Category: Stupid

D’oh!!!!

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You know, when you are an insurance company, like Blue Cross/Blue Shield, it is not a good idea for you to include a request for your customers to contact their Congressman to oppose the public option along with a notice of a rate increase:

First, they learned their rates will rise by an average of 11 percent next year.

Next, they opened a slick flier from the insurer urging them to send an enclosed pre-printed, postage-paid note to Sen. Kay Hagan denouncing what the company says is unfair competition that would be imposed by a government-backed insurance plan. The so-called public option is likely to be considered by Congress in the health-care overhaul debate.

“No matter what you call it, if the federal government intervenes in the private health insurance market, it’s a slippery slope to a single-payer system,” the BCBS flier read. “Who wants that?”

Plenty of people, it turns out.

Indignant Blue Cross customers have rebelled against the insurer’s message, complaining that their premium dollars have funded such a campaign.

They’ve hit the Internet in a flurry of e-mails to friends and neighbors throughout the state. They’ve called Hagan’s office to voice support for a public option. They’ve marked through the Blue Cross message on their postcards to instead vouch support, then dropped them in the mail — in at least one case taped to a brick — to be paid on Blue Cross’ dime. Or dimes.

(emphasis mine)

As the saying goes, “ない愚かさはない薬です”.*

*Pronounced in Japanese, “baka ni tsukeru kusuri wanai”, which means, “There is no medicine for stupidity.”

Adventures in Wankitude

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Donald J. Boudreaux writing in (where else) The Wall Street Journal, suggests that insider trading is actually a good thing:

Time to stop telling horror stories. Federal agents are wasting their time slapping handcuffs on hedge fund traders like Raj Rajaratnam, the financier charged last week with trading on nonpublic information involving IBM, Google and other big companies. The reassuring truth: Insider trading is impossible to police and helpful to markets and investors. Parsing the difference between legal and illegal insider trading is futile—and a disservice to all investors. Far from being so injurious to the economy that its practice must be criminalized, insiders buying and selling stocks based on their knowledge play a critical role in keeping asset prices honest—in keeping prices from lying to the public about corporate realities.

Prohibitions on insider trading prevent the market from adjusting as quickly as possible to changes in the demand for, and supply of, corporate assets. The result is prices that lie.

Do you get it? It facilitates price discovery to allow people to make a profit with information that allows them to know which way the price is going.

This is much like the arguments for naked Credit Default Swap (CDS) contracts, where people are getting insurance for items in which they have no interest in its continued existence, and so give people a reason to burn down your house, or at least your bond, and it is just as vacuous.

A look at the Wiki reveals that this guy is a card carrying Randoid puke through and through.

H/t Jeff Matthews Is Not Making This Up, who does a much better job of demolishing this crap than I do, so just go and read his.

For your amusement, here are his last 2 ‘graphs:

Communism didn’t work for the simple reason that those who were first in line stole the means of production from the poor shlubs with whom they were supposed to share those means of production.

And unfettered insider information won’t work, for precisely the same reason.

And Speaking of Stupid

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Yes, it appears that the US Chamber of Commerce, in a desperate bid for wankitude, had decided to sue the Yes Menfor their phony press release and press conference where they announced that the Chamber would support global warming legislation.

Here is a video of the press conference, complete with a real CoC representative bursting in and calling them out.

With the lawsuit, it will go viral:

Because Republicans are the Grown-Ups, Right

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Are you missing the message?


Does that make it clearer?

It appears that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger does not like California State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, and vetoed a rather ordinary bill regarding how the Port of San Francisco is funded as a result.

The bill was about allowing San Francisco to use certain sorts of public financing with regard to their waterfront.

It appears that Ahnuld unexpectedly showed up to the Democratic Party gala, and while the reception was hostile, Ammiano’s was significantly more hostile than most of the rest of the people in the room.

He shouted, “You Lie,” and then walked out of the Governor’s speech saying that he should, “kiss my gay ass” which is an understandable reaction to a guy who vetoed Harvey Milk day.

Totally immature and classless, and so not surprising from a man who suggested that he wanted to flush Arianna Huffington’s head down the toilet in the gubernatorial debates.

You can see the letter, at least for now in all its glory straight from the Governor’s web page, (PDF), but in case you can’t I have a copy of the PDF below thanks to the magic of ScribD.

AB1176 Ammiano Veto Message

What the $#@! Were They Expecting?

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So, Microsoft teamed up with Seth MacFarlane for a Family Guy/American Dad special, and when they saw the show, they dropped it like it was nude pictures of Joe Lieberman.

They had promised, “an upcoming television event devoted to the comedy of Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show” that would be, “unique Windows 7-branded programming that blends seamlessly with show content”.

So far, so good, but what they also got was”

According to reports, Redmond marketeers sat in on the recording of the variety special. While Windows marketing messages were presumably seamlessly integrated into the schtick, so were jokes about deaf people, the Holocaust, feminine hygiene and incest.

