"I think they are all homosexual communists in Satan's army...I espect as well they all live together and bathe together every morning and have the anal sex with one another, with the fisting and the guinea pigs." - Manuel Estimulo
"I can never quite tell if the defeatists are conservative satirists poking fun at the left or simply retards. Or both. Retarded satire, perhaps?" - Kyle
"You're an effete fucktard" - Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom
"This is the most pathetic blog ever..." - Ames Tiedeman
"You two [the Rev and el Comandante] make an erudite pair. I guess it beats thinking." - Matt Cunningham (aka Jubal) of OC Blog
"Can someone please explain to me what the point is behind that roving gang of douchebags? I’m being serious here. It’s not funny, and doesn’t really make anything that qualifies as logical argument. Paint huffers? Drunken high school chess geeks?" - rickinstl
I just came to the conclusion that except for oddities and occasional fill-ins, I will probably never "work" for anyone except wife, cats and whim again, and I shockingly realized that I actually don't give a fuck. In fact, feel pretty good. It's been surreal, real, fun, occasionally real fun but mainly just tedium and putting up with a fine broth of idiots, assholes, and asslickers. Going to the cafe to join Rhett Miller and Soren Kierkegaard, Chris Hitchens, Brian Jones, Mr. Jennings and Socrates...
As Mr. Miller and the boys so eloquently put it ....
Gettin out of the house. Im gonna go for a ride, Cause I got me a five-o Ford and the good Lord knows I tried to make friends with you and evrything went wrong. Yeah, Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im gone.
Goin down to the tracks. Im gonna hide out for a while. Gonna have me some ranch-style beans From a tin can hobo-style, Forget your face, If that can be done. Yeah, Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im gone.
And youll find you a boyfriend And he wont like my cat. And youll try to Pretend that you dont want me back. Right now Im leavin So youd better say, So long. Yeah, Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im gone.
Gonna find me a boat And a brand new name. Im gonna find some wall-eyed, Weak-kneed European dame. Shell be my wife And youll only be a song. Yeah, Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im gone.
And youll find you a boyfriend And he wont like my cat. And youll try to Pretend that you dont want me back. Right now Im leavin So youd better say, So long. Yeah, Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im gone.
Yeah, Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im gone.
Yeah, Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im goin Im gone.
Jesus. Well, what do ya do about a string breakin Oh, nothin
So, to steal a line from Graham Nash to Steven Stills back in the No Nukes Movie and you're looking for an executive like me, well, "Steven, if you need me, call. And Steven, don't call."
Fleshy, the Defeatist's Official Cat, displays an odd aspect of catnip on Cats...they are suddenly in need of Marshall Amps, Fender Telecasters, and bandannas..
Actually, a lot of really great music is coming out of Scandanavia. From Denmark, there's The Ravennettes, who have a lot of music that would fit the movie, especially something like The Last Dance which is an incredibly ironic piece of material...catchy, pretty, perky until you listen to the lyrics. "Every time you overdose, I rush to intensive care..."Lisabeth would approve.
Norway has the Cocktail Slippers among others, and they're pretty amazing as a group, whether covering some Girl Group piece from the 60s or doing one of their originals. They are in Steven Van Zandt's Wicked Cool stable, and they're excellent. Again, there's a lot of irony in their stuff -- "Who'll be the last lover standing, come St Valentine's Day?" Particularly for the scene with her walking down the promenade at the end in the Swedish version; sure there's an equivalent moment in the Mara-Craig version.
So, Happy New Year from AGI, ELS, Mr. Fun, Capt C at Defeatist Central and from our fellow travellers, Montag, Culture Ghost and all the rest at Guys From Area 51. Have yourself a very Tiffany New Year... and, if you aren't a machine and want to drop a comment even a la Rush Limberger "", well, we live for that crap. Actually, we don't...but it makes for a more fun conversation!
A 2011 profile in The Daily describes the twins' rejection of some of their previous politics:
"I’m not a white nationalist anymore," Lamb told The Daily in an exclusive interview, the twins’ first in five years. "My sister and I are pretty liberal now." ... "I’m glad we were in the band," Lynx said, "but I think we should have been pushed toward something a little more mainstream and easier for us to handle than being front-men for a belief system that we didn’t even completely understand at that time. We were little kids."
