I’m this far from putting him on my “They Who Must Not Be Named” list over the media frenzy.
Category: Sports
Best Headline Ever
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I do not believe that this was unintentional
As I look now, the headline remains unchanged, but here is a screenshot for posterity.
My guess is that someone will get fired over this, but you are not supposed to make jokes like this in journalism.
OK, I Don’t Want to Clean That Podium
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It reminds me of a scene from the Police Academy movies
I’m just saying.
And, no, it is not photoshopped.
Jon Stewart is a F%$#ing Genius: Pro Wrestling Edition
Do not have anything in your mouth before clicking “play”.
On Jim Bunning and His Filibuster
Since I’m starting a new job, I dodge Bunning’s filibuster of extended unemployment benefits.
Jim bunning, go Cheney yourself.
Also, I am thinking about a campaign to remove him from the baseball hall of fame.
A Canadian’s Deep Thoughts on Losing to Team USA in Hockey
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The protest sign is properly spelled, so Canadian education does not produce “morans“.
OK, the Canucks win in the bigger scheme of things.
It would be nice not living in a country with the politics and attitudes of a 3rd world nation.
But we have … We have … We have … We have … We won that damn hockey game.
They Who Must Not Be Named
Let us add Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas, as well as any other moron who decides that celebrity justifies their carrying a firearm in violation of the local laws:
Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas, who was suspended from professional basketball, pleaded guilty to a felony count of carrying a handgun without a license.
Arenas, 28, entered the plea today before District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Robert Morin in Washington. Under a plea agreement, Arenas admitted violating a District of Columbia law on carrying an unlicensed handgun.
Under the agreement, he likely will receive a sentence much lighter than the five years he might otherwise face. The agreement calls for prosecutors to recommend a sentence of six months when Arenas is sentenced on March 26.
When the prosecution asks for 6 months, can they please also ask for the sentence to be served at the same time as the NBA season?
$#&£¥%!!!!!
Washington lost to Dallas by 1 point.
Belgium, man, just Belgium!!!!!
When They Ask You Money for a Stadium
Remember the Silverdome, in Pontiac Michigan, which cost $55.7 million to build, and was just sold for $583,000.00, not much more than a nice house.
Not a bad deal, when you realize that it also includes a sizable lot as well:
As a result, Leeb said, Pontiac could ill afford to continue paying $1.5 million in annual upkeep for the stadium. With a private owner, the property “will go back on the tax rolls,” he explained.
The 80,000-seat Silverdome was the biggest stadium in the National Football League when it was built in 1975 for $55.7 million [about $220 million in 2009 dollars]. The stadium, which sits on a 127-acre plot, is also the former home of the National Basketball Association’s Detroit Pistons.
Something should be done about the legalized extortion that pro sports franchises engage in, but I don’t expect to see this in my lifetime.
Because Nothing is More Important Than College Football
Orrin Hatch is asking Barack Obama to investigate college football’s Bowl Championship Series to see if it violates antitrust law.
It appears that BYU and the University of Utah are at a disadvantage, and Hatch thinks something should be done.
Dude, how about a protest song on your next record.
Moron.
I will note that I think that the college sports system needs to be investigated. I think that the players are treated like plantation slaves, but I’m not a US Senator.
Quote of the Day, Republican Values Edition
Courtesy of Talking Points Memo:
I’m going to go way out on a limb here: Professional wrestling and necrophilia have never come up together in a political campaign before today.
Josh Marshall discussing the storied past of current Republican Senatorial candidate, and former WWE CEO Linda McMahon.
During her tenure as head of WWE, there were sketches featuring, “wrestlers engaged in a simulated rape, a public sex scene, and one depicting a wrestler having sex with a corpse.”
The only possible defense to the accusation that Ms. McMahon is a purveyor of smut and perversion would be that she has no control over the content because pro wrestling is real.
Good luck selling that.
Potential Rams Investors Drop Limbaugh
Tell Rush it was only businessWell it appears that Dave Checketts, who is heading a group looking to buy the St. Louis Rams, has given Rush Limbaugh the old heave-ho.
I guess that they thought that hiring the nations most prominent sex-tourist/junkie/racist bigot would be bad for business.
See this Rush? 
It’s the world’s smallest guitar, and it’s playing just for you.
