitik in how he's trying to handle the left, the economic collapse, global environmental issues, and the political landscape - and i think every decision they make is tempered by the question 'what does it get me?' - as opposed to 'what's the right thing to do'.

That's not what the progressives thought they were voting for. In fact, it was the sense of that same behavior in Clinton that turned us off to her in the primaries and drove us into the arms of Obama. I dont think Clinton would have been any better - so I dont regret that... but the sad truth is that the democratic party, through it's deeds rather than it's words, stands in lock step with the previous administration on a vast majority of issues.

To describe the degree of my sense of disappointment is difficult.

oh derek wildstar... what have they done...

2010-07-05T03:55:00.000-07:00

if you think this looks bad it could have been much much worse

lol

2010-07-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

The general rule is that, to keep apace with the population, the US economy must grow at 150,000 jobs per month to be 'even' in terms of employment. Any month it fails that bar is a month that more Americans are out of work than the previous.

W had a truly abysmal record on that front - but it sure doesnt seem things are any better these days...

In June - the economy actually shed jobs - with a big minus 125,000.

In the face of numbers like that, you'd think we'd be talking about increased unemployment benefits or new stimulus packages... but no.

"Reacting to the figures US President Barack Obama said the economy was heading in the right direction, but not fast enough."

If it goes faster in this direction no one will have a job.

Then again, Krugman is finally starting to sound more like me - so maybe someone somewhere will start listening.

Mastering the Art

2010-07-01T05:02:00.000-07:00

The Japanese have tried... but generally failed with this. They end up with girl bands that are a bit too quirky (or downright wtf) and the boys trend more to glam-rock or jazz...
South Korea and K-Pop on the other hand has really adopted the western manufactured sound well... and it seems it adapts to china pretty well... (seriously guys - if we've exported american culture this deep into the bowels of the chinese psyche can't we begin to look at whether the question of borders and nationalism is even relevant at this point?)

warning, not for the faint of heart...

must watch video

2010-06-30T01:33:00.000-07:00

the house of cards seems to be crumbling

2010-06-23T01:33:00.000-07:00

but at least the long legged aussie will get something out of it

my take...

2010-06-19T17:20:00.000-07:00

ok - so you own a yacht... and it's going to race in a tournament... great...

but seriously...
is this the time?

i think, perhaps, that this might be perceived negatively by some...
perhaps as a degree of insensitivity...
and since some of the things he's said previously have rubbed that nerve the wrong way...

there are really only 2 ways to view this...

either he really DOESN'T care that people are upset he's out racing a yacht while the gulf goes to hell...
or he DOESN'T understand what the big deal is...

so he's either an asshole... or too dumb to breathe...

in neither case is he the guy you want running your company... if i'm a BP shareholder i'm looking for a replacement right now

the problem with england

2010-06-19T11:53:00.001-07:00

it's very simple actually...
Fabio... let the boys score

sniff

2010-06-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

i just couldnt read this one without hearing a chorus of Lee Greenwood... just makes me feel so proud...
perhaps the operators should chant 'USA - ALL THE WAY' every time a cab pulls up...

sigh

2010-06-15T17:54:00.000-07:00

"We pray for the people of the Gulf. And we pray that a hand may guide us through the storm towards a brighter day."

Go fuck yourself.
You think the people of Beziers didnt pray fervently for a solution to their struggle in 1209? You think the people of Tokyo didnt pray fervently for a deliverance from the firestorm on March 9th 1945 when the US was dropping phosphorous and the rivers boiled them alive?

Prayers do not solve problems. Leaders solve problems.

I didnt think we were electing a fucking kumbaya motherfucker as a president... but i guess that's what we got. Woohoo!!!! You are pathetic.

so if they ask you

2010-06-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

has the vuvuzela gone beyond annoying...

the answer is yes

some days are like that...

2010-06-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

World Cup 2010

2010-06-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

so i'm watching shakira's world cup song/video (at the behest of a chinese girl for those of you keeping track of the complexities)...
and i come across the following line

When you fall get up
Oh oh...
And if you fall get up
Oh oh...

and it shows Christiano Ronaldo diving...
i wonder if that's intentional...

Vacated Wins

2010-06-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

So...
they vacated USC's 2005 football season...
which doesnt mean they automatically lost the games...
it means the games never happened

so

if the Rose Bowl featuring a truly spectacular last minute drive lead by Vince Young didnt happen...
and Reggie Bush never played in any games that year

does he still have statistics for the games?
if not... that makes his Heisman selection somewhat odd...

what about the other players... do you take away the stats generated? or is it just the score at the end that didnt count...

and what if you bet on the game... can you get your money back?

I HATE vacated wins. It's the sort of idiot idea i would expect from the Obama administration. What's the real point - it's papering over events without actually altering anything - including the outcomes by and large.

Either punish the school - seize the money they made for playing the games etc - or just admit that the NCAA are a bunch of pathetic pussies who dont really do shit to enforce their so-called rules because they're still haunted by the fact that SMU cant field a team that can beat the Kentucky School for Deaf Girls.

This is what I'm talking about...

2010-06-09T11:49:00.001-07:00

It's just like the climate summit...

Obama's administration wants to be able to say 'we are hard on Iran'
so they go to the UN to get tough sanctions...
the UN security council passes sanctions... but in the language "China's economic interests in Iran were walled off from the sanctions"
So the rule is 'Iran cant get X Y or Z... unless it comes from China'
Obama get's to stand up and say 'look at us - we're tough on Iran'
and in reality - nothing substantive is accomplished at all

how fucking stupid do the assholes in this administration think we are?
he really is the 2nd most pathetic sack of shit president ever...

politics

2010-06-09T06:39:00.000-07:00

so yesterday, a progressive lost to the 'establishment' democrat in arkansas - after it was clear the whitehouse and powers that be in the dem party clearly supported lincoln (the same way they pulled out all the stops to fight for Specter in PA)

The whitehouse reacted with the following:
"Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members' money down the toilet on a pointless exercise," the unnamed official said to Politico's Ben Smith. "If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country, that could have made a real difference in November."
Another senior Democrat (who also would not be quoted by name) echoed the point in an exchange with the Huffington Post. "Labor is humiliated," the source said. "$10 million flushed down the toilet at a time when Democrats across the country are fighting for their lives, they look like absolute idiots."

