Category: Stupid

Worst of All Possible Worlds

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Charlie Rangel taking a temporary leave from his position as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

While it’s unlikely that he will be back, and he does have ethical issues, the Democrats have split the baby again.

They could have faced down the Republicans, and maybe dug up a few of the skeletons in their closets, or they could have stripped him of his committee chairmanship, but by allowing the fig leaf of a temporary leave, they both knuckle under and leave the issue on the table for Republicans to talk about.

Worst of all possible worlds.

Deep Thought:

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It appears that the Republicans have successfully prevailed upon Jim Bunning (R-KY) to end his filibuster, so the emergency unemployment extension will proceed.

Additionally, the Republicans are suggesting that the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky is suffering from overwork, so they are suggesting:

  • That he take a vacation.
  • And go to Sea World in Orlando.
  • And let his hair down.
  • And go swimming.
  • And meet Tillicum up close and personal as a part of a whale watching junket.

That is all.

Not Much Posting Tonite Period

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I was trying to backup my February posts, and it kept breaking the archive page into little bits.

It looks like this is a feature because a few bloggers had huge front pages, with lots of blogger images, and they decided to have an algorithm break up the pages into digestible chunks.

They are all “It’s going to make everything so much faster.”

The problem is that for some blogs, it made them single posts on the first page.

Luckily that did not happen to me, because I use Imageshack®, which significantly reduces the load that “the Google” sees, and because compared to some of the photographers who blog there, it’s pretty much text based.

On the other hand, means that the monthly archives that I save to a MS Word® file are now broken up into 5-10 separate pages, and it means that it breaks Google’s searches that access archive pages, because it will serve a page that now has only a 15% or so chance of having the post in question.

So, yes, the good folks at Blogger, which is owned by Google, broke Google search, and yes, many of the folks who use blogger are pretty incensed, and the response of the PTB at blogger is that the users are blogging wrong somehow.

Apparently their motto, “Don’t be evil,” is orthogonal to, “Don’t be incompetent and arrogant assholes.”

[on edit] I am looking at moving to WordPress, but I will give it a month or so and fiddle.

The moral of this story: Republicans are mean; Democrats are patsies.

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Taylor Marsh’s take on the latest filibuster kerfluffle, where Jim Bunning told Democrats, “Tough sh%$,” when they confronted him about blocking the emergency unemployment extension:

In a colloquy with Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Jeff Merkley, a freshman Democrat from Oregon, was pleading for Bunning to drop his objection, when the Kentucky Republican got fed up.

“Tough s—t,” Bunning said as he was seated in the back row, overheard by the floor staff and others in attendance.

Like I said before, prima donnas and drama queens, and the prima donnas and drama queens always win in the Senate.

Sally Quinn Demoted to Dirty F%$#ing Blogger

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She’s had a regular column, “The Party,” which was basically about throwing parties, in the print edition of the WaPo, but it’s going online only, or, as Gawker so evocatively states it, “Sally Quinn Relegated to WaPo Ghetto.”

Basically, she devoted an entire article to the horror that is a scheduling conflict between two weddings, and it crossed line between accommodating whatever affection that Posties might have her husband, Ex Editor-in-Chief Ben Bradley, and projectile vomit risking revulsion, so she’s gone, hopefully for good. (No link to Sally, you can get the link at the first link, look for, “enormous turd,” but I don’t link to Sally Quinn)

In any case, one wag had fun with it in an online chat with a Wapo columnist:

Burke, Va.: I’m so confused!

Our ex-boss’ wife (HIS third wife) still writes for the company newsletter. Last week, she wrote a column about how her son’s wedding is on the same day as her husband’s granddaughter’s wedding, on opposite coasts, and nobody can figure out why we’re supposed to care. I guess everybody likes the old man so much that everybody’s afraid to tell his wife that her column is absurd and makes the company newsletter look stupid.

Any suggestions?

Lily Garcia: It sounds like the column, although inappropriate, is basically harmless. You could try suggesting topics that you would like to see covered in the newsletter, but you should stop short of proposing that the ex-boss’ wife be excluded.

In any case, this means that the level of discourse in Washington, DC has improved by a small amount.