Saint Rush Limbaugh has Done a Miracle
Specifically, he has gotten someone who lives within 25 miles of where Memorial Stadium, home field for the Baltimore Colts, once stood, to say something nice about someone with the last name of Irsay.*
You see Jim Irsay, son of the infamous (if you have any affection at all for the Baltimore Colts) Bob Irsay, and owner of the (now) Indianapolis Colts, has come out in the strongest terms against Rush Limbaugh being a part owner of the Rams or any other NFL franchise:
“I myself couldn’t even think of voting for him,” said Irsay speaking from the NFL’s fall ownership meetings in Boston.
Asked if he’d spoken to other owners about Limbaugh’s candidacy, Irsay said, “I haven’t and I don’t think I would even go to the point of talking to Tony Dungy, Jim Caldwell, Dwight Freeney, talking to those men and seeing what their positions are. I’m very sensitive to know there are scars out there. I think as a nation we need to stop it. Our words do damage and it’s something that we don’t need. We need to get to a higher level of humanity and we have.
Good for Jim Irsay for taking the high road….I can’t f%$^ing believe that I just said that.
BTW, it looks like Limbaugh’s toxicity has killed any possibility of his taking any ownership role deal, because NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said that Limbaugh’s statements are “divisive”:
“I’ve said many times before, we’re all held to a high standard here,” Goodell said. Then he continued: “I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL –- absolutely not.”
Put a fork in your involvement with the NFL, Rush, you won’t ever be allowed to be a broadcaster or an owner.
My earlier post on this is here.
*Bob Irsay literally moved the Colts out of town in the middle of the night in a bit of infamy called “The Move”, see here.
Economics Update (a Day Late)
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Foreclosures hitting high end homes
Hotel Pulse Index
Baltic Dry Index, a Measure of Shipping Demand, Courtesy Barry Ritholtz
You know, there are very few guaranteed money makers, but one is owning baseball club, and the Chicago Cubs have just filed for bankruptcy, which says something about the state of the economy.
I know that this is really an artifact of Sam Zell’s completely idiotic business model, which seemed to be:
- Collect Underpants
- ?
- Profit
Except, of course, Zell was collecting short term loans, rather than underpants.
Of course, it’s not only big debtors like Zell who are getting into trouble. You are seeing foreclosures increasing among more expensive homes, which gives the lie to the constant refrain from many in the right wing that it’s all the fault of those n*gg*rs irresponsible borrowers.
It’s going to get worse, and it’s likely to create another crisis if Wells-Fargo’s numbers on Option ARMs carry across the industry, which are unbelievably grim:
“Several of our investors have questioned the current loss severity in light of negative amortization and home price decline,” researchers wrote in the report. “Our analysis suggests that option ARM loss severity will likely range between 60% and 70% provided home prices have stabilized.”
So 60+% of the option ARM are expected to go bad, even if house prices are not falling any further.
We are also seeing a continued drop in hotel activity, which implies that both consumer and corporate travel remain moribund.
The bottom piece of chart pr0n is the Baltic Dry Index, basically an index of shipping costs, though it is also a very good proxy for shipping demand, and this appears to indicate that the need for shipping, and hence the level of international trade, is still well off.
We are some seeing some interesting activity in US Treasuries now, with bonds rising, and their yields thus falling, on the expectation that the Fed will print more money and that inflation will remain low, but Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) are also showing signs of expanded demand, which implies that at least part of the bond market is betting on increased inflation in the relatively near term.
We have some good news, in that the recession appears to be well and truly over…..In New Zealand, with retail sales jumping there.
This would explain why both the $NZ and the $Aus rose significantly yesterday….Well, that and the fact Australia’s central bank raised rates last week.
The US dollar was otherwise mixed, weaker vs. the Euro, but up vs. the Pound Sterling and Yen.
Oil rose yesterday too, as a result of a combination of cold weather in the US and optimism about the economy.
Buy Your Own F$#@ing Stadium, You Bigoted Fat, Dope Fiend, Sex Tourist Puke
So, it appears that Rush Limbaugh is joining a group of investors who are looking at buying the St. Louis Rams.
You just know that after they buy the team, they will want a new stadium at taxpayer expense.
That’s always the way.
The appropriate response is above.
It should be made clear to whoever whats to partner with him that getting that stadium at taxpayer expense just became a lot harder.
How Can I Hire This Guy as My Stock Broker
Un-dirtyword-believable.
Why Conservatives are Dancing Like the Palestinians Did on 911*
You know, I’m not a big fan of the Olympics. I know of no event which has drifted further from its original purpose, which was that athletes set aside national differences, and compete for the “joy of the sport.”
