Category: Wanker

Can We Please Give Texas Back to Mexico?

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Or maybe Canada, or Belize, or Iran or Myanmar (Burma); I don’t care, who gets Texas.

The latest bit of wankery of the Texas State Board of Education on the curriculum, where they are looking to replace Thurgood Marshall with Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Focus on the Family, Phyllis Schlafly, the Moron Moral Majority, Rush Limbaugh, Mike Huckabee, and the National Rifle Association makes it pretty clear that the intersection of Texan and American values is pretty much a null set.

I really cannot add anything to Atrios’ analysis, “I guess what bugs me most of all isn’t that they’re trying ram through a conservative-only version of history, it’s that they’re all obviously really f%$#ing stupid.”

Birthers Want Obama to Drop Trou* On National TV

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Shrek: Do you think he’s maybe compensating for something?

Yep, Jesus’ General, who reads Free Republic so I don’t have to, has noted that the latest meme: If Barack Obama is not circumcised, it would mean that he was not born in the US in 1961, because everyone got circumcised then.

There are some problems here.

It is indeed true that circumcision rates were high, well over 90%, in the US in the early 1960s, it was neither absolutely universal nor mandatory. Additionally, circumcision amongst Muslims is considered Sunnah, or a highly recommended tradition, and as a Muslim Obama would have been circumcised.

So if he were a closet Muslim, he would be circumcised anyway.

In any case let me be the first to say, great googly moogly, someone has issues.

The fascination that the denizens of FR with Democratic presidential penises, which says something about them, probably more about penis size insecurity than anything else.

*Meaning pull down his pants, and show us his penis.

This is a Sloppy Blowjob

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It appears that the mortgage industry has rolled out an industry “self regulation” group to forestall meaningful regulation by the government, and the New York Times presents it as the biggest move towards honesty since the birth of Jesus:

The Fair Mortgage Collaborative, a consortium of lenders, brokers and mortgage technology providers, made its debut in June with financial backing from the Ford Foundation, among other groups. Its purpose, the organizers say, is to make only those loans in a borrower’s best interest and to identify and certify the lenders that adhere to certain strict standards.

Because self regulation has worked so f%$#ing well in the past.

Bob Tedeschi, there is some semen on the corner of your mouth.

OK, There is Someone Stupider than Amity Shlaes

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Hard to believe, but true.

It turns out that Gregory Levey is stupider than conservative affirmative action baby Amity Shlaes, the woman who was fired by that Communist rag the Financial Times for extolling Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina in her reporting on the storm and its aftermath, because Mr. Levey is suggesting that Barack Obama should appoint George W. Bush as his Middle East envoy to aid in his diplomatic efforts in the region.

In related news, he suggested that Hannibal Lecter as chairman of the special White House committee on nutrition, Mary “Typhoid Mary” Mallon as head of food safety at the FCC, Timothy Leary as Drug Czar, and South Carolina Governor Rick “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” Sanford as head of the special working committee for ethics in government.

Great googly moogly.

There Can Only Be One

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It appears that someone idiot at AT&T’s ISP division decided to block the anarcho-absurdist site 4chan from their customers.

Within hours a fictitious report of the death of AT&T’s CEO from a cocaine overdose following a gay prostitution binge (it implies that he was a “bottom”) appeared on CNN’s “citizen journalism” site iReport.

Seriously, while the folks at 4chan are nice people, much like Bruce Banner, you really don’t want to make them angry, because if they put their minds to it, it can get ugly.

Postscript: ATT has apparently removed the block.

Disclaimer: I have only visited 4chan briefly, and my experience was that everyone there was swell, totally righteous, and that under no circumstances should anyone, ever, frack with them.

Furthermore, nothing in this post should be construed as a criticism of 4chan. I am criticizing AT&T, and the “stupid” and “wanker” tags are directed at the telecommunications company.

A Republican Proposes a “Bristol Palin” Tax

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That name may not be entirely fair, since it the tax would also apply disproportionately to Republican lawmakers, particularly those living on the now infamous “C Street” Christo-Fascist funded residences.

I’m of mixed emotions here. A tax on unprotected sex is a really stupid idea, but the idea of making Bristol Palin, and the residents of “C Street” pay an “Ass Tax”, amuses me no end.

And here we thought paying for sex was a no-no, especially for scandal-wary Members of Congress. But Rep. Steve Buyer thinks people who engage in the act (specifically, the kind that takes place sans protection) should have to pony up.

The Indiana Republican floated his unlikely cash-for-sex proposal Thursday during the markup of the health care bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee. Under the plan Buyer posited, those who engage in risky behavior, like smoking, not exercising and (ding, ding!) having unprotected sex, should have to pay a premium for their health care. After all, the reasoning goes, those people are more likely to incur higher health care costs than cigarette-eschewing, condom-wearing gym bunnies.

The distinguished gentleman from Indiana had to have been a College Republican, he was born in 1958, so he’s of roughly the right age, and this is a classic sort of juvenile CR bullsh%$.