There are a lot of examples of what happens when little kids get confused in the minds of adults with some sort of mystical figures...Hank Williams Jr. was marketed by Ms. Audrey in kind of a necrophiliac kind of way, resulting in some fairly awful things when he was a kid and the scars continue unto later generations. Although, the first album "Hank Williams JR. Sings Hank Williams" is actually a pretty good piece of work. Downhilll from there. The voice didn't so much mature as coarsen, and not a lot more to be said.
These kids had no chance, whether it was the absurd names hung on them by their mom or the touring led by the grandfather with the swazstiki belt buckle and the adoring crowds of mouth-breathing brain dead twits screaming white power.
On the other hand, having girls in their early teens playing the role of Nazi wet dreams isn't really that surprising...
I used to read the Times of London primarily for the book reviews and Jeremy Clarkson's columns until Murdoch decided to overcharge for the privilege. I do still pull up The Guardian for a variety of reasons. One is that Ana Marie Cox, the equallylovely, younger,equally red-haired version of Dulcinea Dowd who would have been a lot of fun listening to chat with Molly Ivins about Michelle Bachman, has returned to professional blogging and is now doing it for The Guardian. Very cool. The other is that they frequently have columns like this one -- the author's defense of his belief, nay conviction, that the Prime Minister of Great Britian is a slithering reptile. I do not know why we can't routinely get it this right... Here are some of the great lines from the piece that should be printed out and posted on every thinking person's desk when looking for inspiration on how to effectively eviscerate the trolls toiling the bells of American economic justice and freedom.
... writes vividly and from the heart and, if his byline photo is anything to go by, appears to be a perfectly reasonable man (specifically, Ross Kemp). He deserves the benefit of the doubt. But I fear in his rush to reprimand the "Modern Left", he has overlooked one key fact: David Cameron is a lizard. Yes, David Cameron is a lizard. A lizard that devours live foals in its lair. And as far as Archer is concerned, it's perfectly fine for this limbless, non-human, Cameron-reptile-beast-thing to squirm across the stone floor of its den merrily excreting the bones of its victims, yet I'm "depraved" simply for writing about it. This is the tragedy of the Modern Right. They're idiots. Well, let me spell it out: You cannot dehumanise a lizard. Not without humanising it first, by giving it a little top hat, say, or a monocle. Maybe put some lipstick on it. And a wig. Teach it to walk sexy. That's the way. (AXE comment -- Like a pitbull, or a momma Grizzly!)
Seriously, we need to spend time practicing to be this good. There is an art, a craft, a honed skill to political commentary and invective, and these awful people deserve the best of that art.
Hardison: Oh, no. All this construction is goin’ on underground. Under, beneath the eyes. The eyes of the world, man. They don’t want you to see. Congress doesn’t know, governors don’t know, Red Cross, ACLU, National Geographic. Nobody knows, man. Nobody, man. They’re puttin’ terrorists in your backyard. Terrorists under your backyard. “Hey, little Billy, go outside. Dig in the sandbox. Ooh, klang. What’d ya find, little Billy? What’d ya find? It’s a terrorist. It’s a bunker full of terrorists, man.” Bunker, man.
Monica: What other sources do you have besides tin foil hat over here?
Hardison: Hey, hey, hey, man. Bein’ a tin foil hat, that’s better than bein’ a lap dog for the four corporations that control the global media, man.
Leverage--Three Days of the Hunter Job
I get emails. I get comments. At times that the Tin Hat Brigade of both left and right wing nuts and assorted loonies are out to amuse me. There's really no other way for an adult to respond to some of this stuff. There is no answer sufficient, no proof adequate. The best response, the most telling one I've seen that illustrates this paranoid function in America -- and anywhere else -- was a comment to the effect that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were forgeries by the Czarist Secret Police doesn't matter, because if the elders had written down their protocols, this would be what they'd say... So getting this email in one of my professional accounts was interesting, amusing and kinda, sorta sad. It sums up in some ways the very nature of our debate today -- between ideology, superstition, and ignorance fighting for the main tent in the three ring circus of the downfall of western Culture and the United States as we know it. (And, don't get me started on the right...heh, heh.)
