the defeatists!

Wonkette gets it wrong, wrong, wrong!

This isn't the ACLU's war on Christmas! It's God's War on Christmas!

Playing Palin, she thinks she freaking Madonna...

Divas do not make good politicians. I know people who have worked in the Senate, for example, and behind the scenes guys like Chris Dodd and Chuck Schumer are total dickweeds. Teddy Kennedy, except for the drunken Irishman schtick and the cockhoundness before his remarriage, was a fairly decent guy. The Alaska delegation seemed to have a fixation on assholes, although Begich has yet to offend anyone the way Ted Stevens offended all sentient beings. Bill Frist was supposedly a fairly nice guy; Trent Lott was charming; Bob Dole had an extraordinary sense of humor. In fact, I suspect Dole could join the Defeatists as Cato and make all our stuff here and at the outlier sites -- or sites of which we are outliers -- a lot better. His wife, on the other hand, makes dildoes look warm and cuddly. However, they were all invariably polite to people who demonstrate that they love them. Until now...



So, Sarah Palin is showing her true colors. Not that anyone needs to be surprised but...the AXE figures that she'll blame her self-induced flashing of the true Sarah on the liberal media somehow.

"We gave up our entire workday, stayed in the cold, my kids were crying," one man was quoted saying. "They went home with my wife. She was out here in the freezing cold all day. I feel like I don't want to support Sarah."...Another woman told Indy Channel, "We bought two books from Borders to have our receipt and our wristband to get it signed tonight. My books are going back to Borders tomorrow." The angry crowd turned on Palin as she returned to her "Going Rogue" tour bus. (Emphasis added)

First of all,  The Typepad is not recognizing Palin as a proper noun as I draft this, which means Michael Palin should sue. Next when a crowd of ignorant assholes turns from cheering and orgasmic moaning to booing and catcalls, that's pretty tame behavior. Wonder how many of these twits were carrying guns? If they'd shot the tires out and torched the goddamn bus while making her sign the books and their various body parts, and then barbecuing the kid, then they would have turned. Here, some dipshits got a comeuppance...delivered by the Moose-slaughterer Profundis herself...

This makes the John Stewart bit even more relevant. Seriously, if the candidate for whatever is this oblivious, this tone deaf, then all I can say is that Mitt-Plastic-Fantastic-Romney might have a chance. Huckabee is supposed to actually care about people, even though he gets his economic theory from Malthus. The more Palin shows that she's just a self-centered, baby-popping, ignorant cunt from the backwoods, the better their chances. However, neither MPFR nor Huckleberry can get the crowds riled up and the base enthralled. If I were the Dems, I'd stockpile this footage and play it often.

This Is Not A Blog Post

Fuck people. Incrementally.

Nothing says false comfort like a minimum wage rule. Tying a minimum wage rule to inflation seems like the way to keep it helpful to the average employee who is at the minimum wage, but it really is not. So, the Colorado decision to knock three cents an hour off the minimum wage is kinda, sorta a gratuitous insult. Legally it is definitely what they have to do, but as that great legal scholar, Charles Dickens, had a character put it in the UK version of The Federalist Papers, "The Law is an ass..."

Assuming a 40 hour week, which is more than a lot of minimum wagers get, the decrease will amount to  a roaring $1.20 a week. Roughly $64 a year Before taxes, which are probably irrelevant, except payroll taxes like FICA and Medicare. The impact on income in real terms, a can of coke a week from the vending machine down the hall next to the furnace where they shovel the coal to drive the engines of industry.

Merle Haggard - Mama's Hungry Eyes

Jeffery Allen Cropper - ( Personal Friend Page )|MySpace Videos
Now, I have been privately speculating about salary freezes and rollbacks for a while. This particular issue is probably a sign of something, and not being Paul Krugman , I'm not sure what. (By the way, the post I've linked to is pretty arcane, but take the time to do the math and think. Not a bad motto...) However, if wages drop then demand drops for shit because people have less to spend on shit; if demand drops, production drops; if production drops, people get laid off. Getting that flushed down the toilet of economics feeling yet?