There is such a massive disconnect between the netroots progressives and what they want out of government and what they're getting from the current batch in DC. Lincoln was a very conservative Dem - one that stands in the way of any sort of progressive agenda so fiercely that she might as well be a republican. She's Joe Lieberman in a skirt - and it really makes progressives shake their heads when they see institutional support for something like that (when the voters so clearly elected Obama on a 'change this crap' mandate). Pelosi's feeling that right about now but she doesnt give a shit. She - and all the rest of the dems - just want the netroots money and votes - they're in no way prepared to give them any of the tangible political results they were elected to deliver. It's a similar game to the one the republicans play with abortion... take the religious right's money, but never give them enough seats on SCOTUS to overturn the one big stick in their craw issue - put on just enough show to be able to walk back into the other room with their hands raised saying 'i tried... if only we had more votes...'

For Obama to play the same tune he just has to keep doing what Bush was doing - and make the 'oh but i got an inch of progress here and there - all those other things i just couldnt accomplish because i dont have the votes'

So we have an administration that's in love with torture and torturers...

one that loves wall street and bends over for oil companies before, during, and after huge negligent disasters.

The guy is even killing whales... seriously? this is what you want to be all about Obama?

Do you really think i'll vote for that in the fall?

...

2010-06-07T21:31:00.000-07:00

does this one really surprise anyone?

A number of security contractors in Afghanistan, who are paid millions by Washington to guard U.S. convoys and bases, are also believed to have paid insurgents to attack convoys guarded by their competitors, and even NATO forces, to "increase the sense of risk on the roads."

one trillion and counting...

When I was a child...

2010-06-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

i had my copy of the L-5 society periodicals - with the big Gerard K O'Neill space habitat paintings or the Boston album covers and i thought to myself 'that looks so much better than this shithole i live in...'

Now I'm an adult... i live in a nice place (it's not a space habitat but at least it isnt north dallas)... still i look on things like this and think 'i wish they'd hurry the hell up'...

they dont hate us for our freedom

2010-05-31T19:30:00.000-07:00

Given that the Israelis refuse to allow anything other than the most minimal "necessities" to enter Gaza, I'd love to know what "non-provocative and non-confrontational mechanisms" exist to deliver humanitarian assistance? And it's extraordinary that we refuse to condemn a blockade that, as classic "collective punishment," is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, and even refuse to condemn today's violent seizure of ships in international water. But, of course, the central rule of American politics is that Israel cannot be criticized, even as the rest of the world condemns it. How do you think the rest of the world will perceive the U.S.'s extreme, out-of-step protection of the Israelis, while subtly (or not-so-subtly) heaping the blame on the victims of its aggression?

this will end well...

predictability...

2010-05-27T12:05:00.001-07:00

me: you know
me: before it even starts
me: i can see how moot and the gang will ruin this one
me: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052403970.html
Jake: god i hope so
me: i can see boxxy with a badge... and the most upvoted idea being get rid of age of consent
Jake: lololol...yes
Jake: repeal the 14th while you're at it

yeah...
didnt see this coming

well...

2010-05-25T05:55:00.000-07:00

at least someone has claimed ownership of this mess - you sure as hell wont see our asshole president put his name onto the 'responsible for cleanup' list anytime soon...

They rake the oil and sand into big piles; other workers collect the piles into big plastic bags, and still other workers take them to a plant where the sand is separated out and sent to a hazardous-waste dump and the oil goes on for processing. Then the tide comes in with more oil and everybody starts all over again. Ten dollars an hour. Twelve hours a day. When I joke with one worker that he should pocket the solid gobs of oil he's digging up to show me how far beneath the sand they go, he stops dead and asks me if BP's still trying to use the oil they all collect. "Aw, I knew it!" he says. Another leans on his rake to ask me, "Have they at least shut the oil off yet?" He randomly picks three spots in a three-foot-wide expanse of sand that he's already raked clean and drops his rake in an inch deeper to show me how the oil bubbles up from underneath. He can't count how many times he's raked this same spot in the 33 hours he's worked it since Thursday, but one thing he's sure of, he says, is that he'll be standing right here tomorrow and the next day, too.

walled gardens

2010-05-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

on one hand you have apple - with their 'everything needs to be on my proprietary format' bullshit approach to everything (leading to absurdist infighting with adobe which will NOT help them in the end)...

why?

because the 'dont be evil' folks are willing to do things like this

you dont beat that... you really dont...

Happy Friday

2010-04-30T03:47:00.000-07:00

Government officials said the blown-out well 40 miles offshore is spewing five times as much oil into the water as originally estimated – about 5,000 barrels, or 200,000 gallons, a day.
At that rate, the spill could eclipse the worst oil spill in U.S. history – the 11 million gallons that leaked from the grounded tanker Exxon Valdez in Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989 – in the three months it could take to drill a relief well and plug the gushing well 5,000 feet underwater on the sea floor.
Ultimately, the spill could grow much larger than the Valdez because Gulf of Mexico wells tap deposits that hold many times more oil than a single tanker.

As if the folks in the delta needed any more pain in their lives...

Not Quite Hyperbole

2010-04-19T19:21:00.000-07:00

but it is the guardian

still - the conclusion raises a fair point...
what are banks for... why do we have them... and if taxpayers and directors of federal reserves are busy backstopping the loans and controlling the economy through managing the rates of investment... why not cut out the middleman?

There will still be a role for banks in the world - but lets get them away from the day to day things that actually put the world economy at risk... they're obviously willing to burn the place down for a few bucks...

Nanny Continent

2010-04-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

So BA is complaining about how airspace has been closed all over europe because of the volcanic ash...
You'd think they'd understand the problem but i guess not... they're just executives.
I'm sure there are a million americans just as upset over the prospect of the government telling them when they can and cant fly a 600,000 lb box of aluminum and titanium through clouds of debris. What we need is a NYTimes article on 'why it's not safe to fly' so they can cement their belief that it's all lies, a freeper article to stoke the flames of anti-factualism, and an airline made for failing. Hey - those goldman boys made a couple billion - we could even collateralize the debt with companies that want to build Hindenburg II and Titanic Reborn, then buy insurance against it failing at 100x the actual debt - who cares if the insurer isnt solvent to begin with - the feds will pick up the tab!!!11!1 Everybody wins!!!

in the mean time - goldman payed out 5b in bonuses last quarter - half of it to those in the group responsible for the SEC suit... happy monday.