Subject: WOE TO THE WORLD! Rothschild N.W.O Illuminati EXPOSED!!! > Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2011 22:44:44 -0500 > > N.W.O. EXPOSED! > > WOE TO THE ROTHSCHILDS! WOE TO THE FREEMASONS/ ILLUMINATI! WOE TO LUCIFER! > > PLEASE RESEARCH THE ILLUMINATI/FREEMASON BOHEMIAN GROVE CONNECTION! > > THE THIRD JEWISH TMEPLE TO BE BUILT SOON! > > http://www.squidoo.com/templejerusalem > > THE ANTI-CHRIST IS NEAR! REPENT AND KNOW ALL WILL BOW BEFORE THE LAMB OF GOD JESUS CHRIST. > > WATCH, LEARN, PRAY & PASS ON PLEASE! > > Rothschilds/Illuminati/Bohemian Grove Exposed!: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2E_HP97Rzc > > http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/bloodlines/index.htm > > http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/bloodlines/rothschild.htm > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icKIWW1EcuY > > Bible: > Revelatinos Chapter 11 > > The Two Witnesses > 1. I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, “Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, with its worshipers. > > 2. But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months. > > 3. And I will appoint my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” > > 4. They are “the two olive trees” and the two lampstands, and “they stand before the Lord of the earth.”[a] 5 If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die > > 6. They have power to shut up the heavens so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want. > > 7. Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them > > 8. Their bodies will lie in the public square of the great city—which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt—where also their Lord was crucified. > > 9. For three and a half days some from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. > > 10. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth. > > 11. But after the three and a half days the breath[b] of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. > > 12. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on. > > 13. At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. > > 14. The second woe has passed; the third woe is coming soon.... > > Galatians 1:8 written in 50 A.D. > "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!" > > 33rd Degree Freemason Oath: > Albert Pike- > "That which we must say to the crowd is:* 'We worship a god, but it is the god one adores without superstition.' > * To you, Sovereign Grand Instructors General [a 33rd Degree Mason], we say this ... you may repeat it to the > Brethren of the 32nd, 31st, and 30th Degrees ... The Masonic religion should be, by all of the initiates of the high > degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian doctrine ... Yes, Lucifer is God, and unfortunately Adonay is also > God ... the doctrine of Satanism is a heresy; and the true and pure philosophic religion is the belief in Lucifer, the > equal of Adonay; but Lucifer, God of Light, God of Good, is struggling for humanity against Adonay, the God of > Darkness and Evil." [Lady Queenborough, Occult Theocracy, p. 220-221, quoting a letter from Albert Pike to the > 23 Supreme Councils of the World on July 14, 1889]... > > THE LAMB OF GOD JESUS CHRIST WINS THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON! > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2E_HP97Rzc
Reply: > Date: Mon 19 Sep 2011 0925-0926
Ok, well err...good luck with that. Whatever I can do to help you out with this one...
Now, I remain unconvinced that Israel had anything to do with 9/11. I'm willing to be convinced; I'd like to see the actual surveillance tapes from the Pentagon, for example. The failure of the government to release everything they can is just stupid. Into that vacuum oddities arise. However, that aside, there is an important difference between not being convinced that the world is about to end in some Jewish-Freemason-Illuminati-Bohemian Grove rhapsody and being able to look at evidence that should make you wonder. Thomas Friedman is not one of my favorite thinkers. In general, he falls into the category of establishment-moderate twits who has to keep his credentials polished. Maureen Dowd mentioned once on The Daily Show that someone had said that the issue for the Times Op-Ed was going to be the contest between Friedman and Safire for the soul of Maureen Dowd. Well, I think her soul has stayed pretty much her own, Safire is gone but occasionally Friedman gets something very right. It's simple -- Israel is not primarily our friend -- in fact, there is some question in my mind as to whether or not Israel is its own friend. In his Sunday column,Friedman writes:
The crumbling of key pillars of Israel’s security — the peace with Egypt, the stability of Syria and the friendship of Turkey and Jordan — coupled with the most diplomatically inept and strategically incompetent government in Israel’s history have put Israel in a very dangerous situation....O.K., Mr. Netanyahu has a strategy: Do nothing vis-à-vis the Palestinians or Turkey that will require him to go against his base, compromise his ideology or antagonize his key coalition partner, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, an extreme right-winger. Then, call on the U.S. to stop Iran’s nuclear program and help Israel out of every pickle, but make sure that President Obama can’t ask for anything in return — like halting Israeli settlements — by mobilizing Republicans in Congress to box in Obama and by encouraging Jewish leaders to suggest that Obama is hostile to Israel and is losing the Jewish vote. And meanwhile, get the Israel lobby to hammer anyone in the administration or Congress who says aloud that maybe Bibi has made some mistakes, not just Barack. There, who says Mr. Netanyahu doesn’t have a strategy?...Israel can fight with everyone or it can choose not to surrender but to blunt these trends with a peace overture that fair-minded people would recognize as serious, and thereby reduce its isolation...Unfortunately, Israel today does not have a leader or a cabinet for such subtle diplomacy. One can only hope that the Israeli people will recognize this before this government plunges Israel into deeper global isolation and drags America along with it.
