Category: Stupid

Pass the F%$#ing Popcorn

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There are now rumors that former Congressman and current MSNBC journalistic impersonater Joe Scarborough is considering a run for President:

This is only slightly less embarrassing than engaging with a rumor about Donald Trump, how do they say, “mulling a presidential bid,” so let’s start with an apology: I’m sorry. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to the lowly business of the day. Joe Scarborough, co-host of MSNBC’s wake-up chat show “Morning Joe,” is “mulling a presidential bid,” according to a couple of anonymous people and Mark McKinnon, who spoke to Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller website. What a world.

Even without the inevitability of some Republican Karl Rove wannabee making an issue of Lori Klausutis, his candidacy would make the Freddie Dalton Thompson clown look like the Obama campaign.

BTW, that rumbling you feel is not an earthquake.  It is the writing staff of The Daily Show frantically high fiving each other. 

The FCC Gets Lemons, and Makes An Antifreeze Cocktail

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I have a plan so cunning that you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel………Not!!!!

Because the FCC is unwilling (not unable, just unwillint) to properly classify broadband providers as common carriers, because they are a bunch of wimps have been cowed by, and have bought into, the bankrupt philosophy of the free market Mousketeers, so they have come up with a plan that makes Baldrick from Blackadder look like a genius:

The nation’s top telecom regulator is tipping his hand a bit more on network neutrality.

While FCC chairman Tom Wheeler wouldn’t say outright how he intends to respond to a recent court decision overturning his agency’s rule barring Internet providers from blocking Web traffic, he appears to be leaning increasingly toward using the FCC’s existing legal authority to regulate broadband providers.

Industry watchers say this approach would likely turn on a part of the Communications Act known as Section 706, which gives the FCC authority to promote broadband deployment. Moving in that direction would put more distance between Wheeler and another alternative that’s been floated, which is to reclassify Internet service provders (ISPs) as a kind of utility (making them much more like the phone companies the FCC already regulates strongly).

You see the problem here, don’t you?

What happens when the next Michael Powell, a corporate tool nonpareille ends up running the FCC, and they decide, much as Powell did, that eliminating regulation will magically promote broadband.

This is what has given the United States the slowest and most expensive Internet access in the developed world.

Not Enough Bullets………

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It appears that the hyper wealthy think that people not liking them or how they make money is just like the holocaust, “Seems like billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins is very, very afraid of progressives. In a letter to the Wall Street Journal, Perkins expressed his deep fear that fascist progressives were going to burn down the city.”

He actually invoked Kristallnacht:

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these “techno geeks” can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a “snob” despite the millions she has spent on our city’s homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

This is ludicrous.

BTW, San Francisco has a law against private vehicles blocking bus-stops, as the aforementioned Google buses do. It’s a $271 fine, and this means something north of $½ billion in fines have been ignored by the city by various tech firms, because big tech is above the law.

The idea that somehow or other, either criticism or legitimate law enforcement actions directed toward the extremely wealthy is somehow a fascist style persecution against the 0.01% is both pernicious and laughable.

Mike Huckabee is Terrified of Women’s Libidos

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Yesterday, I asserted that the abortion criminalization right wants to punish women for their own sexuality.

Today, Mike Huckabee removed all doubt:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said the Republican Party is waging a “war for women,” at a meeting of the Republican National Committee Thursday.

Addressing a luncheon of committee-members, staffers, and operatives, Huckabee took aim at Democrats who accuse the GOP of waging a “war on women” with its policies against abortion and government-subsidized birth control.

“Republicans don’t have a war on women,” Huckabee said. We’re having a war for women. To empower them to be something other than victims of their gender.”

“If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control, because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it,” he continued. “Let us take that discussion all across America, because women are far more than the Democrats have played them to be.”

Great shades of Elvis.

Cannot control their libido?

Unless Huckabee has some girl-on-girl fantasies and a turkey baster, there is, you know, a  penis involved in sex and conception.

Controlling their reproductive system?  That is the definition of birth control.

What is it about Republicans?   Are they still fuming over the fact that they couldn’t get laid during the “Summer of Love” in 1967?

I couldn’t get laid in 1967 either, but in my defense, I turned 5 years old that year.

I would also note that (most of the time, anyway) don’t act like a 5 year old these days, but it appears that Republicans have not managed that trick.

Supertramp?!?!?!? Let Me Get This Straight, 911 & ……… Supertramp?

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As my son is wont to say, What the F%$#ing F%$#?