While Microsoft was clearly reaching for a hip and edgy audience, they presumably meant the “check me out, I’ve got an extra shot in this latte and I’m wearing an Hawaiian shirt” kind of edgy.

I am wondering if these guys ever watched Family Guy or American Dad, because this is pretty much what he does for humor.

Or, to quote Eric Duckman:

Bunch of thin-skinned, no-humor pansies! You tell them an ice-breaker or two about women’s libbers, gays, environmentalists, several minorities, the homeless, couple of religions, anorexics, obese people, the handicapped, old farts, baldness, and people who walk real goofy because they’ve just had a vasectomy, and suddenly, they get all sensitive, like I offended one of them or something!

Heh

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Mount Vernon, Washington decided to hold a Glenn Beck day, because he is a native son of that town.

May be this was a really stupid idea:

Glenn Beck Day in Mount Vernon was an expensive lesson for this small town, as it found out the cost of hosting a controversial celebrity.

It’s on the hook for $17,748.85, mostly for 239 hours of police overtime.

….

Well, says Ken Bergsma, the town’s police chief, better to be prepared than not.

The chief says the crowd of 800 to 1,000 demonstrators that greeted Beck for his early-evening appearance on Sept. 26 was the biggest protest he’s seen in his 32 years as a Mount Vernon police officer.

The city council officially distanced themselves from the Mayor’s decision when he made it, and it turns out that they were right, to the tune of almost 18 grand, which is not a small amount of change when the town has a population of 26,232.

There is, and should be, a cost to honoring people whose raison d’être simply self promotion and ego.

Accountability on Wall Street, My Ass!!!

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Have you heard the latest? John Meriwether is setting up a new hedge fund.

Just who is John Meriwether, you ask?

Why he is a noted hedge fund manager, he:

  • Established Long term Capital Management
    • Which imploded in 1999, threatening to take down the entire financial system, until Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan used the Federal Reserve to bail his ass out.
  • Established JWM Partners.
    • Which he closed 3 months ago after losing 44% of his investors’ money.

So, after all that, he’s STILL in line to get to play with billions of dollars of other people’s money, and skim 2% of the principal, and 20% of any profits (HAH!!!) that he might earn.

Will no one rid us of these parasites?

I’m not suggesting murder, but I am saying that if I was on a jury, I would vote to acquit.

Wanker of the Day

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T. Boone Pickens :

Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens told Congress on Wednesday that U.S. energy companies are “entitled” to some of Iraq’s crude because of the large number of American troops that lost their lives fighting in the country and the U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq.

Boone, speaking to the newly formed Congressional Natural Gas Caucus, complained that the Iraqi government has awarded contracts to foreign companies, particularly Chinese firms, to develop Iraq’s vast reserves while American companies have mostly been shut out.

“They’re opening them (oil fields) up to other companies all over the world … We’re entitled to it,” Pickens said of Iraq’s oil. “Heck, we even lost 5,000 of our people, 65,000 injured and a trillion, five hundred billion dollars.”

Because the Iraqis asked us to invade, create a civil war, and set off a chain of events that killed somewhere between 100,000 and 1,000,000 of them, all while driving another million of so out of the country.

I’m not sure what it is about the oil bidness, but it does appear that they attract more than their share of sociopaths: T. Boone Pickens, Dick Cheney, John D. Rockefeller, the bin Laden clan, the royal families of the UAE and Kuwait, and (of course) the House of Saud, just to name a few.

Buy Bye Bernie

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Not Madoff, the other crook Bernie, Bernard Kerik.

About a month ago, the judge in charge of the Bernard Kerik case, Federal Judge Stephen Robinson, took him and his defense team to task for releasing information that was under seal.

Well, it appears that Kerik has tried other ways to leak this information out, potentially tainting a jury pool, so he revoked Kerik’s bail, sending him to jail:

Judge Stephen C. Robinson of Federal District Court in White Plains said Mr. Kerik could not be trusted to honor a consent order prohibiting him from revealing confidential information. The judge cited an email that Mr. Kerik sent to the head of his defense fund that apparently included such information.

Mr. Kerik had been allowed to remain free on $500,000 bail, which was secured by his house in New Jersey. The judge turned down a request by Mr. Kerik’s lawyers to keep him from being put behind bars for 48 hours while they prepare an appeal.

Before revoking the bail of Mr. Kerik, Judge Robinson described him as a “toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance, and I fear that combination leads him to believe his ends justify his means.”

It appears that Kerik, not only sent an email to the lawyer running his defense fund, Anthony Modafferi, but then tweeted to people directing them to his posts, which raises stupidity to a whole new level.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with the case at hand, which is for taking bribes from mobbed up businesses in the form of things like renovations.

It’s one of the things that Rudy Guiliani will have to deal with if he runs for office: The guy who he plucked from obscurity and made police commissioner is mobbed up, which makes him more vulnerable as a candidate, as is the fact that the more he campaigns, the less people like him.

The only way that he can win is if he runs against a complete loser like David Dinkins or David Paterson….osh#@!

Why I Refer to Republican Jews as Kapos*

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Two Republican county chairmen in South Carolina penned an editorial praising Senator Mike DeMint.