Are there any grown-up Republicans left in Congress?

News of the Optimism of “Dr. Doom” Have Been Premature

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The wankers at CNBC reported that Dr. Nouriel Roubini said that he saw a recovery this year.

Not so, says the good doctor:

It has been widely reported today that I have stated that the recession will be over ‘this year’ and that I have ‘improved’ my economic outlook. Despite those reports – however – my views expressed today are no different than the views I have expressed previously. If anything my views were taken out of context.

I have said on numerous occasions that the recession would last roughly 24 months. Therefore, we are 19 months into that recession. If, as I predicted, the recession is over by the end of the year, it will have lasted 24 months with a recovery only beginning in 2010. Simply put I am not forecasting economic growth before year’s end.

…

Someone saw a headline from slipping a phrase, and took it.

The Washington Post is a Sick Joke

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They published an OP/ED by the Quittah from Wasillah, Sarah Palin, on global warming.

That’s bad enough, but when the article does not contain the phrases, “global warming,” and “climate change,” are missing from the article.

The problem is not that it is disingenuous, global warming deniers make their case through lying, after all.

The problem is that the article is complete and total crap that should not have passed the editorial pen of the Shopping News, much less the Washington Post.

It’s not even attempting to argue a point, it’s a bunch of red meat for the base strung together.

Michelle Malkin shows more dedication to reasoned argument.

Wanker of the Day

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Megan McArdle (Note that this is a link to Barry Ritholtz, not the McArdle article, because friends don’t give friends links to Randroids).

You see, she’s one of those people who read “Atlas Shrugged” in high school (I read the “Virtue of Selfishness, and hated every poorly crafted juvenile word), and never got over it. (She used to blog under the pseudonym “Jane Gault”)

She says that Matt Taibbi is wrong when he fingers Goldman Sachs as a politically connected octopus (OK, “that great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,”* Goldman Sachs.) that was front and center in gaming and profiting from the regulatory arbitrage and fraud that enriched their principals, and beggared the rest of us, “for the simple reason that no one person or even one group is powerful enough to take down a whole system.”

What’s at the core of this is Randroid objectivist bullsh$#. The markets, you see, are brilliant, and so no one person, nor one organization, can game them.†

It’s the same thing that led Alan Greenspan to tell Brooksley Born that, “Wasn’t a need for a law against fraud because if a floor broker was committing fraud, the customer would figure it out and stop doing business with him.”

You see markets, and all there participants are the epitome of capitalist savvy, and as such, they would never be unaware of others engaging in unsafe activities for their own benefits, and so the only explanation of failure must be collective, so it’s everyone‘s fault, particularly that lay-about mom working 60 hours a week at minimum wage, which makes it no one‘s fault.

I hope she has someone to cut her meat for her, because I think that the safe operation of a steak knife is beyond her.

*Alas, I cannot claim credit for this bon mot, it was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.
†This is despite the fact that the currently unraveling software theft case shows that Goldman Sachs has been front-running the entire stock market.

Why Do Right Wingers Hate America

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Former CIA employee, and torture apologist, Michael Scheuer goes on Glenn Beck’s show on Fox, and says that Americans need to die from a terrorist attack:

Scheuer: The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it’s going to take a grass-roots, bottom-up pressure. Because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. It’s an absurd situation again. Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.

Beck: Which is why, I was thinking this weekend, if I were him, that would be the last thing I would do right now.

As Adam Serwer notes:

But understand, this is not unpatriotic. You can wish all manner of horrors on this country, but as long as these horrors might serve a specific political agenda, you’re not being unpatriotic. Unpatriotic is a public health care plan. Unpatriotic is a judge modifying subprime mortgage loans to keep a roof over someone’s head. Unpatriotic is phosphate free detergent. Patriotic is wishing for a terrorist attack on the United States.

Why should we listen to these people about anything. They hate America and Americans.

She’s persona non grata in Palm Beach

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Pity Ruth Madoff. She’s going to have to live the rest of her life on just $2.5 million in cash:

Ruth will be left with just $2.5 million in cash by federal authorities under that deal.

“In the deal, she lost everything. She’s lost everything she holds dear,” said one source. “She’s lost her husband. She has no friends.”

“She’s persona non grata in Palm Beach, everywhere she cared about. She’s a beaten woman. There’s nothing left on the carcass to take,” the source said.

(emphasis mine)

$2½ million and PNG in Palm Beach!

The horror.

Obama Not Just Cheney in Drag, but Cheney’s Guardian Angel

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Great googly moogly, their latest brief in court is even more absurd than their DOMA brief.

Hell, it’s more absurd than the Twinkie Defense, it’s the Jon Stewart Defense:

A federal judge yesterday sharply questioned an assertion by the Obama administration that former Vice President Richard B. Cheney’s statements to a special prosecutor about the Valerie Plame case must be kept secret, partly so they do not become fodder for Cheney’s political enemies or late-night commentary on “The Daily Show.”

