Category: Stupid

I’m not an Economist, but ….

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I have to agree with Dean Baker when he excoriates New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin for this bit of crap:

That Treasury bills were trading for less than 1 percent interest, as if they were no better than cash, as if the full faith of the government had suddenly become meaningless.

When you have people who lend you money, and they ask for less interest from you, which is the position of the government when they sell Treasuries, it means that they have more faith in you, not less.

The issue was not that people stopped trusting the government as Sorkin implies, it is that people are desperate for Government debt, because the lost faith in everything else.

I’ve done a quick google, and it appears that he’s also one of the idiots who took the thoroughly debunked $70/hour pay rate propaganda GM workers, which included the costs of those workers who were already retired, and ran with it.

I Googled Mr. Sorkin, so see if this was perhaps yet another innumerate journalist covering finance, and while I know when he earned his degree (BS, in 1999), and where he earned his degree (Cornell University), I cannot determine what he earned his degree in, and hence the degree to which is actually able to count.

My guess is that he got it in pastry baking.

I Hope That She Brings Her Toothbrush

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Well, it appears that the has fined birther whack job Orly Taitz $20,000.00 for misconduct, and Taitz has stated that she has no intention of paying.

Judge Clay Land who heard Ms. Taitz’s pleadings has written a 43 page explanation of the fines., and I’ve skimmed it and it’s harsh.

I do not think that she will have a license to practice law by this time next year.
Scrollable PDF below the break.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

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So, let me get this straight, the latest foreclosure prevention program from the Treasury involves evicting people from their homes:

HAFA already holds the support of Fannie, according to a VP at the agency, Eric Schuppenhauer, who believes the new program allows borrowers in imminent default to “make a graceful exit” from their home. HAFA will keep the stigma associated with foreclosure away from the borrowers, he added, and help keep communities intact.

Maggiano adds that HAFA will offer financial incentives to both servicers and borrowers, and associated secondary investors, in order to facilitate a short sale or deed in lieu of the property.

So, this is sensible policy, while giving bankruptcy judges the power to cram down mortgages, like the do for almost every other sort of debt is evil socialism, or maybe a bad hair day, or something bad.

Huh?

H/t Atrios

I am a Complete Moron

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I spent 2 hours today trying to get a video of my daughter off a DVD that my neighbor, Michelle took of Natalie singing when she was at North Bay camp with her middle school class last year.

I kept getting parity and read errors, I tried a dozen utilities, with no luck….Then it hit me.

How about Cleaning the Fracking DVD?????

After about 30 seconds with a cloth for cleaning eyeglasses, the videos were on my hard drive.

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.”

Rush Jumps

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Click for full size

This is one big shark that he jumped.
With Frikken Lasers!

Because Rush Limbaugh just literally threw in his lot with Iran and the Taliban:

LIMBAUGH: I think that everybody is laughing. Our president is a worldwide joke. Folks, do you realize something has happened here that we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about and that is he doesn’t deserve the award. Now that’s hilarious, that I’m on the same side of something with the Taliban, and that we all are on the same side as the Taliban.

(emphasis mine) The obvious question is whether or not Limbaugh’s sponsors really want a man who by his own admission, sides with Iran and the Taliban. I think that the award was premature, and likely undeserved, but I can say that without saying that I’m on the Taliban’s side. Why does Rush Limbaugh hate America? *The largest shark, and likely largest predator fish ever. It died out some 1.5 million years ago. The Genus is still in dispute, between either Carcharodon (Great White) or Carcharocles (broad toothed Mako). So in jumping C. Megalodon, you have jumped the biggest shark ever.

Another Stealth Aircraft Done in by Rain

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This time it’s the F-22 where the rain and humidity in Guam is causing shorts in its avionics.

This is the sort of sh$# that should have been handled in qualification, particularly for a plane that costs about $200 million.

I will say, however, that the last ‘graph is a classic:

The fighters’ maintenance issues had “no impact” on the strategic posture at Guam and did not put the island’s defense in jeopardy, Thomas said. The aircraft will continue to deploy to Guam and other parts of the Pacific, he said.

Because, I guess those folks in Palau and Ujelang are constantly threatening to invade.

Same as It Ever Was

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Same as it ever was,
same as it ever was,
same as it ever was

Here we go again. The flying monkeys are looking to impeach Barack Obama, with the usual suspects penning an article, titled, “Is it time to whisper the word ‘impeachment’?”

They claim that there is a, “The groundswell of calls for the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama is growing” but those calls are the voices in their head.

This is what happens to people who believe that God has personally anointed them to rule, and I don’t think that you could drive Tom Delay’s penis between the mental space separating them from Osama bin Laden.

I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours

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Pictured in Happier Times

But I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor
And when I die I expect to find Him laughing.*

Meleanie Hain, who made headlines when she showed up to a kids soccer game with a pistol strapped to her hip, and then filed a 7 figure lawsuit against the sheriff when her carry permit was revoked, has been shot to death in an apparent murder-suicide, along with her husband.