Yesterday

2010-04-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

What happened with that Goldman thing...

the short version

Goldman knew for months it was the subject of an investigation here. The gist of it is that someone who was responsible for picking the securities in a collateralized debt obligation (CDO) had a vested interest, through goldman, of it failing. The theory is you're supposed to put all this sort of stuff in a prospectus... but those aren't generated until after the sale anyway (welcome to idiotland for regulation). So they're going after Goldman for this - in a way it's not much different than what they were doing with Greek debt, only writ much smaller.

It's a speeding ticket.

In the mean time, knowing that with a couple of flabbergasted statements and angry uncomfortable looks they could spook the market... and knowing that it was options experation day... the thing is - if you come to the last day and know the market is going to move a LOT - you get an unbelievable amount of leverage... And they played that hand BIG yesterday - betting that the news of the assault on them would drive the S&P down and then feeding into it. They made tens of millions - on paper in public - something that wouldn't have been possible if the SEC had done this on a day other than options expiration day... and that's in the above the board world. Imagine what such a substantial movement of options contracts does to the trillions and trillions of off balance sheet derivatives.

What's going to happen?
No one will change the fact that CDS is gambling backed by the US Treasury implicitly through the fact that we, the taxpayers, will always be left with the bag if they fail.
NO ONE WILL DO ANYTHING because the oligarchs OWN THE GOVERNMENT.
Fabulous Fab will be prosecuted...
Goldman will agree that there's the 'perception of fraud' without agreeing that they did anything illegal...
They'll pay a record fine (much less than they made shorting yesterday)...
and Fabulous Fab will be out in a couple years running his own hedge fund (with money drawn from those who profited by all of this).

The politicians will get nice fat contributions...
the lawyers will get nice new cars...
and the country will be one step closer to the bottom of the drain.

There's no 'fixing' this. It's a cancer that's spread too far.

New Old Ideas

2010-04-13T12:30:00.001-07:00

I know.. i'm sure others have long since made the connection here... but i was reading about rats in a prisoner's dilemma test and the piece that struck me wasn't that rats are crafty bastards that played the game the way people do... it was the bit about what happens to the results when they're hungry.
If it's true that amongst rats, the drive to work out the 'everyone wins' cooperation is better than screwing people over solutions is adversely affected by the need for the reward... i wonder if that isnt also true amongst people. So the worse the economy gets, the less able people are to think through consequences clearly and just grab at whatever seems like the best thing in front of them.
This seems to me to be a behavior that would be easy to exploit to economic advantage... imposing stress on a collective would tend to make them far less productive - as they stop working together to solve problems. As I think back to the TED spread mess a year ago - and forward to the impending commercial real estate collapse - i think i see a lot of rat-like behavior.

As I was saying...

2010-04-09T08:04:00.000-07:00

I have no problem with the concept of war as an absolute as detailed by Clausewitz... it's a sound philosophical argument that refuses to back off the fact that, sometimes, the only way to solve a problem is to kill the other guy (and everything that helps the other guy). I get it - and our german friend made it pretty clear that when you've gotten to that point - you really need to stop worrying about who you're killing until such time as you decide that it's over.

But if that's how we're going to fight wars - we need to be a LOT more careful about whether we get into them. If the rule is 'war means everyone over there can die at any time' - ok... but you have to SELL it that way to the American people. Don't tell them we're careful - we only kill bad guys - and then tell US Army Snipers to "shoot all the taxi drivers". You can't have it both ways.

The next time...

2010-04-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

someone tells you 'they hate us for our freedoms' i hope you remember this video that wikileaks released today:

There are a lot of reasons to dislike america... but the fact that we're able to see something like this and realize how corrupt and evil our government can be is one of the reasons to love the place (even though it means we see truly awful crap like this).

Dont tell me 'it was war - shit like this happens in war'... what we had was a bunch of kids playing video games, lying about what they saw - saying what were clearly civilians were carrying weapons (a camera is not a gun... it's not an RPG) - claiming they were in a hostile situation - shooting them up - then spending years covering it up so they didnt have to admit it.

Oh sure - in the past massacres have been worse - i was, afterall, a history major... but for every video like this, how many hundreds if not thousands of others happened just like it? How many more atrocities were committed by US troops that DIDNT get a leaked video... i've heard anecdotes from some who've been over there, who've said it was much worse than we've been told, who've said they couldnt talk about it... is this aberrant? or is it, as i believe, systemic?

Asking a soldier to 'think' about what they're doing before they do it makes their jobs a lot harder... it's dangerous... if there's a camera watching, and they have to worry about repercussions, then they'll hesitate and that might cost them their lives. But if they DON'T hesitate, and consider what the fuck they're doing, then you're going to get THIS - over and over and over. It turns out that that our leaders are all very aware of this calculation - ie it IS systemic... and 'we the people' dont want to be reminded that our hands are bloody. Afterall - the lead story on CNN? Tiger Woods playing a practice round of golf...

Obama Ratings Boost

2010-03-30T08:57:00.000-07:00

Well... he went from a very clear F on health care to getting a bill passed with some things in it that dont totally suck. It's a D- of a bill... right in the 65-66 range... and a lot of the good bits will be gutted and challenged and avoided through corporate legal maneuver... but it's still passing (which is a massive improvement). Is it worth celebrating? Hell no. But it's better than shit on a stick.

The education grant move is much better... call it a B. Anytime you can stick it to the banks on one like that you get points - and it helps shore up a huge problem in this country (at a time when the last thing we need is a bunch more people trying to enter the workforce).

Banking Reform? F. Hell... that's almost a 0.

The recent education grants for Race to the Top? Good stuff actually... Probably another B. Sure, the teachers unions hate it, and it has a lot of pro-charter school focus that will hurt us in the long run, but it's still a lot of money to try some innovative education stuff - and it's worth making efforts to improve there even if they might not all be in the best directions.