The Olympics these days is all about nationalism, commercialism, and pumping up national differences.
When this is juxtaposed with the enormous costs, which always seem to overrun their budget and require a taxpayer bailout, I know that if I lived in Chicago, I would be strongly opposed to the Olympics being in the Windy City.
So, there are many valid reasons not to want the Olympics in your city, or your country.
That being said, the behavior of the right wing was all about, as Nuisance Industry at Daily Kos notes, celebrating the defeat of the United States of America:
That’s not what this is about. Today, great joy and celebration greeted America losing the Olympics. This joy was not in the streets of Rio (where celebrations certainly are underway), but in the offices and studios of people who facetiously claim to be patriotic Americans.
It’s happening in the offices of the Weekly Standard:
Standard blogger John McCormack published a celebratory post on the magazine’s blog, titled “Chicago Loses! Chicago Loses!.” McCormack wrote that “Cheers erupt at WEEKLY STANDARD world headquarters
It’s happening in Glenn Beck’s studios, where Herr Beck declared the news is “so sweet.” In Herr Limabugh’s studio, the bloated junkie happily declared this “the worst day of Obama’s presidency.”
Newsmax, the fascist organization that earlier this week fantasized about a military coup against the president, happily tweeted “ChicagP//n3D!”
We get it. You hate not just our president, but our country. You hate us for our freedoms. You’d rather have our people die that provide them health care that doesn’t bankrupt them. You’d rather risk catastrophic damage to the environment rather than doing something about greenhouse gases. You actively fantasize about killing the president and hamstringing government from doing the work of government. (I would have guessed that this Norquistian fantasy would have subsided after you so successfully drowned New Orleans, but that just whetted your appetite for more American blood.) The United States loses the opportunity to host the Olympics, and you’re thrilled, simply because you can’t stand that the president is a Democrat?
Let me close with Nuisance Industry’s last sentence, “So I conclude with all due compassion: Get the f$#@ out of my country.” ($#@ mine)
*I know, you’re about to say it was all 10 year old video of the invasion of Iraq. The problem is that it was actually video of September 11, 2001, and the “10 year old video” bit was dreamed up by a Brazilian student. The claim of fraud is the actual fraud, and it’s not just Snopes (link above) that confirms this.
Not only is there documentation of the celebration across the Arab world, there is ample documentation of the cover-up by the PA, which confiscated footage from reporters.†
†The real question to be asked about Arabs celebrating 911 is not whether they did so, but why they did so.
Our Fat Nation
And the fat heads that have created our fat nation.
Bill Volk pointed me to the thoroughly repulsive school policy at the Saratoga Springs, NY schools that forbids children from biking or walking to school:
The biking debate started last spring, when school district officials told Kaddo Marino that Adam was violating school rules by biking to class. Walking to the school also is not permitted.
Kaddo Marino challenged the policy and asked the school board to change it. The district charged a committee to review the rule, which was instituted in 1994.
At the start of school in September, Kaddo Marino thought that she had a nonverbal agreement with school officials to allow her son to ride his bike until a new policy was resolved. But on the night before classes started, school authorities called parents to say that walking and biking to school would not be tolerated.
When the pair stuck with their plan, they were met by school administrators and a state trooper, who emphasized that biking was prohibited, Kaddo Marino said.
(emphasis mine)
In addition to the Saratoga Springs school board, whoever authorized that state trooper to be employed in such a manner should be fired, either by the voters, or by a superior with common sense.
I would also note that while school officials have the right to prohibit bicycles on school property, they have no authority on how a parent, and the kid is accompanied by a parent when he bikes to school transports their kid anywhere.
Please, Supply a Caption for this Photograph
Obama at a White House event promoting the Chicago 2016 Olympics bid.
He’s having some fun with Olympic fencers.
So, Who is Representative Heath Shuler (D-NC) F%$#ing?
Because it appears that he lives at the C Street complex too.
Considering the fact that it increasingly appears that the primary purpose of this residence is to allow philandering Congressman to collude to conceal the fact, it’s become a much less popular place to lose.
At the very least he’s refusing to explicitly deny that this is where he lives, and if he weren’t living there, he’d be categorically denying.
You know it was much easier answering the question, “W is Heath Shuler f%$#ing?,” when he was an overpriced underperforming rookie for the Washington Redskins.
When that was going on, we knew who was being f%#$ed: the fans, who at the end of the day were the ones who supplied the money to pay his salary.
Yeah, I’m still a bit bitter about it.