I rest my case.
And I don’t directly link to his column. He does not deserve my meager page hits.
Category: Wanker
Penny Wise and Pound Foolish
On Thursday, Sharon* spent 6 hours in the emergency room with severe chest pains.
It turned out that it was her long-standing problems with acid reflux, so it was not a heart attack, it was heart burn.
Well, because of Sharon’s* sensitivities, allergies, and odd interactions between her body chemistry and drugs, there is currently only one drug on the market, the proton pump inhibitor Dexilant, on the market which can address this.
She’s tried all the other ones, and they don’t work, but the insurance company drones have decided that it’s a good idea to deny the authorization to save a few bucks.
We are appealing.
How many f$#@ing trips to the ER with symptoms of a heart attack, which they cover at 100% does it take to wipe out any savings?
Well, let me give you a hint,we have already blown through that with the first trip to the ER.
Not enough bullets.
*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.
Timothy Geithner Can Bite My Shiny Metal Ass
So, with all the talk of screwing the ordinary guy on the social safety net through Barack Obama’s Pete Peterson sponsored catfood commission, Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner still has the time to promise people who never worked a day for their money that they will pay less in taxes than the guy at McDonalds:
Obama administration will keep tax rates at levels that benefit job-creating businesses and limit taxes on capital gains and dividends, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday.
Interviewed on CNBC’s “The Kudlow Report”, Geithner said the intent is to extend and keep in place tax cuts that should benefit 95 percent of businesses.
“We’re going to make sure that we keep at 20 percent the existing rates on dividends and capital gains,” Geithner said. “We think that’s good policy.”
Call me a commie, but I think that people who work for their money should pay less, not more in taxes than the trust fund babies who haven’t lifted a finger for their lifestyle.
Torturing Duncan Black
Mr. Black, better known by his nom de blog Atrios, coined the term, “Friedman Unit ,” to describeThomas “The Mustache of Pablum” Friedman’s penchant for saying that the whichever war we are involved in will be won in the next 6 months.
A few months later Friedman would say that the next 6 months were “crucial.”
Rinse…lather…repeat…
Well, now Michael O’Hanlon is torturing the young lad:
At this moment, as we enter into perhaps the most crucial six months of the entire war, I hope and pray that President Obama will decide we cannot afford to be without the leadership of such an amazing American.
(emphasis mine)
Mr. Black wants someone to, “Make it stop.”
Your mouth to God’s ear, Mr. Black.
Why Do I Torture Myself?
I know I shouldn’t have, but I read an Amity Shlaes opinion piece again, and this one suggests that regulating banks should be handled in the same way that a social networking site for 10-13 year olds polices itself, because, it’s like, you know, too tough to regulate things.
I think that Barbie put it best, when she said, “Math is hard.”
Gah!!!!
I think that what got to me the most was her brief bio at the end which noted that, “Amity Shlaes [is a] senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations.”
Here is someone who does not have a degree in economics, or history. She has a BA in English, she doesn’t understand, or worse does understand and lies with, statistics, and she is a senior fellow in economic history at the CFR?
Seriously, what the hell is wrong with our public institutions?
And what’s wrong with the publications that employ her?
At least the FT had the good sense to fire her incompetent lying ass.
OK, So Al and Tipper Gore are Separating
It’s really no one’s business but their own. They are both over 60, and they have been married for 40 years.
It’s really none of our business.
So, why am I writing about this?
Because once again, the Washington Post demonstrates just how horrible a human being you have to be in order to have some sort of gig writing opinions for them.
In this case, it’s Stephen Stromberg, who is suggesting that there was something “false” about their kiss at the Democratic Convention in 2000 because they are getting separated now.
He’s making a point about people complaining about Obama being too cook, but he can’t manage not to take a shot at a married couple who are breaking up after 40 years, because that’s what the Beltway Kule Kidz do.
Mr. Stromberg, I’m sure that you don’t read my screeds, but you are a miserable human being, and I would not piss on you if you were on fire.
Full disclosure: I did actually vote for Nader in 2000, because my vote did not matter, as I lived in Texas, and I regret that vote to this day.