So on average - Obama's moved way up... From something approaching W as worst sack of shit president we've ever had to something leaping Hoover and approaching Calvin Coolidge. At this rate he might make it out of the bottom 10.
D'oh... maybe not.

A Question for John Yoo

2010-03-29T09:27:00.000-07:00

So I'm reading this one and i wonder 'when do their children get raped in the other room'?

Me? I'd send em all to Bagram... declare them all unlawful enemy combatants... and seize the assets of their churches (well, what's left of their churches after the predator strikes were done).

Then i'd use the outrage to 'be forced' to get rid of all these absurd unconstitutional powers...

but for some reason i doubt our republican president will do much of anything

Jackbooted Thugs

2010-03-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite sci-fi authors is Peter Watts... not for Blindsight (which was good) but for the starfish books - which were imaginative and thought provoking.

Well, Peter's a bit of a nice guy... when you read behemoth you might think he's a bit twisted... but he has a paypal link on his page that you can donate to to help him feed cats he rescues from the shelter... i mean - he's really a harmless nice geeky kinda guy.

And he came over into the states to help a friend move out of their apartment.

And on the way back - at the border crossing - some ~~cocksucking asshole holier than thou authoritarian bully pricks who get off on pushing people around because they're worthless sacks of shit the rest of their lives~~ nice young men decided to ~~give him a rough time~~ extend his invitation to visit the United States.

He was charged with something akin to assault - which isnt really assault... it's more 'not doing what you're told by a border patrol person fast enough'... he was out of his car for 20 seconds... 10 of those seconds were ~~being kicked and maced~~ examining the ground around his car... they accused him of choking someone - but ~~it turns out they lied - big shock~~ they might have misremembered... but still - he did get out of his car... apparently that's enough in this day and age and in this country to get you a 2 year prison term.

It's bad enough that we hire these dickheads... it's worse that we give them uniforms that say 'they speak for me'... and it's even worse that a federal prosecutor somewhere decided that THIS WAS WHERE AMERICA WOULD DRAW THE LINE AGAINST TERRISTS. Maybe this was a wrong.

This whole story - front to back - sucked. It never should have happened... it never should have been prosecuted... and the jury never should have convicted. ~~I am embarrassed for my country.~~

taking it out on everyone else

2010-03-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

One of my mother's closest friends is a very very very successful real estate agent in north dallas. In the last 2 months, she's sold 3 homes that had been repossessed by the bank. In each of these cases she warned the buyer 'understand - you're buying this home 'as is'... it might have foundation problems... it might have other issues that you have no idea are wrong with it'... but in each case the buyers, convinced they were getting a great deal, purchased the homes.

In each case, the former owners had done awful things to the homes. Golfballs down the toilet... cement down the sinks... wiring cut with scissors... dead animals in the attic... no joke.

There is some serious anger out there - people are upset that they've spent so long working and trying and felt they were 'owed' their nice little north dallas zero-lot-line mansions... and now that their subprime and ARM ponzi scheming has come to naught - they've decided to take it out on the next guy. The banks dont care - remember - they're offloading 10 billion dollars of these toxic assets to the feds every week. They dont have to balance their books - and they really dont care about the poor sap that gets stuck with the house someone has turned into a death trap.

More of this is coming... no one's factoring the 2nd mortgages and home equity loans into the equation so long as the banks are allowed to avoid mark to market...

anectdotal? yes... but imagine for a moment how a tea-party friendly north dallas will react when the impending commercial realestate bubble collapse breaks the backs of the rest of the underwater homeowners.

If I were smart - i'd be in north dallas starting a company that repairs these houses... but i dont think i could handle all the sobbing new homeowners i'd be taking tens of thousands of dollars from.

at some point

2010-03-12T09:32:00.000-08:00

theoretically...
justice is served.

But as i read this... specifically when i got to this passage:

Camp Greyhound held a total of 1,200 detainees in the aftermath of the hurricane, most of whom were African-Americans and all of whom suffered the indignity of having their right to habeas corpus removed.

I want to know 'when does the person responsible for that go to prison' - and is prison really the right answer?
I think a whole lot of americans should be stripped of citizenship, everything they own, and airdropped into the hills of afghanistan... but hey - that's me.

broken systems

2010-03-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

There should be little doubt that Goldman is busy abusing the system as much as it ever did - afterall they're pretty upfront about it.

First came the news that Greece had entered into derivatives transactions with Goldman Sachs and other banks to hide its public debt. Then came reports that some of those same banks and various hedge funds were using credit default swaps — the type of derivative that kneecapped the American International Group — to bet on the likelihood of a Greek default and using derivatives to wager on a drop in the euro.

What they've done here isn't much different from your doctor buying life insurance on you before he informs you of your malignant leukemia... it sucks for you, but he's gettin a Lexus. You'd think someone would say 'wow - that's really not right' and put a stop to it - but they've bought off all the people who might do so. When people rig the markets capitalism fails - and in this case catastrophically.

Of course - big financial institutions like this are made up of individuals who dont always take the big picture to heart. Take - AIG for example...

"To be honest with you, I really hope it blows up. I think the U.S. taxpayer deserves to lose a trillion dollars over this thing for the way they have behaved."
And then he turned on politicians who had joined the anti-AIG posse. "They only care about the next election, just like we only care about the next bonus. Well, none of them cares about the country, none of us cares about the institution," he said, adding: "They really don't care, and I really don't care. And frankly, if a trillion dollars gets lost, fine."

They're acting in their own concept of short term benefit... fully aware that they're destroying the system - but they deserve their 7 figure bonuses.

It's like there's a reality disconnect here - and these are supposed to be the best and brightest. You'd think they'd attended Detroit ISD (not an article about mutilate rogues - i promise).

heh

2010-02-25T08:31:00.000-08:00

by voice vote
without debate
if you vote for democrats - this is what you get

edit: Not to be outdone... the house passed the senate extension. How? Well - it's referred to as "Roll Call 67, “On Motion to Concur in Senate Amendments” for H.R. 3961"... buried in the fine print of the medicare physician payment reform act. Of course!!! Afterall - when you're going to have a driveby shooting of the constitution, you need to make sure the doctors get paid. The democrats in the house, of course, didnt want to be seen passing thing thing - afterall it's pretty much cherry on top of 8 years of a Bush Bullshit Sundae...