Which leads me to another thought...Bibi Netanyahu bears a striking resemblance to the John Boehner and Mitch McConnell in his ability to get the United States down rabbit holes and dark allies we really shouldn't be going down. While it's great to see Obama acting a bit like Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, going out to call down the psycho bullies intent on ruining the polity and civil society we kinda, sorta have in this country most of the time, one realizes that there is no John Wayne character off in the alley, waiting for the guns to go off to cover his rifle shot taking out the evil and enshrining the good. Far from it...Obama is in this one alone. Not unlike the Stewart character, Obama has truth, justice, law, common sense, economics and the laws of mathematics behind him; the Lee Marvin stand-ins -Johnny-Mitch-Eric-BoehnerMcConnellCantor III have a majority in the house, the cloture rule in the Senate, and a gleeful allegiance to chaos and disorder to maintain their self-interest.
Lonesome Rhodes: This whole country's just like my flock of sheep! Marcia Jeffries: Sheep? Lonesome Rhodes: Rednecks, crackers, hillbillies, hausfraus, shut-ins, pea-pickers - everybody that's got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle. They don't know it yet, but they're all gonna be 'Fighters for Fuller'. They're mine! I own 'em! They think like I do. Only they're even more stupid than I am, so I gotta think for 'em. Marcia, you just wait and see. I'm gonna be the power behind the president - and you'll be the power behind me!
A Face in the Crowd
To a large extent, this sort of statesmanship goes a long way toward explaining the Tea Party -- America's Likud -- and the capture of the Republican Congressional Delegation by it. Now, most of the people in the caucus are not certifiable wing nuts. Hell, most of them are mid-level functionaries in the Military-Industrial-Financial Complex. The theory was that with Boehner as Speaker, the Rs would make a lot of noise but not do anything to hurt the country or at least it's economic interests. Well, hah ha, hah ha, hah ha. Fooled us. Then, there's the slate of candidates vying for the nomination. Dear God -- in order to stay in the race and yet appear sane -- remain electable -- the adults in the room, Huntsman and Romney, have had to stake out positions so far to the right of the flat earth that they've embraced that they're hanging on by their fingertips. Huntsman has at least taken the principled and courageous position of endorsing science...now, as a child of the 60s, I remember when the Left was anti-technocracy, science and math. One of the criteria to be a long-haired hippy commie freak was to not be good at math or, if you were, to be mildly ashamed of it. The Science and Math and Computer types were kind of oblivious to politics, but if they did deign to look at it, they were interested in the Republicans as the party most likely to endorse research into Science, Math and Computers. Well, isn't today a turn around...
I have to wonder how Newt Gingrich, freaking Phd, can walk into the faculty club of any respectable college campus without blushing or hiding behind a raincoat based on his performance in the Iowa debate alone. Romney is an android whore, and so his anti-science positions are kind of in keeping with the rest of his character. His greatest accomplishment in Massachusetts -- health care reform -- is something he runs from, while he babbles about job creation when the historical record is pretty clear -- as a capitalist, he created jobs in the Third World at the expense of American workers; in Massachusetts, he didn't have a respectable competitive record on job creation. So, the logical thing is to run away from your strengths. Rick-a-Dick Perry went to the pre-eminent Technology School in Texas, and admits that four semesters of Organic Chemistry made a pilot out of him. Well, it made pilots, teachers, lawyers and a variety of other things out of other people -- there's no shame in bumping into the wall between Med or Vet School that is Organic and Inorganic Chemistry. But, he appears to have gotten a D in meat...compared to Bush's Gentleman's Cs, this is kind of scary. More to the point, he's packed the State Board of Education with right-wing, anti-science, anti-research and anti-history lunatics who would embarrass the PTA in Incest Springs Arkansas. Texas depends on technology, engineering and geology to a tremendous extent -- how do you develop new and safer approaches to drilling for oil by ignoring science in Geology?