Of course, they chose the most sensitive terms to rebut the accusation that Senator DeMint had not brought home enough in earmarks:

There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves. By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation’s pennies and trying to preserve our country’s wealth and our economy’s viability to give all an opportunity to succeed.

(emphasis mine)

A note to my Republican Jewish friends. They aren’t wearing stylish hoodies, they are Klan robes.

*Refers to the concentration camp prisoners who were made trustees, and put in charge of other prisoners. Their brutality frequently shocked the SS guards.

I Wonder What Rush Limbaugh Will Say About This Tomorrow

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Un-Dirtyword-Believable.

Keith Bardwell, Justice of the Peace for Tangipahoa Parish in Louisiana just denied a marriage license to a couple because they were interracial:

A justice of the peace in northern Louisiana has refused to grant a marriage license to an interracial couple because he believes it would harm any children born of that relationship.

“I’m not a racist,” Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in the state’s Tangihapoa Parish, told the Hammond, Louisiana, Daily Star. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.”

Ummm….Dude, You Are a Racist, and with a little bit of justice in this world, you will shortly be a convicted felon.

As to what Rush will say? I’m not sure, but not that he won’t be part owner of the Rams, I’m pretty sure it won’t be “sensitive new age” stuff.

Khe Sanh in Pashtun

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Whatever those words are that apparently sound a lot like Camp Keating, the combat outpost where US troops were greatly outnumbered and besieged 5 days ago, resulting in 8 US fatalities, and well over 100 Taliban dead.

So, now, after the many words about the “casualties inflicted on the enemy,” the US Army is bugging out of the camp.

I do not mean in any way to diminish the bravery and the sacrifice of our troops, rather I am disparaging the leadership and competence of senior officers. The location of this forward base appears to have been an invitation to disaster.

This entire affair sounds like the Battle of Khe Sanh in miniature: It was a day, instead of months, and it was perhaps 500 combatants on both sides, as opposed to about 30,000 on both sides, but you have the siege, the asymmetric fight, the declaration of victory by the US military, and then the withdrawal from the position.

The echos of Khe Sanh are eerie.

Wicked Stupid Media Moguls

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So, Newscorp Chairman Rupert Murdoch and Tom Curley of USA Today, are whining yet again about how Google News is stealing their “content” by posting links when a search comes up.

As Weston Kosova ably notes they don’t have to stand for this:

Google doesn’t force Web sites to be included in its search listings. The people who run any site can remove it from Google’s results with a few keystrokes. All they have to do is go to the Web site’s robots.txt file and type this:

User-agent: Googlebot

Disallow: /

Poof, the site becomes invisible to Google. Their stories will no longer show up in Google searches. It will be as if they don’t exist.

Of course, that’s not what they really want.

What they really want is a law that:

  1. Forces Google to publish links to their stories.
  2. Forces Google to pay to publish links to their stories.

Because if they don’t get both, then they won’t get traffic and money.

Pissing On Antonin Scalia’s Grave

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PZ Myers notes on his Pharyngula blog that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is an incompetent hypocrite, which is not a tough call.

In this case, it was during arguments in Buono v. Salazar, during which Fat Tony basically said that everyone uses crosses to memorialize the dead, and when the counsel for the ACLU Peter Eliasberg notes that you won’t find crosses in Jewish cemeteries, Scalia finds it, “an outrageous conclusion,” that people would consider the symbol of Christianity to be….Well …. Christian.

Well, Dr. Meyers has a suggestion, which I endorse with one caveat:

Since Scalia is such an open-minded syncretist, I suggest that when he dies, right after all the partying and celebration, we atheists pass around a hat and get a collection going to erect a huge Muslim crescent over his grave. Not only will it honor the dead man, but it’ll let us do double-duty when we all line up to piss on it. Everyone wins!

My only request is that he be buried near enough to Ayn Rand that I do not need 2 beers to “show my respects” to both of them.

You Have Got to Be Kidding Me

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So, it appears that the House of Saud, whose two businesses are shaking the world down for oil, and shaking down observant Muslims on Haj to Mecca are now saying that they want compensation if the world starts burning less oil.

They are claiming that, “assisting us as oil-exporting countries in achieving economic diversification,” is basic fairness.

Ummm….You are getting plenty of money now. Put your royal family on a more reasonable allowance, stop bankrolling a Neanderthal view of Islam around the world, and spend that money in diversifying your damn economy.

You have at least a decade before anything changes to do this. If you choose not to, you can go Cheney yourselves.

Not Just Stupid, Not Just Wicked Stupid, but Wikkid Stoopid

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Let’s Send a Senator a Package of White Powder! That’s the Ticket!

John Cole reads Redstate, so the rest of us don’t have to, and he comes across one of the stupidest things yet written this millennium, by Eric Erickson, the “editor” of Redstate.

Yes, he is actually suggesting that people mail packages of a white powdery substance to a US Senator.

Un-dirtyword-believable. Was he dropped on his head at birth or something?

H/t Atrios.