Unbelievably F%$#ing Stupid

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I don’t intend to ban Italian IP numbers
… … … Yet

An Italian court has convicted 3 Google executives on criminal privacy violations because someone posted a nasty video to Google Video:

A judge in Milan, Italy, on Wednesday convicted three Google executives — chief legal officer David Drummond, global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer and former CFO George Reyes — of violating Italy’s privacy laws, a decision that Google is characterizing as an attack on Internet freedom.

The charges stem from a video that was uploaded to YouTube in Italy, back in September 2006, that depicts four high school boys in a classroom in Turin, Italy, taunting another boy with a mental disability.

Google received two requests to remove the video in early November, one from a user and one from the Italian Interior Ministry, and did so within 24 hours.

Nonetheless, Francesco Cajani, a prosecutor in Milan, filed suit against four Google employees for violating Italian privacy laws. All four were found not guilty of criminal defamation. The fourth, Arvind Desikan, formerly the head of Google Video in London, was acquitted of the privacy violation charges, unlike Drummond, Fleischer, and Reyes.

If I was running a service with user generated content, I would start denying access to Italian IPs.

The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if this might have been driven in some manner or another by Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, who has control of something like 80% of the broadcast media in Italy, and might be unhappy with the competition for ad revenue and news.

Yes, This Pretty Much Nails It

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In discussions of the White House’s complete capitulation on the public option (to say nothing of their taking single payer off the table), a progressive activist, nails the problem:

But the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, the group that’s behind a letter being circulated among Senate Democrats to push the plan, isn’t giving up. “The White House obviously has a loser mentality — but America rallies around winners,” co-founder Adam Green e-mailed reporters shortly after Gibbs’s remark. “Polls show that in state after state, voters hate the Senate bill and overwhelmingly want a public option, even if passed with zero Republican votes. More than 50 Senate Democrats and 218 House Democrats were willing to vote for the public option before, and the only way to lose in reconciliation is if losers are leading the fight. That’s why Democrats in Congress should ignore the White House and follow those like Chuck Schumer and Robert Menendez, who know that the public option is a political and policy winner.”

(emphasis mine)

I’m not sure why Barack Obama and His Stupid Minions™ are so eager to play to lose, it could be that they are so risk averse that they are paralyzed with fear, it could be that they are closet Republicans, or it could be that they believe that Republicans can be successfully courted on this.

I hope that it’s not the 3rd option, because if they believe that, it means that the man with his finger on the button to destroy the world is completely delusional.

It’s Like They are Trying to Demoralize the Democratic Base

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Because it looks like they are going to delay the Iraq withdrawal:

The U.S. military has prepared contingency plans to delay the planned withdrawal of all combat forces in Iraq, citing the prospects for political instability and increased violence as Iraqis hold national elections next month.

Under a deadline set by President Obama, all combat forces are slated to withdraw from Iraq by the end of August, and there remains heavy political pressure in Washington and Baghdad to stick to that schedule. But Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Monday that he had briefed officials in Washington in the past week about possible contingency plans.

I understand that there need to be contingency plans, but the fact that this gets leaked to the Washington Posts means that they are looking to see if a delay is politically feasible for them to further extend Operation Useless Dirt 1.*

So in August, 3 months before the election, they are going to push back the withdrawal, and they expect the base to be enthused about working for the Democratic party.

The Obama administration is beginning to make the Carter administration look like Niccolò Machiavelli.

A few more months of this, and I might be ready to vote green.†

The equation here is very clear: Military operations are very good for careerist military officers, so you will always have a significant portion of the military arguing for these operations, since it benefits them personally.

You need to ignore them.

*H/t Eric Palmer for this bon mot describing Operation (insert name here).
†Not really, pulling the lever for the Greens would have vomiting in the voting booth.‡
‡But yes, actually vomiting in the voting booth might be a real possibility.

Te Stoopid, It Burns US!!!!!