“Breakfast in America” is a 1979 record by the British rock group Supertramp. Its cover artwork features a smiling waitress who is standing in for the Statue of Liberty.* Behind her stands the New York City skyline, including the twin towers. It’s weird.

According to the latest theory from the 9/11 truther community, however, Supertramp’s album cover was never just a jokey little piece of absurdist art. What was it instead? A prophecy of doom.

Try to follow us on this one, because as one might suspect from a new 9/11 truth theory provided today (some 10-plus years after the attacks), things get a bit complicated.

The Supertramp theory, if we can call it that, is derived from the brain of one member of an online forum for David Icke (he of the evil lizard overlords theory) named “Eve.”

It gets even weirder and pathetic.

This is Unbelievably F%$#ing Stupid

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Iran was just disinvited from the Syria peace talks:

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon withdrew a last-minute invitation to Iran to attend peace talks on Syria on Monday after the Syrian opposition threatened to boycott this week’s conference if President Bashar al-Assad’s main sponsor took part.

Ending nearly 24 hours of confusion that dismayed diplomats who have spent months cajoling Assad’s opponents to negotiate, Ban’s spokesman said Iran was no longer welcome at the initial day of talks at Montreux, Switzerland on Wednesday.

The opposition immediately withdrew its threat to stay away from the conference known as Geneva-2. But the uproar over Iran, which has provided Assad with money, arms and men, underlined the difficulties of negotiating an end to a bloody, three-year civil war that has divided the Middle East and world powers.

Ban, his spokesman said, made the invitation to Iran after Iranian officials assured him they supported the conclusion of a U.N. conference in 2012, known as Geneva-1, which called for a transitional administration to take over power in Syria – something neither Assad nor Tehran have been willing to embrace.

Throughout Monday Iranian officials made clear that they were not endorsing that conclusion as a basis for the talks.

I would also note that US Secretary of State John Kerry was also having a hissy fit over Iran showing up.

This is all about the United States, and the Syrian exiles, supporting the House of Saud’s agenda of both hostility toward secular Arab regimes, and support toward Sunni hegemony in the region.

Doing the Saudi’s bidding might be unavoidable for the Syrian National Council, they are clearly clients of Riyadh, but for the US, intervening in a 1400 year old sectarian dispute is a losing proposition.

Doing the bidding of Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saudr is not in America’s best interest.

Wanker of the Day: Yale University

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Before Plugin                                    After Plugin  

Yale has a course selection website, and a two students, Harry Yu and Peter Xu, came up with a personal website that aggregated the ratings so that students could look at ratings and workload when selecting a course.

Yale blocked the site, and threatened disciplinary action against them so another student, Sean Haufler,  wrote a Google Chrome shortcut that does this on the fly.

Basically, Yale does not want students to access this data in a coherent way, because, tenured professors who cannot or will not teach do not want students avoiding their courses:

In January 2012, two Yale students named Harry Yu and Peter Xu built a replacement to Yale’s official course selection website. They it called YBB+ (Yale Bluebook Plus), a “plus” version of the Yale-owned site, called Yale Bluebook. YBB+ offered different functionality from the official site, allowing students to sort courses by average rating and workload. The official Yale Bluebook, rather, showed a visual graph of the distribution of student ratings as well as a list of written student reviews. YBB+ offered a more lightweight user interface and facilitated easier comparison of course statistics. Students loved it. A significant portion of the student body started using it.

Fast-forward two years. Last Friday (1/10/14), Yale blocked YBB+’s IP address on the school network without warning. When contacted, Yale said that YBB+ infringed upon Yale’s trademark. Harry and Peter quickly removed the Yale name from the site, rebranded it as CourseTable and relaunched. Yale blocked the website again, declaring the website to be malicious activity.

Later that weekend, Yale’s administration told the student developers that the school didn’t approve of the use of its course evaluation data, saying that their website “let students see the averaged evaluations far too easily”. Harry and Peter were told to remove the feature from the CourseTable website or else they would be referred to the school’s punishment committee.

………

And then it hit the internet:

Finally, Mary Miller, the Dean of Yale College, wrote an open letter to Yale on Friday night. In this letter, she defended Yale’s decision to censor Harry and Peter’s website and course rating functionality, stating:

“[Yale’s course] evaluations… became available to students only in recent years and with the understanding that the information they made available to students would appear only as it currently appears on Yale’s sites — in its entirety.”


Worded less diplomatically, it appears the Dean of Yale College is expressing to students that, “You can use our course evaluation data, but only if you view the data as we tell you to view it”.