Here's my thought: Mandate a living wage which will be based on the local median minus 20%. The only way to get out of this downward spiral is to sell stuff; the only way to sell stuff besides food and minimal housing is getting more, not less money into disposable income which largely comes from wages in the spending as opposed to the investment class. Bill Gates net worth decreases by 10%, he's still fucking wealthy; increases by 10%, he's still fucking wealthy, and I doubt that it'll have that much of an impact on his spending patterns. Give me a 10% negative swing, and I slow down and do little except pay down debt; increase it by 10%, and some of that will go to spending. Granted, some of that will go to paying down debt, but if I increase my after tax income by $5K, I probably won't buy another car, but I might buy a new Amp and maybe a better layout of office furniture for my home office. Just a thought; but, that would keep struggling musicians, the Line 6 company, furniture stores and Weyerhauser going a bit longer. Just doing my part...

Now, for gratuitous, unwarranted optimism...


Were that it were so, but as former Rosicrucian adept and car salesman Crispin Sartwell once plagarized, "Life is 60/40 against."

BMLT! Only real way to get off this Chain Gang!

Let's see...we've got triple digit unemployment, high gas prices, fear and trembling and fucking vomiting over the status of 401Ks and mortgages and consumer loans; we have minimal consumer protections and fears of further job loss, and the fuckers are nervous because no one wants to buy any goddamn thing?

NEW YORK (AP) -- Americans may have poured money back into stocks this year, but market watchers worry that they aren't spending enough on other things -- like clothes, cars and computers. This week, the average U.S. consumer returns to the spotlight. The Commerce Department reports on May personal spending and incomes on Friday, the same day that the University of Michigan reports on June consumer sentiment.Recent data has shown that Americans' confidence is climbing but their spending is still lagging. Personal spending has fallen for eight of the past 10 months. Consumers are the primary driver of U.S. economic growth, and if their spending doesn't rebound, the market can't, either. ''If you take a quick snapshot here, the consumer is still looking to pay down debt, increase their savings, and curtail their consumption,'' said Joseph V. Battipaglia, a market strategist at Stifel Nicolaus & Co.

Let me make this clear--the markets and banks went nuts loaning consumers money for mortgages, consumer good, durable good, and so on; everybody went gaga over every new and scary and generally unnecessary innovation like IPHONES; people are so leveraged it's bizarre and bankruptcy works great for GM and Chrysler, but not so great for the guy who has a wife needing surgery, no insurance and has just gotten a 60 day notice that he's losing his job so paying his maxed out credit cards is not a solution anymore AND THEY ARE WORRIED BECAUSE US POOR BASTARDS AREN'T BUYING CRAP AT THE SAME RATE?
I'm thinking that one reason inflation isn't a concern for the FED lies in the fact that the only people who are really feeling the stimulus at the moment are involved in banking and investing. Hell, my boss who is significantly well-paid for which I have no problems since he has now worked his ass off sufficiently for the benefit of GINORMOUS DEFENSE CONTRACTOR that he has none left and is working on his left leg recently got a note that he was eligible to "defer income." He asked me what that meant, and I said it means you can agree to let them hold on to some of your money for several years until after you've retired. "Why would I want to do that?" Well, baseball players and other athletes do it. Ken Griffey deferred a lot of his income with Cinncinati and Seattle, for example, so that they could have more cash to spend on other players. "Ken Griffey? What the hell does that have to do with me?" Nothing; however, this isn't really for you. You won't really see a lot of benefits, except that you'll probably pay lower taxes after you retire. It really makes sense for the big boys...the Sector Presidents and their direct reports, and the top end at CORPORATE. "Fuck 'em."