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This clusterf%$# comes with a poll

Atrios calls it, “A Great Contribution To The Art Of High Wanking,” but the Washington Post calls it Jeffrey Rosen’s article, “Supreme Court Justice Barack Obama?“

While there is precedent, William Howard Taft became a Supreme Court justice after being President, only the interval was 18 years between the two offices, and Rosen is suggesting that he cut a deal with Hillary Clinton, and that she agrees to appoint him, in exchange for his not running in 2012:

It would be unusual, but not difficult, for Obama to get himself on the Supreme Court. He could nominate himself to replace John Paul Stevens, for example, or he could gamble and promise Hillary Rodham Clinton that he won’t run for reelection in 2012 in exchange for a pledge of appointment to the next vacancy. And although as president, Obama has seemed haunted by the example of his political hero, Abraham Lincoln, on the Supreme Court he could take up the mantle of the greatest liberal justice of the 20th century, Louis Brandeis, another community organizer with a background in politics. In the end, Obama’s legacy on the court might surpass his legacy in the White House.

(emphasis mine)

Nominate himself? Is he out of his mind?

And a promise from Clinton would be crucial, because, of course, no one can successfully oppose a Hillary Clinton primary campaign; she is just unstoppable.

Jeebus, it’s like they have some sort of competition in front of Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt has some sort of bizarre audition in which they tell people to come up with the stupidest idea, and they get to go on to the next round.

It’s like some of kind of perverted American idol for stupid, and I think that my eyes are now bleeding as a result.

Deep Thought

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With Greece mired in a debt crisis of their own making, and coming to the EU for aid, perhaps one of the conditions for any aid should be for them to stop being so pissy about admitting Macedonia to the EU, because the Greeks want to claim Alexander the Great was “Greek.”

He was a Macedonian, who led a nation that did not speak Greek, though he, as a royal child, was tutored by the best Greek scholars, and doubtless spoke Greek, albeit with a foreign accent.

But, even if he were Greek, it was 2000 years ago, and the government of Greece needs to focus on the hear and now.

It Appears that $1,000,000.00+ a Year is not Enough to Do Your Damn Job

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Waiting for one of They Who Must Not Be Named to talk

At least not if you work in finance.

You see someone prominent gave a talk about personal transgressions, and they decided to take time off, and watch the TV.

You know, for the amount of money that you are making, I would suggest that you just Tivo it!

Seriously, I really need to go long on tarred and feathered bankers futures.

Core Inflation Fell For the First Time in 28 Years

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Down 0.1% in January:

The cost of living in the U.S. rose in January less than anticipated and a measure of prices excluding food and fuel fell for the first time since 1982, indicating the recovery is generating little inflation.

The consumer-price index increased 0.2 percent for a fifth straight month, led by higher fuel costs, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Excluding energy and food, the so-called core index unexpectedly fell 0.1 percent, reflecting a drop in new-car prices, clothing and shelter.

And still, the Federal Reserve is full of people who are batsh%$ insane inflation hawks, and there are two seats open, but Obama has not bothered to appoint people who are, you know, saner, in what is clearly a deflationary environment.

Moron

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Chris Dodd, the senior Senator from Connecticut, is not running for reelection because he cannot win. He is too unpopular.

In fact, about the only person in the state that he might beat is Joe Lieberman, the junior Senator from Connecticut, who is currently polling behind a case of the clap.

Well, now that Dodd is not running, the new front runner in the state is Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

Unfortunately, he has decided to take his cue from Joe Lieberman:

Barack Obama shouldn’t expect an invitation from fellow Democrat Dick Blumenthal anytime soon: Blumenthal said in a New Haven stop that the president “may not want to come here” to stump for his U.S. Senate campaign, given how independent he claimed he’ll be if elected.

That turnabout in partisan loyalty emerged Monday night as Blumenthal continued tacking away from his liberal roots —including through newly expanded support for military tribunals for domestic terror suspects.

(emphasis mine)

The explanation is that Massachusetts changes everything.

No, it doesn’t. The election of a Republican in Massachusetts was all about voters disgusted with Democrats not getting stuff done when they had near historic majorities.

And who prevented anything from getting done?

Well, that would be Senators like Joe Lieberman.

I will leave Mr. Blumenthal with the words of Harry S Truman, “Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, , people will vote for the real Republican all the time”

F%$# Me!

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Well, we may now have a reason as to why Bayh announced when he did, because he wanted the party to select his successor, which, my guess, he found preferable to the possibility someone who is not a right wing preening DINO (i.e. Blue Dog) getting the nod:

On a conference call with county Democratic Party chairs this afternoon, Sen. Evan Bayh and Indiana Democratic Party Chair Dan Parker declared that not having a Democratic primary to find a replacement for the retiring Bayh would have its upsides, according to a source who was on the call.