(emphasis original)

And there were the inevitable claims of copyright and trademark infringement, and Mr. Haufler came up with his solution:

The story does not end here, however, since there’s a way to distinguish the freedom of speech issue from the copyright claims. What if someone made a piece of software that displays Yale’s course evaluation data in a way that Yale disapproves of, while also (1) not infringing on Yale’s copyrights or trademarks, (2) not storing any sensitive data, (3) not scraping or collecting Yale’s data, and (4) not causing damages to Yale’s network or servers? If Yale censors this piece of software or punishes the software developer, it would clearly characterize Yale as an institution where having authority over students trumps freedom of speech.

Guess what? I made it last night.

I built a Chrome Extension called Banned Bluebook. It modifies the Chrome browser to add CourseTable’s functionality to Yale’s official course selection website, showing the course’s average rating and workload next to each search result. It also allows students to sort these courses by rating and workload. This is the original site, and this is the site with Banned Bluebook enabled (this demo uses randomly generated rating values).

Banned Bluebook never stores data on any servers. It never talks to any non-Yale servers. Moreover, since my software is smarter at caching data locally than the official Yale course website, I expect that students using this extension will consume less bandwidth over time than students without it. Don’t believe me? You can read the source code. No data ever leaves Yale’s control. Trademarks, copyright infringement, and data security are non-issues. It’s 100% kosher.

………

If Yale denies this right, I’ll see you at the punishment committee.

Here’s hoping that Yale backs down.  If not, I hope that you talk to the ACLU.

In my day, of course, we had to talk to each other, I recall a materials course, taught by a Professor Clapp, was called “Catching the Clapp,” but I only discovered that after I was half way through the class.

I appreciate the value of tenure, but this should not be a justification for erecting the, “The Great Firewall of Yale.”

It’s not like their jobs are at stake over this, just their egos.

Time to Go Back to Using a Bank Teller

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Am I the only one who is concerned about the fact that 95% Of ATMs Are Still Using Windows XP?

Who is still using Windows XP, an operating system which is now twelve years old? Other than “everyone’s mom,” the real answer might not be as obvious: the nation’s network of automated teller machines. ATMs all contain computers, of course. Computers are susceptible to malware. Systems running Windows XP may be more susceptible to malware after April 8 of this year, when Microsoft finally ends support and security patches for XP.

Don’t worry: it’s unlikely that the machines will start setting your savings account on fire anytime soon. Yet it boggles the mind to learn that 95% of ATMs in the world run on Windows XP. Still. That number won’t decrease very much after the deadline: one expert told Bloomberg Businessweek that maybe 15% would be upgraded by the deadline.

We are completely f%$#ed.

Has anyone considered secure BSD?  It’s free, and it’s, you know, not the Petri dish for security exploits that is Microsoft’s operating systems.

Gun Control is More than Hitting the Target

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One of the facts about guns in the United States, and it is not acknowledged by either gun control advocates or opponents, is that something like ¼ of all gun owners are simply so stupid, or too negligent that their having access to a firearm is a hazard to themselves, their loved ones, and to society.

Case in point, actress, model, and wife of Miami Dolphins QB, Lauren Tannehill who left here AR-15 in a rental car:

A New York mom vacationing in South Florida was expecting a healthy dose of sun, surf and fun. Imagine her surprise when her daughter unzipped a bag in their rental Nissan Rogue and found a rifle — a big rifle. Looking just like the ones real soldiers use.

Horrified, she immediately called E-Z Rent-A-Car and then drove to the nearest police station.

And there would be one more surprise: The AR-15 semiautomatic had been left behind by model Lauren Tannehill, the wife of Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill.

“We got out of the car, we were kind of freaked out,” Judith Fleissig recalls of the moment this month when she and her daughter found the weapon. “I didn’t want to touch it.”

Fleissig on Jan. 6 turned over the gun to the closest police station, following the rental company’s recommendation, officials said.

………

“Though dangerous if it would have landed in the wrong hands, it’s not criminal,” Broward sheriff’s spokeswoman Keyla Concepción said. “They simply forgot it.”

Lauren Tannehill, 26, is a model who was featured on HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” a reality sports documentary television series. The couple married in January 2012.

A model in possession of an AR-15, the civilian’s version of the military’s M-16, may be incongruous to some. But it shouldn’t surprise Lauren Tannehill’s fans who view postings of her on Twitter.

I am not suggesting a solution here, I am simply suggewsting that there are way too many people who are simply too f%$#ed up to own firearms.