Thankfully, the children, who were in the house, have not been physically injured.

God Bless the 2nd amendment.

*Song Blasphemous Rumors, artist, Depeche Mode.

So, We Have Another Paleocon* Moron Wishing for Another 911

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We have Gregory Rodriguez penning a paean to the unity following 911, and suggesting very strongly what we need is to be very frightened about al Qaeda when he asks, “Where is Osama bin Laden when we need him?”

You see, he thinks that we need some of that good old post-911 unity, you know that wonderful stuff that Republicans used to :

  • Pass the PATRIOT Act.
  • Invade Iraq.
  • Illegally wiretap ordinary Americans.
  • Become torturer to the world.
  • To use the post 911 unity almost exclusively for Republican partisan political advantage.

His conclusion:

In the meantime, we all but ignored Bin Laden’s most recent tape, and attention to the arrest and indictment of Afghan Denverite Najibullah Zazi on WMD conspiracy charges has been surprisingly low-key. Such blase responses to our true enemies set us up for self-destruction, until we once again find out the hard way that we’re all Americans.

The reason that this is low key is because it should be low key, because Bush and His Evil Minions™ are no longer juicing every half baked tyro with half a terrorism plan and multicolored terror alerts.

The reason that this is low key is because it is Barack Obama, for all the complaints about him, is not Karl Rove, and does not see terrorizing the American public into supporting him as a legitimate goal of anti-terror policy.

It’s no wonder that quotes Samuel P. Huntington glowingly when suggesting that there is a need for an external enemy in order to create unity in society.

This is the same Samuel Huntington, whose entire career, and perhaps his entire life, to finding people to hate, whether it was the Arab Muslim (Clash of Civilizations), the brown mestizo Mexican (Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity), a suggesting that civilian (small d) democratic government is undesirable when maintaining a standing military (The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations), that democratic change is generally a bad thing(Political Order in Changing Societies), and advocated the near-genocidal “hamletization” policy in Vietnam.

Seriously, can this man is a moral pygmy.

*I read some of his other articles, and it appears that his guiding principles are stupidity, not Neoconservatism.

How Do I Stop Aflac™?

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OK, so I posted my resume on CareerBuilder.com™, and it seems like every 3-4 days, I gett a call from some drone at Aflac™, I got three calls yesterday, trying to get me to sell insurance.

Let’s be clear: I don’t want to sell Insurance, Amway, or Girl Scout Cookies, I want work as a mechanical engineer.

Of course, they are all different franchises, so some new drone keeps calling, and my telling that drone not to call doesn’t stop the other folks.

Unfortunately, CareerBuilder.com™ does not have the capability of blocking specific employers, probably because jerks generate too much revenue, so my options are to make my resume private, which means that no one sees my resume, or for me to start filing FCC complaints.

When the revolution comes, it’s going to be telemarketers up against the wall.

Lamest Product Launch Ever

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The Windows 7® House Parties, and their launch video.

As noted by Slashdot, “If Microsoft had been put in charge of marketing sex, the human race would have ended long ago, because no one would be caught dead doing something that uncool.”

It’s not as bad as that Tommy Seebach video, in that I think that the probability of rectal bleeding being induced is much less than his disco cover of Apache, but great googly moogly, this is lame.


On the other hand, Randall Munroe is amusing, as always”

Why Conservatives are Dancing Like the Palestinians Did on 911*

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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.

I am Now Prepared to Offer Investment Advice

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Just watch Jim Cramer’s Mad Money, and whatever he says, do the opposite:

Yesterday, market pundit Jim Cramer made a ridiculously awful call on embattled lender CIT (NYSE: CIT). Cramer made a call to buy CIT stock yesterday. Well today it is down 40% on reports a deal with bondholders will wipe out the current common shareholders.

Here is what Cramer said on CIT yesterday.

“Because no one forced CIT into bankruptcy, it can live to play again, and when I read in the New York Post that Paulson owns CIT debt, I realized that he’s powerful enough to save this company, particularly because he is one of the investors in IndyMac and knows his way around the bottom of the debt barrel.

These two stocks represent lottery tickets that are no longer rip-ups because they have made it out of the “critical care” stage and are recovering.

I would buy them both.”

Google Jim Cramer and Bear Stearns, or just look at these old videos from The Daily Show (also here).

Our Fat Nation

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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.

I am Reproducing This in Full Because the Cache Will Expire

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H/T Below The Beltway for the screen shot (click for full size)

Some background:

Remember when I suggested that recent rhetoric about Barack Obama was really about encouraging someone with the, “Psychological stability of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the shooting ability of…well…Lee Harvey Oswald (he was a Marine) to whack Obama?”

I also mentioned the Facebook “Assassinate Obama” poll.

It seems like it was only yesterday when I mentioned these….Hold on, it WAS yesterday when I mentioned this.

The tinfoil hat crowd is a bunch of very busy people this week.

Well, another part of the right wing sewage brigade, Newsmax published an article explicitly calling for a coup to overthrow him. Don’t click the link though, once the cowards at Newsmax realized that it was getting play, they pulled it, but here is the Google Cache.