Oh I know... Lloyd voted the right way. He usually does. Which pisses me off beyond measure because the party is at fault here and i want to be able to hold them accountable... So thank you Lloyd. You're doing the right thing - even if it's in the service of a national failwhale.

Once

2010-02-23T07:29:00.000-08:00

there really was a time when editorials like this couldn't have run...
Maybe the loons were always bad - maybe they just kept the crazy to themselves or into weird little cults that fled into the nether reaches of the desert... but with the advent of the intarwebs and the giant echochambers they've somehow managed to make it all larger than life. IOne crazy homeless guy parked in front of your house screaming about Alien abductions is one thing - but a dozen? a hundred? So many that you find you have to walk on eggshells around anyone around you at work or out with friends at a party lest you accidentally set off a crazy homeless guy alien abduction rant? It just didn't used to be that way.

I just wish there were some way to break them of this behavior - it would be better for them as well as us if they used their brains for something other than their disturbed fantasies - but it isnt going to happen. It's amazing to watch though.

i find it amusing

2010-02-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

that we see what Greece has done and bitch
esp when it was wall st that helped em do it
and we complain that their deficit to gdp is too high... when the US isnt really much better.
Of course - you are SUPPOSED to push a deficit during a down market (as per our rapping buddy maynard) - and cutting spending now would tend to be somewhat problematic for a very anemic recovery...

yes - their cash economy is problematic - the same way paying cash at the salt lick is problematic... but it's not like other european entities arent guilty of electronic subterfuge to mask revenue - and though there is some - i'm not seeing nearly as much moral outrage when it comes to focusing on their own wealthy tax dodgers...

then again - who needs moral outrage when you can just pay to elect people who alter the tax laws you dont like

at least i've got chicken

heheheh

2010-02-11T17:49:00.000-08:00

i cant be the only one that finds this amusing

Happy Wednesday

2010-02-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

heh

2010-02-09T18:12:00.001-08:00

they may not be able to agree on dealing with healthcare...
or curbing executive compensation at financial institutions where the government is the largest shareholder...
or with cap and trade...

but it's a good thing we have obama in there to give us an extension to the patriot act buried 500 pages into the back of the jobs bill...

SEC. 645. EXTENSION OF INTELLIGENCE AUTHORITY SUNSETS. (a) USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005.—Section 102(b)(1) of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005

(Public Law 109–177; 50 U.S.C. 1805 note, 50 U.S.C. 1861 note, and 50 U.S.C. 1862 note) is amended by striking ‘‘February 28, 2010’’ and inserting ‘‘December 31, 2010’’.

(b) INTELLIGENCE REFORM AND TERRORISM PREVENTION ACT OF 2004.—Section 6001(b)(1) of the Intel ligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (Public Law 108–458; 118 Stat. 3742; 50 U.S.C. 1801 note) is amended by striking ‘‘February 28, 2010’’ and inserting ‘‘December 31, 2010’’.

i will be voting for republicans next election

sigh

2010-02-09T17:00:00.000-08:00

so first they stopped serving food...
then they started charging for food...
then they started charging a fee to use your airmiles...
then they started charging for bags...
now they're charging for a blanket

will i have to pay extra to use the seat as a floatation device?

American Airlines - you suck

Restraint of Trade Rant

2010-02-05T09:08:00.001-08:00

So State Farm goes to Florida and they sell homeowners insurance... and hurricanes show up and destroy the homes... and they go to the insurance board (that restricts the price State Farm is able to charge) and the board says 'you cant raise rates 50%' - so they say 'then we're not going to sell insurance to some people'... This seems reasonable. State Farm can't really make a profit selling insurance to people who insist on building villas on the beach... This is the market in action.

The rambling questions that derive from it are

1) is there a right to insurance for homes - no matter where they're built or what they're built of? Of course not. We have rules like 'fireproof shingles' and 'dont build in a floodplane' - and you would think these would be common sense but they are routinely ignored by developers (half the foundations in the town where i grew up cracked because they built the neighborhoods on soft non-compacted prairie land or fill poured into creeks people were unaware of - with developers taking the money, declaring bankruptcy to avoid liability, and starting new companies doing the same thing overnight). So the buyer has some responsibility to make sure they're not buying something crappy... the seller has some responsibility to insure that the product isn't crappy... and we generally have rules in place for things like 'appraisers' to examine things like properties to tell both sides exactly what's going on (and then we commonly find a way to abuse those safeguards - witness, the appraiser system was a huge accelerant for the housing bubble). The idea is that government regulation can act as an umpire in the process - make sure the developer isn't some chav taking a dive in the box in stoppage time.

2) if you have a law that says 'you must have insurance to build a home' - which we do... and people can no longer build villas on the beach... then is there a 'taking' when the insurance board rejects the interest rate rise? Some on our current cournt would say yes. Bob had a villa on the beach... Bob had insurance... the cost to insure Bob's villa had previously been borne by both Bob's premiums and the premiums paid by other people living in cement-block housing behind mountains far from the hurricanes. Because of the insurance board regulating rates - we dont have a pure market system - we've moved some of the fraud gaming up into an earlier stage of the process (instead of someone taking advantage of the system at the back at the expense of the insurers, they'd moved the fraud up into the front at the expense of other homeowners) - but that was part of the equation when Bob bought the land and built the villa...

this gets us to healthcare (which isnt the final stop)...

if a healthcare company can look at your well fed facebook friends and blog posts about food and tweets about how much you love cooking bacon, and through some simple heuristic analysis determine that you're likely to be overweight and suffer from cardiac disease... should they be allowed to say 'Bob is higher risk than Wendy - who's a member of a triathlon facebook group' and charge you a different rate? I know that many insurance plans offer either discounts if you are in a health club, or discounted memberships to health clubs on this basis - but that's the carrot, and this is a bit more invasive stick. In some ways - this means saying 'if someone insists on smoking cigarettes - should they bear the financial burden of that behavior, or should society attack the problem in a backdoor manner - ie we tax the cigarette makers and transfer the money to the entities that are going to have to cover the costs of treating the disease'. We use gas tax this way - the more gas you use, the more tax you pay because the more wear you put on the roads. Big Trucks are weighed at the border crossings to assess penalties if they are doing too much damage to the asphalt. If the answer to all this is no - then should they be allowed to say 'We dont want to insure Bob... people who like duck liver are a huge problem for us financially'... Bob has a right to eat whatever he wants - does he have a right to cheap insurance? or should Bob bear the brunt of the cost for Bob's lifestyle choices.