I Will Be So Glad When I Can Add Her to My They Who Must Not Be Named List
Unfortunately, she may run for office, and she is a king maker in the Teabagger set, so she still gets coverage like this:
Can We Please Give Texas Back to Mexico?
The Texas Board of Education has adopted standards rehabilitating Joe McCarthy, attacking the establishment clause of the 1st amendment, mandating coverage of Phyllis Schlafly, etc.
If I were a on the board of any major university, I would reject the judgment of accreditation body which gave their stamp of approval to any school system adhering to these “standards”.
Another Shoe Drops on Blumenthal
The Stamford Advocate quotes him as saying, “I wore the uniform in Vietnam,” which sounds particularly damning, though there is not video or audio tape at this time.
Seriously, the primary is in a few weeks, Connecticut Dems, time to switch horses.
It’s more than just a misstatement or two, because saying things like this:
“I wore the uniform in Vietnam and many came back to all kinds of disrespect. Whatever we think of war, we owe the men and women of the armed forces our unconditional support.”
Appears to be at the core of his public personae. It’s his version of, “A noun, a verb, and 911.” Every 3rd word out of his mouth is something like this, or like the largely apocryphal spitting stories, and as such this makes him seriously damaged goods.
If he does not lose the primary, he just got the state party endorsement, he will very likely lose the general.
H/t The Plum Line.
Hating on Sports Analogies
Particularly when the person using them does not understand the underlying sport.
Case in point, Greg Sandoval, who in writing about a German court order banning an ISP from providing bandwidth, titles the article, ” Studios score another TKO against Pirate Bay,” in discussing the short-lived offline period.
Less than 12 hours later Pirate Bay was back on line.
I’m not sure if Mr. Sandoval wrote the headline, or if someone else did, but whoever it was, they have no f%$#ing clue as to the sport of boxing, nor what a TKO is.
TKO stands for “Technical Knock Out,” and when it occurs, it’s game over, and someone has lost:
A knockout (also referred to as a K.O.) is a winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, Karate and others sports involving striking. A knockout is usually awarded when one participant is unable to rise from the canvas within a specified period of time, typically because of fatigue, injury (serious or temporarily incapacitating, e.g. a bleeding cut above the eye can blind a fighter), loss of balance, or unconsciousness; that is, the person may literally be knocked out. A technical knockout (also referred to as a T.K.O.) is often declared when the referee or other judges (such as official ring physician, the fighter, or the fighter’s cornermen) decide that a fighter cannot continue the match, even though he did not fail the count, or, in many regions, a fighter has been knocked down three times in one round.[1] British records refer to TKOs as either “retired”, if the fighter refuses to continue, or “R.S.F.”, for Referee Stopped Fight. In amateur boxing, a knockout is scored as “RSC,” for Referee Stopped Contest. A technical knockout (“Outclassed”) can also be declared if a fighter is ahead by 15 points in a bout.
If you want to use a sports analogy, this is something like a yellow card. It’s inconvenient, and a warning, but the game is still on.
Better yet, Don’t Use a Sports Analogy!!!!
Oh My God………
OK, I was a bit of a fan of Dodd, so I was upset, Geithner and Obama hung him out to dry over his doing their bidding on AIG bonuses.
At least the person selected by the powers that be to replace him, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, had a lock on the seat in the general, because the Nutmeg State is very blue.
Well, not any more. It appears that the Blumenthal, who has repeatedly used his service in Vietnam to justify his support for military tribunals and a continued military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been lying about serving in Vietnam:
At a ceremony honoring veterans and senior citizens who sent presents to soldiers overseas, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut rose and spoke of an earlier time in his life.
“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. “And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support.”
There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.
……
In 1970, with his last deferment in jeopardy, he landed a coveted spot in the Marine Reserve, which virtually guaranteed that he would not be sent to Vietnam. He joined a unit in Washington that conducted drills and other exercises and focused on local projects, like fixing a campground and organizing a Toys for Tots drive.
……
But what is striking about Mr. Blumenthal’s record is the contrast between the many steps he took that allowed him to avoid Vietnam, and the misleading way he often speaks about that period of his life now, especially when he is speaking at veterans’ ceremonies or other patriotic events.