As for Bachmann-Palin overdrive, wow. WOW. While I'm going to pass on Mikki the Monkey right now, they're both worth considering. Batshit crazy, of course, if the bat is a fox. Occasionally, they both get off some good lines -- I'd like to think that Palin's line about polls being for strippers as a witty use of satire and homonym to take a pun and bitch slap it out of the park. (How's that for mixing up the old metaphor salad?) However, I'm pretty sure she doesn't get the subtlety there, and didn't intend it. When Keith Olbermann jokes about "Lonesome Rhodes Beck" referencing the dark study of celebrity "A Face in the Crowd," he really is talking more about Palin. We forget at our peril that she really wanted to be an entertainer, a sportscaster. Had the WNBA been around in her Sarah Barracuda days, she's have been trying to get on the court to be her generation's version of Sue Bird, without the talent, but with all the crazed desire possible. I hope she gets into this -- the media will eat her up, and she'll totally screw up whatever the R's look like, act like and try to think like. Like Journey or Paul Revere and the Raiders, she'll keep doing her revival tours on the rubber chicken circuit so long as she can. A number of years ago, I was in my least favorite city -- Las Vegas -- and in the hotel hosting the conference I was being bored at, Englebert Humperdink was appearing. I thought he was dead...but, this wasn't the Hard Rock or Bellagio, and I guess the slot machine crowd there was demographically correct. In a few years, Palin will be doing shows in Branson and Knotts Berry Farm. She might get a gig at Dollywood, except that Dolly is a pretty smart woman, and recognizes fraud and stupidity far away. Sarah can't see it when it's in the mirror.
Now, the hatchet job that my fellow alum Joe McGinnis did on Palin requires comment. The revelations in the book appear to be pretty trite -- Palin was the Alaska version of a scene-whore and the Wassilla version of a Yuppie. She has a lot of kids, a long-suffering spouse, and a trail of silly, trite and nutty behavior that isn't worth anyone's attention. In a better time for the Republican party, she'd be a fringe candidate at worst; I suspect the adulation she found on the campaign trail with McCain made her crazy for attention, for the perks, for the love and adoration that she seems to seek. Let's remember, she wanted to be a sportscaster, and failed at it. She's found a way of getting the attention, and the money and will do whatever it takes to do that. Ride into the Republican convention on a White Snow Machine so she can save the day, again? Sure, why not... Now, McGinnis has an interesting career, chronicling cheats, liars, criminals and so on beginning with Nixon and Roger Ailes in 1999's The Selling of the President. 1968. He could have done an interesting take on the Palin phenomenon, building on President by comparing how the media and political operatives had morphed into something as powerful while incompetent as to propel Palin onto the national stage. Instead, he made the story about himself and the venal silliness of the Palin family. I think he missed the point. Frankly, the only one in that saga who seems to come off well is Todd -- he seems to defend his family and be pretty much a regular guy thrust into something he didn't want. McGinnis wrote a book 30 some years ago about spending a year wandering around in Alaska called Going to Extremes. I think he should have remembered that book and the people there...and possibly, re-read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail...he'd have done a better and more interesting job. Now, he's the Kitty Kelly of Holy Cross alumni, and comes off not as chronicler but scold. The Palin tale deserves a Mencken with a bit of Budd Schulberg ( after all, Schulberg wrote A Face in the Crowd) and McGinnis, for better or worse, produced a piece worthy of Penthouse, only without the vanity shots.
Congressman Allen West is a tea party activist and a nutcase. I think it's probably possible to be involved in the Tea Party without being crazy, but the leadership is either incredibly venal -- Dick Armery comes to mind -- lobotomized or plain old batshit crazy. So, when Representative West was quoted as saying that he was going to resign from the Congressional Black Caucus because a leader made remarks comparing the Tea Party to lynchmobs, he surprised the hell out of Crusader AXE. Allen West has less in common with the Congressional Black Caucus than I do with the Ulster Volunteer Force or the Russian GBLT Federation of the Communist Party. And, he's far less tolerant of them than I would be of those guys. The similarity between the two situations is pretty clear -- he's Black so he's in the Black Caucus; I'm Irish and my family is originally from Ulster, pre-Cromwell; I'm white, and the imaginary GBLT Federation would be white, and I'm white. That must be the logic...