We want to keep firearms away from felons and the mentally ill, and I think that finding a way to keep them from the criminally stupid is a good idea as well.

Not a Photoshop, Not The Onion

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This is where the spill occurred


Look at the detail on the billboard

If you do a Google maps of 2237 Pennsylvania Ave, Charleston, WV 25302, and then you do a Street View, you will see that it is right across from Freedumb Industries, the company that tainted water for 300,000 people in West Virginia.

If you do a street view, you will notice that there is a billboard which says, “The President talks about creating jobs, but his EPA is destroying jobs.”

Irony, you are soaking in it!

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS

White House Chooses George W. Bush Level of Stupidity

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According to reliable sources, Obama and senior White House staff believe that the NSA’s personal data driftnet would have saved us from the 911 terror attacks:

Many of President Obama’s closest advisors have embraced a controversial assessment of one of the National Security Agency’s major data collection programs — the belief that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks could have been prevented had government then possessed the sort of vast trove of Americans’ telephone records it holds now.

Critics of the NSA program, and some scholars of America’s deadliest terrorist attack, strenuously dispute the view that the collection of phone data would necessarily have made a difference or that the possibility justifies the program now. The presidential task force that reviewed surveillance operations concluded last month that the program “was not essential” to preventing terrorist attacks.

But as the president finalizes plans for a speech on Friday announcing his proposals to change intelligence operations and oversight, the widespread agreement at the most senior levels of the White House about the program’s value appears to be driving policy. As a result, the administration seems likely to modify, but not stop, the gathering of billions of phone call logs.

In recent White House meetings, Obama has accepted the “9/11” justification, aides say, expressing the belief that domestic phone records might have helped authorities identify some of the skyjackers who later crashed passenger jets in New York, the Washington area and Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.

He is a F%$#ing moron, and his assessment of the program has him doubling down on stupidity:

He believes the main problem with the program is one of perception: Many Americans don’t trust the NSA, one of the most secretive of spy agencies, to respect civil liberties.

Americans do not trust the NSA to respect civil liberties because they don’t, and have never respected civil liberties.

I’m not sure why, but Obama seems to be dedicated to making sure that the inmates, intel in this case, the banksters in finance, run the asylum.

The US state security apparatus is a tool of US policy, when you allow them to self regulate, the same thing that happens to our civil liberties and due process that happens to our economy when allow the banksters to self regulative.

Can you say, “Gone Native?”

Because ……… Freedumb!

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Specifically, Freedumb Industries, who just dumped massive quantities of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol-methylcyclohexane methanol into West Virginia’s Elk River upstream of the water treatment plant, leaving hundreds of thousands without water:

A chemical spill along a West Virginia river on Thursday triggered a tap water ban for up to 300,000 people, shutting down schools, bars and restaurants and forcing residents to line up for bottled water at stores.

 Governor Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency for nine counties following the spill of 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol, a chemical used in the coal industry.

 The spill occurred on the Elk River in Charleston, West Virginia’s capital and largest city, just upriver from the eastern U.S. state’s largest water treatment plant.

Why did this Happen? Because ……… Freedumb!

Today, at the time they were shutting off water for all those people, the House of Representatives voted to gut the Superfund act.

Why, Because ……… Freedumb!

The House passed legislation Thursday aimed at easing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules and requiring more cooperation between the EPA and states on environmental cleanup projects.

 Members voted 225-188 in favor of the Reducing Excessive Deadline Obligations Act, H.R. 2279. The bill is made up of three Republican bills that were combined together, and it includes some provisions that House Democrats found unobjectionable while they were considered in committee.

 The bill was supported by just five Democrats in the final vote, while four Republicans voted against it.

 Specifically, it removes a requirement that the EPA revise solid waste disposal regulations every three years, and prohibits the government from imposing solid waste regulations on states that overlap current state-wide rules.

 Other language in the bill would require all federally owned facilities to comply with state rules on hazardous substances, and require the government to consult more closely with states before imposing cleanup requirements under Superfund, the federal program that funds the cleanup of abandoned waste sites.

 The legislation would also ensure that if a state has rules requiring companies in polluting industries to post a bond or offer other financial sureties for possible cleanup costs, those rules cannot be affected by possible rules the EPA might develop in the future.

 ………

 But several Democrats criticized the legislation as an attempt to weaken current law. Many argued that the bonding language would let companies avoid the cost of cleaning up pollution, and pass those costs onto taxpayers.