which we can take to banks...

if the govt, as umpire, make rules that say 'society isnt going to bear the brunt of your excess' that seems fair - but it's not a completely 'unfettered market'... does saying 'it's not our problem to sort out the fact that you've been trying to circumvent those rules' seem a reasonable response? There are some who would argue the only time we should have rules is when there's a demonstrable and dire impact to the system for everyone, not just the many who will be victims. This isn't a matter of a sports analogy like 'if the penalty for intentionally breaking Brett Favre's neck is 15 yards - but it wins you the game... wont you do it every time?' - because in that scenario there are two actors who can each break the necks of the opposing team's quarterback. This is more 'if greece refuses to sort out it's economic mess... then, well, does germany let it and the euro fail?

The Bankers

2010-02-04T16:48:00.000-08:00

Even the bankers are willing to admit the system is broken (when they dont have a horse in the race anymore). Will it amount to anything? lol - you must be joking...

plus ce change

2010-02-03T07:19:00.000-08:00

a couple years ago, right before AIG was bailed out, 400m in 'retention bonuses' were negotiated with employees... then no only was the firm found to be insolvent - but was essentially used as a shunt to pour 180 billion dollars into other insolvent financial entities in a manner that would return nothing to the US taxpayer but the goodwill of the banking industry...
Last year - the first of the bonuses went out - and people were pissed... threatened to tax it etc... many AIG employees said 'ok, we'll give some back', the media moved on, and low and behold less than half of even the pledged amount was returned.

So in an effort to fend off controversy, today AIG split the bonus they're paying into 2 payments, one to employees still at the firm, one to those that have left due in march. So today, 100m went goes out to the same jackasses that took slightly more last year - only without any pledge to return a dime of it. Another giant sum is due in march, as retention payments, to people who left the firm. I want you to think about that one for a moment.

If you put a 'federal bailouts will void any bonus contracts' rule into effect, ceos will happily drive their companies into the ground so they get paid. Hell - we saw some of that anyway... these guys put my ex-wife's 'its all about me' mantra to shame.

Really - the problem goes back to Reagan. For 30 years we tried it the republican way - we gutted the tax rate on incomes above the top 1% line with the expectation it would 'trickle down'. Looking at what it's done, to the economy, to investment, to wages, to median incomes, to the standard of living... i'd say 'big bag o fail' is an apt description. How about we try it my way for 30 years... All compensation totalling $1m per year is taxed at 50%. Over $10m per year at 90%. Money to be delivered directly to poor and middle class schools in wheelbarrows.

Icarus IV Revisited

2010-02-02T23:21:00.001-08:00

what happens when you take

and combine it with

well... ask the folks at nasa

sigh

2010-01-28T12:13:00.000-08:00

i posted about this... hrm... before there were blogs...
1995 i think...
said 'this is what's coming'
now - well after the reality and into the 'lets look at the data' phase...
we're finally coming back to the truths -- technology was deskilling... that toffler had it wrong... etc etc...

"There are multiple ways to explain why permanent job-losers represent a higher share of the unemployed this time around. Maybe, as others have suggested, many of the jobs gained in the boom years were built on phantom wealth. Or maybe the culprit is a corollary of Moore’s Law, the idea of exponential advances in technology over time. That might suggest that innovation and automation displace more and more workers by the time each recession rolls around."

Both.
And we haven't really corrected yet - because the banks are allowed to value the cesspools in their books away from market value... the massive wave of govt spending has delayed the reckoning... but a reckoning is coming and it will be a disaster.

"Workers whose entire occupations — not just the previous payroll positions they held — are disappearing (think: auto workers) will need to start over and find a new career path. But the new skills they will need take a long time to acquire."

Wrong. The jobs will take very little time to train for... but i dont know why anyone would pay $60k a year for someone to do them in america when you could pay someone in Mexico $12k. What you're seeing is the reasonably rapid destruction of the middle class - and though you can blame Reagan, it was Clinton and Obama who've dropped the ball correcting.

I was reading one today

2010-01-26T09:44:00.000-08:00

from boingboing about how the govt is buying commercial database data on people to get around some of the rules related to domestic tracking of citizens - and i laughed. They've been doing this for years - hell - there are entities in the govt that went out of their way to create private firms to track data like this with the only idealized customer being the US Govt... lol - go check out Acxiom. The reality is that with the email reading/archiving crap out there, and the stuff idiots post into their facebook accts and to twitter - of course they're going to use it.

1) get you name off your blog
2) get your friends off your facebook/twitter acct
3) if you insist on having your name - dont post anything work/politics related
4) pictures of yourself? no... bad idea...

Let's put it this way. The internet is a serial murderer... only put information there that you dont mind that guy having.

Edit: actually... considering how the internet works... getting your name off these things isnt going to help. Delete them. Start over. Make new accounts with fake names and totally different email addresses... once you've created the join to that old data you need to get away from it.

Wow

2010-01-25T18:24:00.000-08:00

seriously...
eliminate the pre-existing conditions aspect of the health care bill? sure - why not...
why dont you freeze spending while you're at it
our president is as big a talentless hack as ghostcrawler
all that's left is for obama to promise me a pony

with your wars expanding overseas... with a massive percentage of the military's gear canibalized, in dire need of repair, or working but stuck thousands of miles from anywhere we might want it... with increasing health care costs and decreasing revenues from taxes how, exactly, do you think you're going to manage this? I mean sure - cutting into that deficit is huge - but i dont see how you manage it with a 500m war outlay and an ever increasing debt service one...

Mondays...