Frankly, the guy violated the Law of Land Warfare and got about the same deal Ollie North did; there are risks in observing the Geneva Convention which is what makes it hard. However, he had his men beat an Iraqi policeman and then he fired his pistol next to the guy's head. West was an artilleryman -- pull string, gun go boom. He's obviously not a dumb man. He can make all the weaselly comments he wants to, but Field Grade Officers don't get Article 15s unless they do something awful; this is an admission of some guilt. West got to keep his rank, full retirement and retire with the honor earned. No argument there. What I can see of the guy's career, he was a competent soldier commanding a battalion of cannon cockers who were probably being used as SWAT teams and backups. I believe he sincerely cared about his men more than he cared about himself. He reacted in a rough situation in a way that was seriously wrong, and didn't help. While I find the comments from his defenders that everything went to hell in the district after he was relieved of command, that was in 2003 -- everything fucking thing in Iraq went to hell in 2003. Everything.
Now, West got a General Officer Article 15. This is non-judicial punishment -- not a criminal conviction-- but it is punishment in lieu of a court martial. It is in fact a plea bargain. Frankly, he could have been hammered -- hard time in Leavenworth -- had he taken the court martial. More likely, he would have been forcibly retired as a Major instead of a Lieutenant Colonel, which is a significant difference in pay. There's also the fact that he'd have had a federal conviction on his record. Felons can't be Congressmen.
Well, I haven't heard anything sensible come out of this guy; he represents what happens when people vote their emotions -- "I'm mad as hell, keep your big government hands off my Medicare and Social Security! " instead of some level of reason. Allan West is typical of a type of Republican; the odd thing is that he's Black, but that isn't too terribly odd really. The guys in the Ulster Volunteer Force are Irish, after all.
Al Sharpton's new show has some interesting things happening on it. Sharpton definitely shows that it is possible to change and grow; he also shows the difference between authenticity and hype really well. I haven't really made up my mind about the guy yet, but he said of another situation that "It's like ME going to a Tea Party event and drinking coffee. It might be delicious, but it would just be inappropriate."
That sums up so much. Allen West is a scary representative, but he doesn't represent the Black Community...and it's probably in the best interests of both to end this inappropriate relationship. I can only hope that some of his other antics will lead his constituents to come to their senses and end their inappropriate relationship with the guy in November 2012; after that, he can go make model tanks and hang out at the VFW telling war stories. Or, sell insurance. Or, work for Ollie North. Hell, let him manage Christine O'Donnell's campaign for Sainthood. Just get him and his ilk out of Congress...
Crusader AXE has been feeling lousy and is starting to feel better. However, I'm still enough out of it to not be able to really sustain a piece of writing. Fortunately, there are things that really amaze and don't need a lot of commentary, or if they do, there's someone who does a great job. In this case, Quadaffi and Goldman, Sachs as dissected by the inimitable Matt Taibbi and Rolling Stone.
... there was a widespread feeling of relief within the walls of the bank after news broke that Goldman a few years ago offered to sell Moammar Qaddafi a $3.7 billion equity stake in their company. The relief, it seems, stemmed from the fact that the deal was never struck – and therefore Goldman doesn’t have to answer charges now of having funded repression in the Middle East. From the Carney piece:
“The last thing we need right now would be headlines reading ‘Vampire Squid Profits Funding Libyan Dictator,’” one senior Goldman investment banker told NetNet.
I appreciated the shout-out there, but I also had to laugh: only a Goldman, Sachs executive would fail to see that offering to sell yourself to a ruthless anti-Semitic dictator/terror sponsor is just as bad as actually completing the sale. If anything, it’s worse. There is no modern-day Goethe or Faust with the genius to even invent an anti-hero pathetic enough to not only try to sell his soul to the Devil, but fail! But apparently, this shameful episode is what counts as a PR win for the esteemed i-banking King these days...
Now, the story is involved...Goldman had managed to lose 98% of a Libyan investment of several billion dollars in a fairly short time -- amazingly short time, as Matt points out, unfavorably comparing Goldman's skill for it's clients in this case with a "blind three legged donkey sent into Caesar's with $1.5B in chips." Then, for some reason, the Goldman people were surprised that the people who brought you Lockerbie were incensed and threatened more than just some more lawsuits for misrepresentation, malfeasance and misfeasance. So, the obvious thing to do is to offer Q and the gang a large equity stake. Odder still, showing that some thieves have some honor someplace, the Libyans turned them down. Hilarity ensues...