 “The outcome of enacting this bill should be obvious,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). “If polluters don’t pay to clean up their pollution, then it just becomes one more burden to the taxpayer, and none of us should want that.”

 Others argued that the bill could further confuse how the federal government and the states must work together on clean-up efforts, which could slow down that process. That argument was also made by the Obama administration earlier this week, in a statement saying President Obama would veto the bill.

 “H.R. 2279 would unnecessarily increase the potential for litigation between the Federal government and the States, negatively impacting the timeliness and number of cleanups,” the White House wrote.

Why are they doing such a stupid thing, and why are they doing it on the day of what looks to be one of the worst chemical spills?

Because ……… Freedumb!

Un-Dirtyword, Believable

Winner of This Week’s Award for Stupid Motherf%$#er With a Gun Is………

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 Jerome M. Hauer, commissioner of the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services,  who pulled his loaded Glock in a state office building and used the laser sight to point at locations on a map:

Jerome M. Hauer, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s director of homeland security, took out his handgun and used the laser sighting device attached to the barrel as a pointer in a presentation to a foreign delegation, according to public officials. It happened Oct. 24 in Albany at the highly secure state emergency operations center below State Police headquarters.

These officials, one of whom claimed to be an eyewitness, said that three Swedish emergency managers in the delegation were rattled when the gun’s laser tracked across one of their heads before Hauer found the map of New York, at which he wanted to point.

Hauer, commissioner of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, was disabled by a stroke a few years ago and can be unsteady. He isn’t a law enforcement official. He carries the loaded 9-millimeter Glock in a holster into state buildings, an apparent violation of state law barring state employees from bringing weapons to the workplace, several witnesses say.

So, you have a guy who, “can be unsteady” from a stroke waving a gun around in a meeting in order to use it as a laser pointer.

Am I the only one to think that maybe this guy not only should not have a gun permit, but that he should not cut his own steak, because he is too out of it to use a sharp knife?

H/T Talking Points Memo.

Your New Yearsn Buyllsh%$ Debunking

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You may have received an email describing Silver pockets full that goes something like this:

August, next year, will have 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This happens only once every 823 years. The Chinese call it ‘Silver pockets full. ” So: send this message to your friends and in four days money will surprise you. Based on Chinese Feng Shui. Whoever does not transmit the message … may find themselves poor.

It’s crap.

This is August 2014:

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This is August 2025:

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Any questions?

In Related News, Butterflies are Going to Fly Our of My Ass

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We are now starting to see reports that Obama is planning to reign in the intelligence agencies:

Before he left for Hawaii, the president was sending signals that government surveillance programs need an overhaul to restore the public’s faith on issues of national security.

Before President Obama left for his 17-day vacation in Hawaii, White House officials made it clear that his holiday reading would consist of a lot more than beach novels to escape the stresses of Washington. He’d also be studying a 300-page report on how to rein in the government’s controversial surveillance programs that had just been delivered to him by a high-level panel of experts.

Sure, Obama has gotten in plenty of rounds of golf with his presidential posse, as well as impromptu trips to shave ice joints and leisurely strolls along the islands’ stunning beaches with his family. But weighing on him throughout the winter getaway has been one of the most consequential national security decisions of his presidency: whether to adopt a set of recommendations that would represent the most dramatic curbing of the intelligence community’s eavesdropping powers since the Vietnam War.

………

Still, behind the scenes, Obama’s counterterrorism polices have continued to tug at his conscience. He has prodded his aides to re-address unfulfilled promises and occasionally chastised himself for not acting more in accordance with his personal convictions. His recent vow to “go back at” closing Guantanamo has led to the most sustained progress toward closing the detention facility since the first year of his presidency.

This, “If only the Czar knew,” bullsh%$ is precisely that, 10 pounds of sh%$ in a 5 pound bag.

Obama has been consistent on these issues, he has moved to expand powers for the executive, on the theory that because he is a good guy, there is nothing to worry about.

It is why I call him the, “Worst Constitutional Law Professor ever™“.

Where Useless Fascists Go to Die

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The Council on Foreign Relations.

Case in point racist stop and frisk former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly:

Outgoing New York City Police Department commissioner Ray Kelly will join the Council on Foreign Relations in January as a distinguished visiting fellow, the organization announced Monday.

“Ray Kelly spearheaded the modernization of the New York Police Department. The result is that crime is down and the NYPD’s counterterrorism capabilities are second to none,” CFR President Richard N. Haass said in a statement. “We are excited and proud to have his experience, expertise, and judgment at the Council.”