The AXE is fairly frustrated with it all. I was thinking about a new car, and discovered that I didn't really want to spend the extra cash. Seems my current car was a rental before I bought it and was in an accident in Hawaii. I bought it from a company that doesn't exist anymore. They didn't disclose the accident, and as a result, after three years and paying extra each month as well as having a decent interest rate and a reasonable down payment, the people I talked to about a two year old Bullit Mustang GT were trying to get the price for the 2009 model from me and shorting me on the trade-in. I'm still upside down on the current car...and, they are eager to rip me off on the "new" car. Fuck 'em. Car runs fine. Some body work, a tuneup when do, headers and an upgraded cooling system and maybe a tank of nitrous in the trunk, and it'll be wonderful. And, cost me a lot less in anger, frustration and erosion of my income.
I'm not buying as many books, get all my music from XM and Rhapsody as opposed to buying it, and am doing damn all except paying bills. I expect a lot of Americans are in the same way. If not, we're dumb.

What they have done to us is not unlike what Lillith did to Niles Crane...taken away all our liquidity and beaten us. Now, they want us come back. Unfortunately, most of us do not have a Daphne to run off with, and she was crazy anyway...Sorry, most of us are not going to run off to COSTCO for giant bottles of capers.

If consumers are going to be the main driver in the US economy, we need to get money in the hands of the folks who are not in the Investment-Class top 5% level. We need to find radical solutions to get more money in the hands of the class that consumes responsibly. Anybody who's current on their mortgage and pays less than 31% of their income for housing, for example but is upside down. In other words, consumers who didn't leverage themselves that badly. People who used to make money and then their jobs died. Put them to work, and not at McDonalds. People who are facing or have been run over by bankruptcy because of medical bills. Instead, the bulk of the consumer money is going to those who can't do math; the one's who didn't balance their checkbooks. And, this is after the bankers and the financial types have skimmed a lot off the top. Populism can turn ugly...altruistic and principled as I like to portray myself, I'm getting angry as I wonder "where's mine?" I'm not hurting yet, but..."Where's mine?"

Damn right, I'm not spending a lot of disposable income. Neither will a lot of people. We're too worried about being disposed. Here's a thought -- allow incomes under $500K to deduct consumer interest. Allow incomes under $500K to take a tax credit, not a deduction, on mortgages that are upside down. And, fuck the banks, the financial sector, and the other rip-off artists that have thrived since Reagan rode in one his fucking Palomino and delusions. Fuck 'em.

I thought Minnesota was kinda libertarian, kinda liberal Jesse Ventura kinda place...

Gotta say, I'm betting nobody saw this one coming.

People talk about runaway jury awards, but they are usually awards to people who have, I don't know, had both legs amputated by a runaway blender or something...and, usually happen in Mississippi. Sharing 24 songs from a hard drive and being liable for $80K a song is pretty strange. Who the hell was on the jury? the entire crew from Paisley Park?

I'm sitting here in Defeatist Central with tons of electronic stuff, including what I need to record my own music and toss it out there on the web. Since I don't think I'm a musical genius, if I pulled out one of my old songs that I wrote when I thought I was some kind of John Prine-Kristofferson sort of character, recorded it and tossed it out there without copyright protection and given the putrid state of popular music as opposed to Blues, Alt Country, Garage Rock, Alternative Rock, Jazz, etc. etc. people liked it, some genius at a record company could take my stuff out of the public domain and sell it without paying me a thing. In fact, they could copyright it and then come after me for tossing it up on the web anyway. Or, have Alvin and the Chipmunks do a cover...

Now, I suspect that wouldn't happen. But, the absurdity fo the verdict has caught a lot of people's attention in this ADD world. 
Tom Petty

Michael Steele's Hip Hop Makeover as real as MC Hammer...

And, and then some...

Dear god, Lesbos revenge...Or Tiffany has taken over LLBean and Wrangeler!

If Rachel Maddow misses this one, she'll never forgive herself. This demands some cheery, snarky irony. I'm starting to think that having stopped drinking 19 years ago was a terrible mistake...

Back in the day, I used to joke that the Army hired designers who were gay and hated women in order to design their uniforms. They were awful -- not flattering, unattractive, inefficient and ineffective at doing what they were supposed to do. There is a nice irony in that the original women's fatigues had a cute little pocket on the sleeve for pens and pencils and tampax or whatever -- tootsie rolls, tampax, pocket vibrators --where now the Army Combat Uniform has the same thing.