Here's the thing. We'll pass over the supposed religious relationship between a lot of senior Goldman employees and Israel...these guys were dealing with Quadaffi. They fucked him, and then were surprised at possible repercussions. This is a piece with everything -- knowing how to screw money out of stange mathematics is not an effective way to run a world. There are people like the Libyans who are perfectly capable of bringing things down to reality really quickly. So, let's let Matt sum it up:
In con-man parlance, this is called the reload. You beat someone in a Ponzi scheme for his life’s savings, and when he shows up at your door with an axe, you get him to mortgage his house to buy a stake in the Brooklyn Bridge. After blowing $1.5 billion of Libya’s money almost instantaneously, Goldman’s solution to the problem was to immediately get Qaddafi reaching back into his pocket for a cash sum over twice the size of the original losses. It’s really hard not to admire the sheer balls of the whole deal.
If we'd hang a few investment bankers, life would be good again.
Speaking of good, I like Anthony Weiner. He's articulate, smart and generally on the right side of things. He also just made a complete ass out of himself andTaibbi makes the point very clearly. Frankly, I find the thought of taking pictures of your erect member in or out of your shorts is kind of infantile. I recall a soldier questioned about how he ended up in the emergency room with a lightbulb shoved up his ass responding to the company commander with, "Sir, my sex life is none of your business..." Hard to make it clearer than that...except if you want to be Mayor of New York and a national spokesman for the Democratic party, you don't get to have pictures of your dick around. Anywhere. Not even an etch-a -sketch. The correct answer to "Is that your penis in the picture that was tweeted?" is "No, goddamnit. And if I can find out who did this, I'll do whatever it takes to ruin him, her, it or them!" Certitude? Again, let someone who writes better than I have the last word...
In other words, when you’re a certain kind of famous, there are a few things you’ve just got to give up in life – like uploading pictures of your dick, for instance, or tweet-herding hot twentysomething women by the hundreds. Is it really that hard to find other hobbies? Why do I feel like this kind of thing isn’t a problem for someone like Bernie Sanders? Politicians never cease to amaze.
I admit that I don't quite get some aspects of our contemporary culture...but what the hell is that all about? And, am I enabling something evil? Or just confusing? I'm so confused...
And now for something completely different...but equally bizarre. These are from Power Pop, the great Steve Simels site and what the hell were they thinking?
And this madness? Granted, the Sid Vicious cover of Sinatra is the epitome of the worst cover ever but still...
And then, remember when we thought Sting was a serious musician instead of a papparazi-baited wanker wannabe?
Actually makes this one make sense...sort of...I mean, did we ever take Elton John seriously? But, Springsteen? Really...
An adolescent Eygptian Cobra got tired of being hasssled by the man and crawled off someplace to smoke cigarettes, drink malt liquor and flirt with girls. Hilarity ensues...now, when the AXE had a significant other as well as spouse and cats, she left him for the joys of the Bronx. Schadenfreude...still, I think that there's something the people here ain't quite getting...
The director of the zoo expressed confidence that the snake was still in the reptile house and said the snake would probably avoid open areas. “To understand the situation, you have to understand snakes,” Jim Breheny, the director, said in a written statement. “Upon leaving its enclosure, the snake would feel vulnerable and seek out a place to hide and feel safe. When the snake gets hungry or thirsty, it will start to move around the building. Once that happens, it will be our best opportunity to recover it.”
Year ago, shortly after leaving the Arizona Desert Museum's Reptile House while wandering around the grounds, I saw an adolescent Mojave rattlesnake crawl from one bunch of bush in one exhibit to another. My wife commented that the snakes were well-trained. I had to look to see that she was kidding.
It is largely an Irish thing, of course -- most Irish guys really hate snakes. Which is probably what the good people at the zoo are missing. Despite one idiot saying he wanted to take a picture with it and then run -- the noise and flash would really piss Conan the Cobra off and probably be a way to test the efficacy of the Zoo's antivenom on an idiot since a 20 inch snake can spring about four feet -- most sensible people want him back in his enclosure with a monitoring braclet a la sex offenders in a half-way house. Or dead.
Me, well, what part of the whole "Crusader AXE of the Lost Causes" schtick doesn't the universe get? Kill the bastard, or give him to Guilani...either way, win/win and after biting Rudy, the poor thing either dies with him or become a vegetarian.