I’m with the Swing State Project’s take on this, “The Dem statewide convention is this weekend. Conceivably delegates could nominate someone other than Blumenthal. If someone else wants to get on the primary ballot via petition, they need to file 7,500 signatures by June 8th (PDF).”
I think that it is probably too late to get the convention to nominate someone else, but there are 3 weeks to get the signatures, though I would make sure to get at least 12,000 because the PTB who selected Blumenthal in the first place will challenge them.
What I do know is that there are hundreds of hours of Blumenthal lying on video and audio tape, and whoever runs against him will play it over, and over, and over again.
He is dead meat.
I’m beginning to think that serving as attorney general or DA should be taken as a strike against those serving higher office.
Wanker of the Day
William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton:
Former President Bill Clinton says it is “time to lower the rhetoric and talk about the facts,” in reference to the government’s scrutiny of Wall Street.
In an exclusive interview with Maria Bartiromo, Clinton noted that while many financial firms are being questioned by the Securities and Exchange Commission, he does not believe that Goldman Sachs or CEO Lloyd Blankfein did anything illegal, based on what he’s seeing.
You know, when your spouse is in the cabinet, it’s a good idea not to shoot your mouth like this, even if she is Secretary of state.
I always that he was a slimy corporatist prick who looked good only in comparison to the ratf%$#s who tried to impeach him.
I believe that my view is validated.
Deep Thought
I don’t care who Elena Kagan f%$#s, just so long as it is not the American public.
And Andrew Sullivan, whom I declare wanker of the day, can go Cheney himself.
Software Design that is Bad Stupid Bordering on Criminal
OK, my wife has a domain for her special education business, SEDRA, and it comes with email.
Yesterday evening, we started getting timeouts when trying to send mail. Receiving worked just fine.
We finally discovered that the registrar and host, HostMonster, had changed the configuration to prevent virus infected machines from spamming. They changed the port used from 25 to 26.
OK, no big deal, it took me 5 minutes talking with tech support to figure that one out.
Unfortunately, there appeared to be no way to change the port number in Eudora®.
So I used Microsoft Mail to change the port, and I could post from that, but not from Eudora®, because it was not available in the options.
Well, I thought that this was stupid, how can you not be able to change the SMTP port in an email program?
Obviously, we could go to a new client, but that would mean hand holding Sharon* through learning a new email client, something that I view with no small amount of dread. I hate being the family call to Bangalore.
So, I Google, figuring that there is probably a setting in the .ini file that I can tweak
What do I find? I find this:
Eudora for Windows
Eudora has chosen to hide the Port change option in version 6.0 and up, making it more difficult to make this change. If you have purchased Eudora, we would suggest contacting them about making this option available by default again. To enable changing ports:
- Navigate to your Eudora install directory.
- Look in the Eudora directory for the directory “extrastuff”.
- In this directory is a file named “esoteric.epi”. Drag (copy or move) this file into the main Eudora directory. There will now be options extra listed, including a Ports page.
[they neglect to mention that you have to restart Eudora here if it is already open]
To change the outgoing mail port from 25 to 26:
- Launch Eudora
- Drop down the Tools menu, and choose Options
- Click on Ports
- Change the port from 25 to 26
- Click OK
- Restart Eudora
So, they had scrupulously hidden these options, and required you to manually move a file in order to be able to access these options.
Not only that, this was not an oversight, it was a deliberate decision to change the program so that you had to do this, and they made this decision when ISPs are increasingly moving away from ports 110 (incoming) and 25 (outgoing) so as to deal with botnets.
I can understand putting this under “advanced”, and popping up a warning, as Firefox does with “about:config”, or perhaps requiring someone to set “advanced menu mode.” or somesuch but deliberately burying the features and requiring that someone track down this obscure fix which involves moving an extensions file to the home directory of the account is stupid.
Actually, it’s more than stupid, it’s stoopid, really, really, really stoopid.
This is a level of deliberately stoopid that makes Sarah Palin look like Albert Einstein.
In any case, I found the fix, and I implemented it, and it works, but it took about 6 hours more than it should have.
*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.
When Glenn Beck is More Reasonable than You…
Bummer of a birth mark, little Johnny
It’s game over, dude.