However, I think that men's fashion has been taken over by Lesbians-Who-Hate-Men. The people who were running it before may have been gay, but they liked men. Or, perhaps it's an alliance between LWHM and Androgonous Guys on Bad Drugs...or possibly Good Drugs. However, I don't expect to see anyone that I'd care to have a cup of coffee with, listen to, or consider as a functional human being dressed like one of Britney's dancers on crack with better abs striding along the catwalk. Or street. seriously, if Mick or Steven ever showed up for a gig dressed like this, the Stones or Aerosmith would turn into the Village People. (Or, Keith and Joe would just shoot them. Blam. On Stage...and get off because they're rich, and  because they eliminated a public nuisance.) Even in the Crossroads of Opportunity; this would be outre even for Vegas.

I understand fashion statements. I just don't see the pont of "Hey Ever'bodee...I'm a dickless twit!" as one.

This is certainly the way to do business...

Yeah, nothing like a US Today Pool where you get to answer yes, no or no fucking clue to the incredibly complex question "Does the Second Amendment Give Us the Right to Bear Arms?" Well, yes, it does, kinda, sorta ...

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Now, unfortunately, Madison didn't have access to Stunk and White or the APA style guide. For which we can thank god. These guys learned to write in Greek and Latin, and sometimes their constructions are the better for it; sometimes not. This is one of those cases, and our problems with the other, more clearly written articles in the document make a pretty persuasive argument that this one is going to be pretty murky as well.

Obviously, presented with something like this, the founders would probably have said, uh, no...although Franklin would have been curious, Jefferson would have tried to improve the design, and Aaron Burr would have calculated what his enemies would look like on the receiving end...Now, these would have been regarded as quaint...

Frankly this is silly. Obviously, the founders would have had an idea of limits, since the Enlightenment was about reason, logic and compromise. Gotta love the yes/no/undecided approach to complex issues. The second Amendment guarantees the right; it just doesn't define it really well, especially since the use of flintlock pistols for drive-by shootings had limited applications in 1789. It was hard to conceal a brace of fowling weapons under a boys coat to pull off a plot to kill the teacher and the minister and the judge and the rest. I firmly believe that if Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Aaron Burr went to a typical NRA event, they'd run screaming from the place and when asked by Katie Couric if they intended those sorts of folks to have access to assault rifles, once they got to see an assault rifle at work, they'd have her burned as a witch or locked up as a madwoman. It never occurred to the founders that citizens would be irresponsible assholes. Which, when you think of it, was pretty irresponsible of them. H&A narrowly defined the concept; J,M,& A were idealists. Hell, they could have gone on forever about what makes a citizen. In their world, Sarah Palin would have scared the hell out of the town; Levi would be in the stocks and Bristol in the dunking stool. They'd refer to Obama as an Ethiopian Prince based on his rationality and education, send Biden off to chat with Edmund Randolph and then they'd all sit down over some crappy fortified wine and cut a deal that made sense.

The common good is a much ignored concept today; it was the basis for all their thought. They understood it differently, but the founders would have agreed with Charlton Heston's cold dead hands thing so long as it referred to a rifled musket. MAC 10s and Glock .380s with 14 round clips, not so much. Particularly in the hands of people who didn't know what they were and how they are used...as many gunowners are today.

Most people hate what they do or most of what they do...

  Quiet desperation, anyone?

"She was this blonde bombshell...great quote from Ayn Rand, "tell me what a man finds sexy and I'll tell you his whole philosophy of life.." ."

"I am inspired by everything. I wish I could narrow it down to a more palatable muse. But the fact is, the shape of a ripped piece of paper, or the edge of a cloud can affect me in the same physical way.

Silk threads, twisted wire, the paper like skin of an iris....the turquoise and gold in the eye of a peacock feather, or in a tube of indigo, haunt me, until only the layering and layering of color, texture and image can erase its echo from my mind."

 

>Yeah  it would be great to like most of what I do...