Not a surprise, from the gang that made the incomparably awful Amity Shlaes a “senior fellow in economic history”.

It Ain’t the F%$#-Up, It’s the Cover-Up

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 Remember yesterday, when I wrote about how a crony of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie closed entry lanes on the George Washington Bridge in what appeared to be retribution for the (Democratic) mayor of Fort Lee, NJ for not endorsing him?

Well, I figured that this was an instance of some underling deciding to take initiative, kind of like when Nixon was in the White House, when he would rant in private, and say something like, “Someone should shoot that SOB,” and aide Chuck Coleson would go and buy a gun.

It’s one of the problems that one can have with evil minions. Sometimes they are too enthusiastic.

Well, maybe not so much.  Because it has now been revealed that Governor Christie made a private call to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo asking him to instruct the head of the Port Authority to quash the investigation:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week to complain about a Cuomo appointee’s handling of a growing controversy over traffic pattern changes on the George Washington Bridge, a person familiar with the matter said.

 Mr. Christie, a Republican, complained in a private phone call to Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, that Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was pressing too hard to get to the bottom of why the number of toll lanes onto the bridge from Fort Lee, N.J. was cut from three to one in early September, according to this person. The lane closures occurred without notice to local authorities, officials have said, and snarled traffic for a week in the small borough on the Hudson River bluffs.

 Messrs. Cuomo and Christie share control of the Port Authority, which oversees Hudson River bridges and tunnels and the region’s airports and is rebuilding the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan.

 Democratic lawmakers in New Jersey have accused Christie appointees of ordering the lane closures to punish Fort Lee’s mayor, Democrat Mark Sokolich, for not endorsing the governor’s re-election campaign. Mr. Christie’s campaign has denied that, and his Port Authority team has said the lanes were closed to study traffic on the bridge.

 A spokesman for Mr. Christie said the governor talks to Mr. Cuomo regularly “on any number of mutual-interest topics. Those conversations are private.”

 A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo declined to comment.

 The call between the governors was an illustration of how the controversy has mushroomed into a headache for Mr. Christie. One of his top representatives at the authority, David Wildstein, resigned last week, citing the bridge closures. Democratic calls for the resignation of another top authority aide, Bill Baroni, have escalated this week.

It wasn’t clear how Mr. Cuomo responded to Mr. Christie’s call or if it was the first time Mr. Christie had lodged a complaint.

 The exchange appears to stand in contrast to Mr. Christie’s public remarks on the bridge matter. At a briefing on Dec. 2, the governor mocked a legislative inquiry on the lane closures and joked that he himself had moved the traffic cones that winnowed local access to the bridge.

The perspective on this whole matter has just shifted.

Yesterday, the conventional wisdom was, “Why did Christie hire such a stupid motherF%$#er?”

Today, the question is, “What does Chris Christie have to hide?”

Tinfoil Hat Time

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Loretta Fuddy, the director of the Hawaii Department of Health, was killed in a plane crash.

Ms. Fuddy was the official who released Obama’s “Long Form” birth certificate.

Within minutes, “whacko, my parents are first cousins, X-Files wannabe, black helicopter, tinfoil hat wearing, stupid, dim-witted, thinks pro wrestling is real,”* lunatic teabaggers were already saying that she was murdered for knowing too much:

When President Obama marched into the White House briefing room with his Hawaiian birth certificate in April 2011, he said: “I know that there’s going to be a segment of people for which, no matter what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest.”

How right he was. The release of his long-form birth certificate did not eliminate the “birther” movement, which wrongly contends that Obama was born in Kenya and is therefore ineligible to be president. Although conspiracists had demanded its release, once he made public the document it merely shifted the debate. Some birthers accused Obama of forgery, while others turned their focus to his college transcripts in hopes of proving that he had applied for admission as a foreign student. (He had not.)

And this week, birthers seized on a plane crash off Hawaii that killed one person: state public health Director Loretta Fuddy, the woman who verified the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate.

Skeptics turned to social media Thursday to suggest that Obama had played some role in Fuddy’s death. Twitter posts included: “The WH tying up loose ends?” “What did she really know?” and “R.I.P. Loretta Fuddy — we’ll know the truth about Barack Hussein Obama, regardless.”

Donald Trump, a longtime doubter of Obama’s birthplace, also weighed in on Twitter: “How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ died in plane crash today. All others lived.”

That reaction didn’t surprise those who study conspiracy theorists.

Wankers.

*Sorry, I think that I just channeled the comedian Denis Leary.