So, the Japanese are "quietly" encouraging people who live within 19 miles of the reactors to leave. In case you're wondering, that works out to an area of about 3560 square miles. Granted, at least half of that will be Ocean, but 1700 square miles in Japan is a pretty big deal. And, of course, the Japanese depend on the ocean for a lot of food -- fish, seaweed, shellfish. In case you're wondering, the problem with the settling particles, known as fallout, is that they will enter the food chain. Now, if you can stand to not eat food items made in Japan, not a problem. Except, there are these things called migratory animals -- fish, birds, etc. and ocean currents. Do we have a problem? As always, define "we." The global WE has a problem, and the Japanese We have a problem. The US we, not so much...until the quake hits California.
There is one area where the WE is pretty universal. Conventional wisdom, by its very nature, may seem normative, but it's not wisdom. The economic unravelling that we're experiencing is a pretty good example of that...Now, if somebody advocates a set of ideas that do not work and that everybody else thinks are stupid, why do we consider them prophets? And, why is it that the political classes are so eager to go down rabbit holes? Rabbit holes where there are no rabbits, just vipers and dragons? Paul Krugman has been a strong voice urging against this, and supposedly we have a messianic sort in the White House who combines the soaring beauty of his rhetoric with pragmatism. Krugman is starting to find that funny, by the way; so, to a certain extent, am I. It's either that or go psycho and have an aneurysm. The US is not Greece; nor, is the US Japan. But bad ideas played out elsewhere are still bad ideas; and you can learn from mistakes vicariously. It's better to learn that way -- it hurts less. But, the conventional press and the Republicans have managed to get us in a situation where we're determined to do the same dumbass thing that other people have done to solve the wrong problems in such a way as to guarantee the greatest possible disaster...
But couldn’t America still end up like Greece? Yes, of course. If investors decide that we’re a banana republic whose politicians can’t or won’t come to grips with long-term problems, they will indeed stop buying our debt. But that’s not a prospect that hinges, one way or another, on whether we punish ourselves with short-run spending cuts.
Austerity doesn't work to jump start a modern economy. I do not mean that the unemployed all need to be given Escalades. But if you increase demand, you'll get money moving which will result in them at least getting Kias. Or Chevys... But, Krugman eloquently points out that the political classes are mired in a debate about what is not the problem. The immediate problem is demand, not deficit. By focusing on spending cuts, the Republicans are going to do to the US what the Tories have done to Britain. However, we seem stuck doing dumb shit things over and over. Need more energy -- let's put Nukes where they can fuck up a lot of things. Got a problem in the Muslim World -- shock and awe. Got an economic crisis -- let's do what has been proven not to work. As Krugman points out...
And then there’s the British experience. Like America, Britain is still perceived as solvent by financial markets, giving it room to pursue a strategy of jobs first, deficits later. But the government of Prime Minister David Cameron chose instead to move to immediate, unforced austerity, in the belief that private spending would more than make up for the government’s pullback. As I like to put it, the Cameron plan was based on belief that the confidence fairy would make everything all right. But she hasn’t: British growth has stalled, and the government has marked up its deficit projections as a result.
Which brings me back to what passes for budget debate in Washington these days.
A serious fiscal plan for America would address the long-run drivers of spending, above all health care costs, and it would almost certainly include some kind of tax increase. But we’re not serious: any talk of using Medicare funds effectively is met with shrieks of “death panels,” and the official G.O.P. position — barely challenged by Democrats — appears to be that nobody should ever pay higher taxes. Instead, all the talk is about short-run spending cuts.
In short, we have a political climate in which self-styled deficit hawks want to punish the unemployed even as they oppose any action that would address our long-run budget problems. And here’s what we know from experience abroad: The confidence fairy won’t save us from the consequences of our folly.
I found myself in a strange discussion the other day -- my chiropractor's wife who is the practice business manager was advocating a "flat tax." Her idea of the flat tax was that everybody has to pay the same AMOUNT of tax; that way, if you can't afford the taxes, you can't live in this country. Elaine makes no pretense of being at all political...but, she has an atomistic view of things that is similar to the nonsense spouted since the 80s by first the supply siders and then the Contract On America types and now by the Tea Party. The worst part is that some of the spouters should know better. Dick Armey and Phil Graham are economists -- they know better. They have to...they can do arithmetic. But, philosophically driven by a failed ideology, they continue to proclaim the world is flat and its only by chugging down some more of Doctor Reagan's magic elixir that we can be saved. Or Friar Tetzel's celestial passport.
Recent Comments