In any case, I think that it is crucial that his word remain alive on the net in their entirety, so here is his article, in all its Fascist glory:

Obama Risks a Domestic Military ‘Intervention’

Tuesday, September 29, 2009 10:35 AM

By: John L. Perry

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it. So, view the following through military eyes:

  • Officers swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to “obey the orders of the president of the United States.”
  • Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.
  • They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office.
  • They can see that the economy — ravaged by deficits, taxes, unemployment, and impending inflation — is financially reliant on foreign lender governments.
  • They can see this president waging undeclared war on the intelligence community, without whose rigorous and independent functions the armed services are rendered blind in an ever-more hostile world overseas and at home.
  • They can see the dismantling of defenses against missiles targeted at this nation by avowed enemies, even as America’s troop strength is allowed to sag.
  • They can see the horror of major warfare erupting simultaneously in two, and possibly three, far-flung theaters before America can react in time.
  • They can see the nation’s safety and their own military establishments and honor placed in jeopardy as never before. So, if you are one of those observant military professionals, what do you do?

    Wait until this president bungles into losing the war in Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s arsenal of nuclear bombs falls into the hands of militant Islam?

    Wait until Israel is forced to launch air strikes on Iran’s nuclear-bomb plants, and the Middle East explodes, destabilizing or subjugating the Free World?

    What happens if the generals Obama sent to win the Afghan war are told by this president (who now says, “I’m not interested in victory”) that they will be denied troops they must have to win? Do they follow orders they cannot carry out, consistent with their oath of duty? Do they resign en masse?

    Or do they soldier on, hoping the 2010 congressional elections will reverse the situation? Do they dare gamble the national survival on such political whims?

    Anyone who imagines that those thoughts are not weighing heavily on the intellect and conscience of America’s military leadership is lost in a fool’s fog.

    Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?

    Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

    Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

    Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”

    In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.

    John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for Newsmax.com.

    • (emphasis mine)

    I guess it might read better in the original German. In the Confederate States of America dialect of English, it’s a lot shorter, of course, “Lynch the n*gg*r.”

    My first thought was to register LiberalsWithGuns.org, but someone has already beaten me to it, so I sent them an email offering my very poor HTML coding skills.

    Well, Now We Know How Lame the New York Times Is

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    It appears that the New York Times has decided that they do not spend enough time paying attention to deranged dishonest right wing stories, and their response is to assign an (unnamed, lest he get stern emails) editor to the giving blow jobs to right wingers beat, to ensure that all of their bullsh&% gets mainstream press coverage:

    Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, agreed with me that the paper was “slow off the mark,” and blamed “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.” She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies. Keller declined to identify the editor, saying he wanted to spare that person “a bombardment of e-mails and excoriation in the blogosphere.”

    (emphasis mine)
    Two points:

    • This story was, and always will be, bulls$%#, and so the coverage should be on the politics, because a close examination of the real story, shows no story.
      • Having “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio,” is a mark of journalistic success, not journalist failure.
    • Anyone who claims to be a journalist, much less an editor, but is afraid to do their job because they will get nasty emails, should not be working in journalism. I said this about Monica Hesse, and I will say this about this unnamed editor.

    Seriously though, separating the wheat from the chaff is a part of a journalist’s job, and what is going on here is the aggrandizement of the chaff.

    H/t tbogg.

    Is it Time to Leave the Country?

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    Luckily, I don’t have to worry too much about this, if push comes to shove, I can go to Israel immediately, under the law of return.

    But a reader of Americablog is asking this question:

    ….

    When Bush won his second term, I reached deep within for the small bud of hope that remained, and built on that. Throughout the primary and general elections, many of us within the Obama volunteer team felt we’d proven that one person truly can make a difference. Now, after merely 10 months in office, the lack of action on the part of team Obama (DOMA, DADT, etc.), the bizarrely run health care reform effort combined with the subsequent willingness to kill the public option, the Obama administration’s approach to education have led me to a breaking point.

    I sense that they don’t uphold any of the progressive ideals for which we fought, or on which he campaigned. That hope he told us to find, to rekindle – he and his administration have killed it more fully than Bush and his cronies ever did. Moving out of this country, where it appears a select few ‘haves’ control the outcome regardless of public opinion, suddenly presents a most palatable option. I’ve asked around, and it turns out that applications for nurse abroad and teach abroad programs are up over 300% in Colorado. That isn’t the least bit surprising to me, and I don’t think it’s economically motivated.

    …..

    I think that Barack Obama and His Stupid Minions™ have done everything in their power to avoid making progressive policy, and have done everything in their power to defund and disempower progressives, and as such, much as Bill Clinton did in 1994 with his nail and tongs fight for NAFTA (not healthcare reform), he is demoralizing his base.

    2010 will not be pretty, because with his voters dispirited, and the swing voters looking looking at a choice between phony Republicans (Obama) and real ones, will, to Paraphrase Harry S Truman, choose the real Republicans every time.

    Read the whole thing.