2010-01-25T12:26:00.000-08:00

they're so much fun
whether it's covering up the past...
pretending the future is rosy
we're guaranteed to build politically pragmatic solutions to the problem that will result in abject failure

seriously - when the number of uninsured grows over the next 3 years do you really think that there wont be disastrous repercussions? This is exactly what happens when you take a dump on your political base, pass a bill that papers over the problem, shovels a boatload of cash into your campaign coffers, and furthers the rot at the core of the nation. supporting dems at this point wont make it worse faster - but it sure as hell isnt much of an improvement over the crazy alternatives

Let's Go After the Banks!!!

2010-01-22T11:35:00.000-08:00

sure... sure you will... just like you delivered on healthcare...

In the end... if anything is passed... it will give billions to bankers, tax breaks to banks, encourage predatory lending practices, limit usurious interest to no more than 770% per year (it's actually 780% now), and give Ken Lewis a pony -- and they'll call it 'reform'.

Obama's attack on wall street is merely a ruse
That struts and frets it's hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

so...

2010-01-20T11:10:00.000-08:00

i made a remark today to jake that elicited a comment about orangutans, and how i might could use one because Clyde had a mean right hook... which lead me to search on Clyde... which brought me to...

According to "Visions of Caliban: On Chimpanzees and People" by famed primatologist Jane Goodall and Dale Peterson, the original "Clyde" was trained with a can of mace and a pipe wrapped in newspaper. He was viciously beaten the day before filming started to make him more docile. Near the end of filming the sequel "Any Which Way You Can," the orangutan was caught stealing doughnuts on the set, brought back to the training facility and beaten for 20 minutes with a 3 1/2 -foot ax handle. He died soon after of a cerebral hemorrhage.

People suck.

Musings on Coakley

2010-01-19T18:48:00.000-08:00

For the dems to say they didnt pull out all the stops in trying to win Kennedy's senate seat is absurd - but that's what the whitehouse is busy trying to sell as they turtle and cover their ears. The lesson the tea party crowd will take from this is 'we're right - people hate this health bill'... the lesson the dems will take is they need to compromise more with big business (this from the voters in John Kerry and Ted Kennedy's state...).

What dems should take is 'when we act like republicans, it turns out the democratic voters dont vote for us' - but they wont... if they voted the way progressives wanted them to vote they wouldnt be in this mess.

Now you have Franken saying 'we're going to just pass a health care bill regardless'... well - ok - but if you're going to just pass a 51 vote bill, why not scrap the shit bill you have and toss one out there that only gets 51 votes... single payer... tax the rich... go nuts.

Personal Rant

2010-01-13T23:17:00.001-08:00

Dont do this much...
i find i'm going through an OCD phase the last couple days... it's a little weird finding myself wandering around the house moving books and cleaning shelves and organizing. Perhaps a function of having had the rents here for 2 weeks - but I think perhaps the whole Yuki thing has emerged from the 'fun to think about' to 'ok... i really like this girl and this is getting serious' and that's beginning to have an impact. I've got a mess on my hands again it seems... i was getting used to living out here in the forest - but I dont see how i could pursue something with a girl 8000 miles away and stay here. I'm good with turmoil - but man what a mess... work needs to sort itself out soon - so i can figure out how to play these cards.

A Friendly Reminder

2010-01-13T12:35:00.000-08:00

That crap healthcare bill is still crap. It will make this graph worse.

Once upon a time

2010-01-12T07:36:00.000-08:00

there were fishermen in somalia...
then westerners came along - italians with ships laden with barrels of european toxic waste... mitsubishi corp taiwanese flagged fishing vessels with long lines and driftnets vacuuming the fish up out of their coastal waters - all to the point that many families simply couldn't feed themselves anymore
So things changed - and the fishermen turned pirate - made some money - and scared the foreigners away. This is the result.

oh sure - it would smell a lot more like justice if the rogues were catching the illegal dumpers and fishing vessels instead of innocent bystanders - but the net effect has been pretty damned good.

The general rule is 'people are going to do things that benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else until someone stops them'. You can use a religion to press mores on people - fear of eternal damnation works wonders in terms of keeping people in line - or you can use draconian governmental authority (good ole Draco... he knew how to impose harsh rules)... but either way if you just lounge about and say you're going to think about things you're pretty well guaranteeing nothing gets done to solve the problem.

I may bitch

2010-01-08T07:35:00.000-08:00

and our government might well just be an extension of oligarchs squeezing the last drops of blood from the stone... but at least you dont get arrested for being raped. Why exactly do we put any effort into helping regimes like this? oh... right... kinda goes back to that first problem doesnt it...

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T16:20:00.001-08:00

now be careful out there...

2 1/2 years from now

2009-12-30T08:45:00.000-08:00

when you're telling your friends and family 'but you have to vote for obama - sure he's bad, but the alternative?! They're awful'

I'm going to remind you of this. Personally - given a choice between a scary person who tells me 'hi, i'm scary, i'm going to cook squirrel in my popcorn popper and serve it to foreign dignitaries at the whitehouse' and one who will simply lie about being scary... i'd rather have the honest one.

Bwahahahahaha

2009-12-27T08:41:00.000-08:00

ok... so the son of a nigerian banker (no really) gets on a plane in lagos, reconnects through amsterdam, and ends up with a condom full of extremely high explosives on a plane over detroit - where the only reason he fails to blow the thing all to hell is his improvised and poorly put together blasting cap.

This is an actual honest to god terrist - and apparently he's a moron.

So now - we have new rules covering the last hour of the flight. You aren't allowed to get out of your seat - so you cant go to the bathroom. You cant have anything in your lap (books, laptops). You cant have access to your carry-on luggage - nor open the overhead compartment.

So apparently - if you're a terrist - you cant blow up the plane in the first hour of the flight.

In the mean time - if that mother with the 6 month old needs to change a diaper right after takeoff on the shuttle from NY to DC... you're going to be treated to 45 minutes of screaming infant, topped off with the fine smell of babyfood diarrhea. For those of you who fly a lot - I really really hope you have alternatives.

