Wait, no, not "tempting" that other thing that's the opposite of that.
I mean it's true that they give you a "side of the news that you just can't find anywhere else" -- the greasy, racist, Cheeto®-stained, basement-dwelling side is just so, so unrepresented in print these days. Oooh, ooh, they have "unsurpassed book and movie reviews" too! I do so wish I could stay up-to-date with the latest in shitty right-wing "entertainment" gossip.
Alas, I think I'll have to pass.
I've posted a comment at a couple places that the Teahadi's new Benghazinvestigator looks like Greedo from Star Wars and that Barry (and/or Hillary) should shoot first, just like Han Solo did. I couldn't resist making a hideous animation:
(click to enjoy it in it's full-sized hideousness)
Yes, the color and typeface surrounding the asshole in the first frame are both hideous, because Trey and the Teahadis deserve nothing better.
You're welcome.
While the photoshoopery is fun, the more mundane of our political realities are really fucking pissing me off. I'd really, really like to hope that this is a sign of some clever politicking that is ideally designed to quiet the constant barrage of noisy OMGWTFBBQ!? over the non-compliant policy cancellations. I dunno, I'd like to hope I guess. Anyway, the whole "MM-MUH PLAN! WHUT ABOUT MUH PRESHUS PLAN!" bullshit, along with Neil Young's recent birthday (68!) collided here:
I feel like it would be perfect if we adjust the lyrics a teensy bit for the current situation:
I caught them knockin' at my cellar door We love you, baby, can we have some more? Ooh, ooh, the damage done. I hit the city and I lost my friends I watched the needle take another plan Gone, gone, the damage done. I sing the song because I love the plan I know that some of you won't understand Milk-blood to keep from running out. I've seen the needle and the damage done A little part of it in everyone But every flunkie's like a settin' sun.
Meh, that'll work. As usual, vast readership, suggestions welcome in the comments.
Today we must shed a tear for this poor soul who, clearly through no fault of his own, suffered mightily and lost his job for just doing it too damn well.
What have we become? Hopefully after this settlement, this sad, beleaguered man can move on and will find a new job. Perhaps he could sign on with Fox News to cover the hippy-punching beat? Nah, that'd probably be too traumatic for him and might further hurt his widdle fee-fees. Perhaps Blackwater/Xe/Whatever-the-fuck-they-changed-their-name-to-now is hiring? I'm sure some brown people somewhere need to be tortured. They should give him a call.
So it turns out if you try to shrink government small enough to drown in a tub, there are eventually some consequences.
What!? This came as a huge surprise to me too. Nobody could've predicted, etc.
Thankfully, the brilliant "job creators" that are so busy creating jobs in other countries to make cheap crap to sell to rubes here will be able to sail their yachts off to the Cayman Islands and live out their lives in peace while we fight for scraps.
I mean that's obviously what's really important after all.
I pointed out over on Sadly, No! recently that we seem to have the state's dumbest glibertarian writing a column for the campus paper. In a state that is home to Lars Larson, taking away the "dumbest glibertarian" crown is no small feat, but this guy is trying his damndest.
(The paper's website is complete and utter crap, so don't be surprised if it barely works most of the time if you click the links.)
Here are some short snippets from a few of his columns, just so you can get a feel for the stupidity without the need for full immersion:
Less intrusive government is key for better market, consumers
One of the biggest places in which the government invades our lives is through transportation. The government built, owns and maintains most of the roads in America. But to think we need the government to do any of this remains absurd. ... Henry Ford is the most revolutionary of them all. ... Ford sold cars to the common man at an affordable price, $850. Over the next few years, the price dropped to approximately $250. The government didn’t force Ford to do it. The government hadn’t taxed people heavily to build roads yet either. Ford sold cars to people before roads existed. ... Now that roads are owned by the government, prices skyrocket due to artificial demand the government has created by printing money.
I especially like this one because the lead sentence in the article is: "Today’s America consists of massive government intrusion and a lack of knowledge of history." And then he proceeds to completely fuck up the history of transportation in America. I mean "Ford sold cars to people before roads existed." is just absurd on its face for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that he must almost think that Henry Ford actually invented the wheel or something. Regardless, a nice quick search for road history in America might have led an actual thinking person to the League of American Bicyclists history page, where we find this:
The League began as the League of American Wheelmen (LAW) in 1880 -- Newport, R.I. was the location of our founding meeting -- and was responsible for defending the rights of cyclists from its start. The League of American Wheelmen is credited with getting paved roads in this country before the reign of the automobile.
And it's barely worth getting into the utter absurdity of thinking that private industry could have somehow built the railroads and interstate freeway system without government help. He doesn't even know basic history of the Transcontinental Railroad:
The construction and operation of the line was authorized by the Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864 during the American Civil War. Congress supported it with 30-year U.S. government bonds and extensive land grants of government-owned land. Completion of the railroad was the culmination of a decades-long movement to build such a line. It was one of the crowning achievements in the crossing of plains and high mountains westward by the Union Pacific and eastward by the Central Pacific. Opened for through traffic on May 10, 1869, with the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, Utah, the road established a mechanized transcontinental transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy of the American West.