…

….He told the judge that if Cheney’s remarks were published, then a future vice president asked to provide candid information during a criminal probe might refuse to do so out of concern “that it’s going to get on ‘The Daily Show’ ” or somehow be used as a political weapon.

Gee, I wish that I could tell police investigating a crime to go pound sand because somehow it might be embarrassing.

Making this even more absurd is that this argument was first put forward by Bush’s now disgraced acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel Stephen Bradbury. (See also here and here)

Post Fires Dan Froomkin

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Because it appears that one of their biggest, if not their biggest, drivers of traffic to their site, just too annoying, he had a brew up with the dishonest and delusional Charles Krauthammer about 2 weeks ago, and I’m sure that he and WaPo editorial chief Fred Hyatt comisserated over martinis and vicodin.

Glenn Greenwald is justifiably outraged.

All that I would add is that the WaPo still has space for Paul Wolfowitz.

It’s depressing. They have what I consider to be the finest comics section in the United States.

Tom Daschle Would Suck Off a Corpse for a Cheeseburger

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To quote great Matt Taibbi, and there is no better evidence of this than his eagerness hook up with Viagra pitchman Bob Dole to kill the public option in healthcare reform, because, after all, his job is to lobby for, among other unsavory paracites, health insurance companies:

“While I feel very strongly that consumers should have the choice of a national, Medicare-like plan, my colleagues do not. . . But we were concerned that the ongoing health reform debate is beginning to show signs of fracture on the public plan issue, so in order to advance the process of developing bipartisan legislation and to move it forward, it’s time to find consensus here,” Daschle said.

So, Daschle’s solution is to have no real healthcare reform, but tho throw billions (trillions?) at his clients in the insurance industry and placing a mandate on the rest of the country.

Tom Daschle makes me happy that Harry Reid is now Senate Majority Leader….I can’t believe that I just said that.

Obama’s Weak Tea on Gay Rights

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So, Obama is extending ‘some’ federal benefits to gay partners, and as Pam Spaulding notes, it’s awfully meaningless and ill conceived.

First, as is noted in the New York Times, but buried in the last ‘graph, it’s not intended to be meaningful change:

But administration officials said the timing of the announcement was intended to help contain the growing furor among gay rights groups. Several gay donors withdrew their sponsorship of a Democratic National Committee fund-raising event next week, where Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is scheduled to speak.

Further, it’s not even an executive order, but an administrative memorandum, so it expires when he leaves office.

It also does not cover health benefits, so what is left to cover? The only thing that comes to mind is relocation benefits.

And they are leaking the reasons to make clear that people don’t think that this is the start of a trend to support gay rights, it’s just a ploy to appease people before a fundraiser.

LBTG’s of America, welcome to under the bus, where supporters of government transparency, accountability for war crimes and torture for Bush and His Evil Minions™, and meaningful reform of the financial system were thrown months ago.

It’s not particularly comfortable here, and now it’s getting very crowded.

Boston Globe Newspaper Guild Rejects Wage Cuts

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So the New York Times Corporation is unilaterally implementing a 23% wage cut.

I think that the National Labor Relations board may have something to say about this.

Absent bankruptcy, a contract is a contract.

I think there have been a number of reasons that this was rejected.

First, the Times‘ financial problems, are not as a result of the declines in the newspaper industry, but because of the enormous amount of debt that they took on to build, and move into, a swanky new headquarters building in 2007, and to pay (borrowed) cash for it.

When they could not roll over the short term loan, because of the financial crisis, they had to take a loan from Carlos Slim at very high rates. (14% !)

It also did not help that management handled communications abysmally, refusing to talk to its employees about the offer, refusing to send New York execs to the newsroom, and getting the math wrong, and then refusing to adjust the deadline, and making the cuts for rank and file about 50% larger than those of management.

This wasn’t a communication of the needs of the corporation, it was a communication of contempt for Boston by the folks in New York.

It should also be noted that the fact that the Times was not looking at New York for any give backs, and in fact continues to spend profligately, and just 2 weeks ago, the gift that keeps on giving, Thomas Friedman, shot his mouth off about how he never had to talk to an editor about what he is doing or spending:

Thomas Friedman, the Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist, lauded the efforts that Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., has made to keep the newsroom intact, saying, “I just have a great deal of admiration for him.” He told me that since taking his current post, in 1995, he has never been asked by Sulzberger what he was planning to write, or how high his travel expenses would be. “To be able to say what I want to say and go where I want to go—other than a Sulzberger-owned newspaper, you tell me where that exists today.”

(emphasis mine)

So, once again, Thomas Friedman, the man who is always wrong, drops another steaming redolent load on people who are ordinary enough that they have to work for a living.

I don’t know why the pay his travel expenses, he can create fictitious taxicab drivers who say exactly what he wants them to say while sitting at his home.