Xmas

2009-12-24T09:50:00.001-08:00

Another year, another xmas... Family for the holidays - with all the somewhat typical silliness... food i dont want to eat (but i'll be good and eat it)... gifts i dont want (but i'll be good and thank them for them)... but honestly? i cant complain about the people in my life at all. There are some truly special ones - and for those I'm really really very grateful.

gah

2009-12-23T12:18:00.000-08:00

here at the end of the year when we use our commonly secular holiday to celebrate the magical ravings of goatherds
i've decided i'm in the wrong business...
i should be selling magic wands
or barcode reading anti-terrorist software
or maybe i should just promise the govt several million dollars and not pay

You know

2009-12-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

this all seems about right to me...
you tell me...

Typical

2009-12-18T22:03:00.000-08:00

“And that’s where we agreed to list our national actions and commitments, to provide information on the implementation on these actions through national communications, with international consultations and analysis under clearly defined guidelines. We agreed to set a mitigation target to limit warming to no more than 2 degree Celsius, and importantly to take action to meet this objective consistent with science.”

Right.

Even after everyone saw the leaked UN report saying 'this is going to be 3c not 2c'. Pretty obvious someone wrote his speech beforehand - and he just called a meeting with some folks, agreed to announce a NON-BINDING agreement with 4 other countries, leaving everyone else out of the conversation, and took a big ole wizz all over everyone else. This is nothing less than a humiliating embarrassment for the president - and I hope the rest of the world understands that not only did he fail to commit to anything, but he will deliver absolutely NOTHING of what he suggested he might. NOTHING. He has neither the intention nor the power nor the leadership nor the courage to do so.

Of course - the leaked UN report is probably just junk science... afterall, Climate Interactive, using an MIT software model, is sporting a model spewing +3.9 degrees and a co2 concentration of 770 ppm by 2100.

Hey world - welcome to our nightmare. A president who doesn't care about real substantive progress - but loves to slap his name onto longwinded speeches about progress and making the world better - and call things 'healthcare reform' or 'agreements to combat global warming' when they're nothing of the sort.

He's a jackass, a worthless corporatist windbag that deserves scorn, ridicule, and no end to mocking. If the man came to my house to shake my hand i'd kick him in the balls and tell him where to find a goat and what he should do to it.

But for all that you have to put up with our asshattery as a nation - and for that I once again apologize - at least some of you have health care.

Wow...

2009-12-17T12:52:00.001-08:00

Maybe I voted for the wrong guy...

A Rebuttal

2009-12-16T09:22:00.000-08:00

So Josh over at TPM posts a classic 'my intent is not to mock' editorial - where of course he mocks those who are upset by the situation in Washington.

What people keep forgetting with regards to those who choose the democatic or republican party - is a very fundamental difference in mindset. Those who trend conservative and republican place loyalty above everything - truth, justice, fairness... those who trend left of center are far more willing to abandon following those that do not live up to their vision of their ideals. Those left of center are harder on themselves, and harder on others when it comes to who they will willingly support. What this means is that a smaller number of very loyal jerks have significantly more power in the country than the 'big tent' full of fractious infighting lefties. The progressives learned this lesson - hard - over the years... and so they put up with a lot of things they dont agree with - simply to try to keep those jerks out of power - because otherwise we get W.

BUT - when there's finally a sense of 'ok - we have taken all 3 seats of power' - we're safe... and instead we get the Stupak amendment? FOIA protections for torture photos? An expanding war... a pro-landmine president... giant shovelfuls of cash to connected wall st bankers through the giant money-changer that is AIG... is there really a difference?

There is a point where a lefty's sense of loyalty - limited and tenuous as it is - becomes challenged... where they begin to question whether the perceived illusion of democracy is in fact an illusion - and corruption and corporate greed are simply going to run the country no matter who is in power. A point where we begin to believe we've been taken for a ride. We look up and wonder whether we should vote for Kang or Kodos... and Josh's response in this editorial, in classic simpson's form, is essentially 'what are you going to do? throw your vote away?'

If you're going to mock them - i think mocking them for being hopeful to begin with is more appropriate than threatening them with the 'it could be worse' line. If your husband punches you in the face every night - and escalates to using a baseball bat - you dont wait to leave until he goes into the garage for the chainsaw. Screw the democratic party... and screw you Josh for playing the cheerleader card.

Banks

2009-12-14T14:51:00.000-08:00

Banks should loan moar...
banks are good upstanding pillars of the community - i'm sure they'll listen.

I swear... it's almost as if everything Obama says runs counter to what his administration is actually doing. How long do you suppose he can keep telling people war is peace and getting away with it.

So....

2009-12-11T12:27:00.000-08:00

After reading this from a Dec 9th poll...

Who would you rather have as President right now: George W. Bush or Barack Obama? If George W. Bush, press 1. If Barack Obama, press 2. If you’re not sure, press 3.
Bush ............................................................... 44%
Obama............................................................ 50%
Not Sure.......................................................... 6%

Palin/Bachmann 2012 - get used to it...

Waaaagh!

in memorium

How'd BillO get so smart? You pinheads...

game over

It's Not Apathy

even the obvious stuff

How to treat your friends

BE THERE

I should make a FFFFUUUU comic of this...

On Aug 29th

Since it's 9/12

I was undecided

Today In The Garden

Parents

yeah

Hey Google

Cat in the Trash Update

sigh

Happy Monday

you know

Visitors

This makes sense to me

Another one of these...

Stuck Inside the Box

Beyond Stupid

Being Unreasonable

2 moar years...

The Week in Review

learning something new

this...

sigh...

you've probably seen it....

The R'lyehians have spoken

fault

oh derek wildstar... what have they done...

lol

Mastering the Art

must watch video

the house of cards seems to be crumbling

my take...

the problem with england

*sniff*

sigh

so if they ask you

some days are like that...

World Cup 2010

Vacated Wins

This is what I'm talking about...

politics

...

When I was a child...

they dont hate us for our freedom

predictability...

well...

walled gardens

Happy Friday

Not Quite Hyperbole

Nanny Continent

Yesterday

New Old Ideas

As I was saying...

The next time...

Obama Ratings Boost

A Question for John Yoo

Jackbooted Thugs

taking it out on everyone else

at some point

broken systems

heh

Once

i find it amusing

heheheh

Happy Wednesday

heh

sigh

Restraint of Trade Rant

The Bankers

plus ce change

Icarus IV Revisited

sigh

sniff