In this case, it’s John McCain, who is suggesting that mirandizing the alleged Times Square bomber is somehow evil and wrong, and Glenn Beck, yes, Glen Beck, who is suggesting that we need not shred the Constitution, and give American citizens their constitutional due.
So John McCain is being called a demagogue, by the tag team by Jon Stewart and Glenn Beck.
Click for full size
This is one big shark that he jumped.
With Frikken
Lasers!Jumping C. Megalodon*
*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). But in either case, you are jumping C. Megalodon, you have jumped the biggest shark ever.
OK, Maybe Not Getting the Washington Post Gig Wasn’t So Bad
I while back, I applied to, and did not make the cut for, the Washington Post‘s America’s Next Great Pundit contest.
Maybe it was the best outcome, though I could use the money, because it appears that the paper is now going to blogs and asking for links to their blogs post, as well as the authority to give said bloggers their assignments, for the princely sum of $0.00 (€0.00):
Five weeks ago, I received an unsolicited offer from the Washington Post. They asked if they could post my picture and biography on their website and link to every new blog post appearing here if I agreed to produce regular original content for them at their request. I turned them down. Why?
Because they wanted me to work for them for nothing.
The Post is organizing a “local blogging network” linking to selected blogs from their website and asking bloggers to submit original content, which would be edited by them. The Post’s rights to that content would be enforceable under a written agreement. That agreement was written as follows:
…………
The Post is also demanding the, “non-exclusive right to republish the Work (in whole or in part) on the Site in real time simultaneous with Your own publication of the Work, as well as the right to adapt, edit, display, store, and promote the Work in connection with such republication on the Site.”
This deal sucks worse than a coupon for a week of sessions at John Boehner’s favorite tanning salon, though it might not suck worse than a coupon for two weeks at John Boehner’s favorite tanning salon.
Wanker of the Day:
Reliably spouting right wing talking points since 2004
Barack Obama.
For claiming that there were no oil spills from platforms and as a result of Hurricane Katrina:
I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.
The problem here, as the folks at Media Matters so ably note, this is false. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil and distillates were spilled offshore as a consequence of hurricane Katrina.
It’s not true, it’s never been true, and he’s a smart guy, and he knows this.
You Idiot, You Were the One Slowing It Down!
So now Angela Merkel is complaining that the rescue package for Greece is moving too slowly:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday Greece’s international bailout must be accelerated for the sake of the entire euro zone, as the far bigger Spanish economy suffered a credit rating downgrade.
Yo! You Moron!!!!! The person who has being doing all that She can to slow walk this rescue is one, “German Chancellor Angela Merkel.”
I understand that the German public does not like the idea of bailing out Greece, but you pandered to, and encouraged, that sentiment relentlessly, unlike some of the members of your cabinet with whom you clashed, who have accepted the truth.
I hate this, “Why are you slowing down because I’m laying across the tracks,” act.
Have I Mentioned that I Love Jon Stewart?
Well Bernard Goldberg, former CBS news man, and the slightly smarter side of the comedy team Goldberg and Goldberg (Bernie and Jonah, no relation and in particular order), had decided to challenge Jon Stewart once again.
Bad move, dude.
Jon Stewart responds, and this time he has backup of gospel singers:
It is a righteous take-down, but damn, Jews can’t dance to gospel for sh%$.*
*So says this yid.
Signs of the Apocalypse
Starts at 2:05
On Morning Joe, Mark Halperin, a long time hack best known for the phrase, “Matt Drudge rules our world,” feels compelled to call it for what it is when he says, “They are willfully misreading the bill or they are engaged in a cynical attempt to keep the president from achieving something.” (emphasis mine)
Except for the fact that he should have said and not or, he is telling the truth, and when Mark Halperin feels compelled to call bullsh%$, you know that Republican spin has crossed some sort of “Shoe Event Horizon” where the normal punditocracy simply ceases to function.
The first part of the video is Austan Goolsbee ably defending the program (full disclosure, I made a post that he objected to in the comments, see here, and I posted his response here),* but Joe turns to Halperin for a “fair and balanced appraisal, and Halperin calls them full of it too.
H/t Steve Benen.
*I don’t have a problem with his objecting, my family calls me full of it all the time, it sticks in my head because I was stunned that he read my little old blog in his capacity as an economic advisor to the Obama campaign.