Yep, no government help there. Stupid government, can't do anything right!
Here's another gem:
Trillion-dollar coin will hyperinflate US currency
Although the U.S. government “averted” the fiscal cliff, a new proposal has risen that could send us maybe not off the fiscal cliff, but into hyperinflation and total destruction of the U.S. dollar. Paul Krugman, and others who have power or influence, but still don’t understand economics, have proposed the minting of a trillion-dollar coin.
(emphasis mine)
Yep, you guessed it, of course the rest of the article is about OMG FIAT CURRENCY! and ending the Federal Reserve and such. The best part of this though is that an earlier article is:
If only people understood economics
If people had a firm understanding of economics and the free market, we could have a much better world. ... Too many people comment on the subject of economics without a firm knowledge and understanding of it. The Austrian School of Economics has been the only school of economic thought that explains real-life behavior.
That really does just not need any further comment, the stupid stands tall and proud, all on it's own.
In the comments ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© helpfully provided an excellent link to a really good series of articles about the Austrian school. Just in case nobody reads the comments, and so you don't have to dig up the links to the other two parts, here they are:
And here's a podcast the author did covering the series and another article by the same author that is about the Austrian school and the constant libertarian yakking about gold.
All really good stuff, thanks ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©!
I've now received two copies of the following idiocy in my email:
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:45:39 +0700 Message-Id: <201301300345.r0U3jdEh028401@siamnaliga.com> To: [REDACTED] From: Freedom@Network.net Subject: Sandy Hook Shooting Didn't Happen Excerpt from Muad'Dib's January 7th, 2013 Critical Mass Radio interview: ..They used a poster child for this to get everybody's sympathy and to get everybody's emotions up so that they could hopefully bring in a gun ban. They used a little poster child, a little blonde-haired blue-eyed six year old girl. She was the face, the poster child. She was supposedly killed along with the other 19 six year olds and seven year olds at Sandy Hook. Three days later Obama was there doing a photo op and she's sitting on his knee. She's supposed to be dead, used as a poster child, this little girl died - she's sitting on Obama's knee three days later. The same little girl. And then they have her parents interviewed. It shows that they're all actors. It never really happened, because the guy that was supposedly her dad, is shown in the video where he's to the side and he's laughing and joking with other people and then he's called up in front of the camera. He's off to the left. Then he's called to the center, to the focus of the camera to be interviewed and to give his speech about Sandy Hook and about his daughter. And he goes from on the side from laughing and joking with everybody, he comes up to the center and ... he takes the joking, smiling face off and you can see him physically trying to force his face to look sad and then he starts talking about how his daughter's been killed. They're actors. There were no bodies. It was a made for TV drama to try to ram through the gun control laws, because they want to kill the American people and they can't kill armed people. That's why Hitler disarmed the Germans, it's why Stalin disarmed the Russians, it's why chairman Mao disarmed the Chinese and they killed between them something like 120 million of their own people. And that's what they want to do in America and they can't do it because the people have the Second Amendment and they have guns. So they have to do all of this, and they'll keep doing it. There will be more incidents like this, which are made for television, until they manage to persuade the American people to give up their guns. And then they'll start killing the Americans. Because the Americans are the only people stopping them from doing what they want to do already. They know they can't put their next phase, which is reducing the world's population, they can't put that phase into operation whilst the Americans have got millions! of guns.
How the fuck did I get on this person's mailing list?
What do you even say about this level of crazy? I mean we could examine the little details like how this massive conspiracy is necessary so the ebil gubmint can kill all its citizens. Because obviously if we citizens have our cute little semi-automatic rifles to protect us, we'll be completely invulnerable to the government's drones and vast stockpiles of biological weaponry. Right. But that's just the tip of the crazy, crazy iceberg in this one. Definitely not willing to examine this person's various issues any further.
The "author" (I'm being generous -- "screed spewer" is probably more accurate) closes with this:
This message has no links to help it get through spam blockers. If you are interested in the subjects being discussed, please search the Web for more information.
Uh, thanks, but no, really, I'm fine.
This craigslist post is fucking hilarious. I've saved a screenshot for posterity:
"Oh noes! I cut a hole in my gas tank and (surprise!) gas came out! Now what do I do?"
The only way this could be better is if they'd managed to catch themselves on fire during the process.
Also: look, a blahg post! Yay me.
Hehehe, I just got this in my inbox from an Apple rep (I use lots of Apple stuff, so this isn't to bash them):
Technology makes this a magical time to be a student. And a powerful time to be an educator. The Apple Learning Tour is an opportunity to experience how you can transform learning with innovative new tools for creating, curating, and deploying content.
Due to a technical issue with our registration system, we are currently not able to accept registrations via our website.
Register today by sending an email to...
Emphasis mine. Perhaps fixing your issue might give educators a bit more confidence in this innovative new technology, eh?
This post over at TPM inspired me. Others have already pointed out Newt's resemblence to Baron Harkonnen of Dune, but I didn't know was that Newt is also working with Glossu 'Beast' Rabban. His campaign makes perfect sense to me now.