It appears that he wanted the party apparatus to select someone from their “deep bench,” which means, I guess, that he was looking at another right wing F%$#.

Unfortunately, no one thought about Tamyra d’Ippolito, who now appears likely to have the required signatures in time to get on the ballot, and it’s likely that the Republicans are helping:

Tamyra d’Ippolito, a cafe owner who has been seeking the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat currently held by Evan Bayh, just told TPMDC that she does have the minimum number of ballot-petition signatures need to get on the ballot for the Democratic primary. If her petitions do in fact work out, that would seriously complicate the efforts by the party to pick a new candidate to replace Bayh, the retiring incumbent Democrat, on the ballot this November.

……

I asked d’Ippolito about the possibility that Republicans may have given her a hand. Erick Erickson, for example, personally encouraged his Indiana readers to sign her petitions. “God bless him, because anybody can sign the petition,” said d’Ippolitio. “Republican, Democrat, independent, teabag person, any registered voter with a warm pulse can sign.”

D’Ippolito was not specifically aware of Republicans who signed her petitions in order to cause problems for the Democrats, but she didn’t have a problem with it: “I have no way to know that for sure, but I’m sure that is happening. It’s common sense, I think that would be realistic.”

Late Update: After telling TPM that she already had the necessary signatures collected, d’Ippolito is now denying to Greg Sargent that she has them yet, saying instead that she would have them in time.

This makes Bayh either incompetent or malevolent, you choose. He either tried to be cute about it, and got bitten, or he was just being a dick.

Here’s hoping that D’Ippolito has some problems with the signatures, because in addition to having worked for Lehman, her business, where she is also living illegally, is facing eviction.

Obama Fail

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OK, so Obama made some noises about recess appointments, and the Republicans let 27 nominees get an up or down vote, the ones that do not matter.

Well, that’s good.

What is not good is that Obama followed up with signals that there is no need for recess appointments (BTW, Clinton made about 150, and GWB made about 200).

No, when you have them down, you put your foot on their neck.

If they block your Transportation Security Administration (TSA) nominee, as they did. because they don’t like Barack Obama’s position on union rights for the employees, you don’t back down, you appoint Teamsters President James Hoffa as your TSA chief. Hell, if they were still alive, you appoint his dad, Jimmy Hoffa, or maybe Walter Ruther or Eugene V. Debs during the recess.

Unfortunately, as Ezra Klein notes, in getting this small concession, Obama stated that recess appointments are a, “rare but not unprecedented step,” which makes any attempt to do recess appointments in the future an invitation to your standard Republican sh%$ storm of phony outrage, and as Matthew Yglesias notes, the Obama administration really does not have time for this crap.

Stupid, really stupid.

Remember the Furious Fuchsia Dodge Challenger?

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Oh My God it’s the Barney Car!

It’s the Barney car!I knew that it was wrong and evil, and I posted such, though I think that at tht time I focused more on stupid than evil.

Well, now now I have proof that it’s not just stupid, it’s Evil (beginning with a capital “e” and ending with a sputter).

Tekeli li!! Tekeli li!! Tekeli li!! Tekeli li!!

H/t Oggie at the Shortskoolbus BBS for the Photoshop.

I Know That They Are In the Faith Business………

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But the fact that the Church of England (i.e the Anglicans, called the Episcopal Church in the US) has invested 100% of its pension funds in equities (stocks) seems to me to be just a little bit risky:

The Church faces the same problems as all employers with DB pension schemes – improved longevity and lower real interest rates. But the Church’s pension problems are largely self-inflicted since, astonishingly, the scheme has an asset allocation of 100 per cent equities – the riskiest asset allocation of any UK pension scheme. To add insult to injury, it has (reluctantly) agreed to start moving to 70/30 equities/bonds, but not until 2017, and not to be completed until 2027.

(emphasis mine)

There is a good reason for interest rates to be up against the zero bound right now, but interest rates have been unreasonably low since GW Bush took office, as the result of a conscious decision by Alan Greenspan to bolster Republicans (politically independent Fed, my tuchas), and when this happens, people do insane things to get returns as a result.