Saturday, April 14, 2012
Free Money
Aside from absurd executive compensation and the rewarding of rich assholes who did, and continue to do, their best to destroy the planet, it's absurd to imagine that the best way to fix the economy is through a banking system which rather recently obviously proved itself to be a miserable failure.
Give the money to us!
Give the money to us!
Why You're All A Bunch Of Pathetic Fools
Just kidding. Have seen a few posts like that around the internets lately. They might be my favorite.
Where Men Can Be Men
I'm glad I don't feel as if I'm suddenly robbed of my personhood whenever there are some wimmenfolk around.
Friday, April 13, 2012
WANKER OF THE DECADE - Runner Up #3
Joe Klein.
A few years ago Joe Klein wrote a book called "Politics Lost: How American Democracy was Trivialized by People Who Think You're Stupid." Surprisingly, it wasn't a repentant autobiography, a Lee Atwater-style mea culpa, because if there's anybody who knows how to trivialize Democracy it's Joe Klein, and if there's anybody who thinks you're really fucking stupid it's Joe Klein. Who are you? Just about anybody not named Joe Klein, unless you're a Republican alpha male or a general with some shiny medals. The reason to read Joe Klein is because he's smart, you're not, and if you disagree with him or disrespect him you're likely not just stupid, but an extremist. It's one of his favorite words.
It isn't available online, sadly, but Kevin Baker writing for Harper's got the essence of Joe:
He's a fairly typical Democrat who hates Democrats, liberal who hates liberals, the real problem with the Democrats being unions, hippies, people who hate the military, people who vote for Democrats, the Democrats they vote for. The usual.
He spent years being America's Concern Troll when it came to Iraq. He opposed the war except, you know, he didn't really bother to tell anybody. He wasn't all that much of a fan of how things were playing out, but the real problem, of course, were the Democrats who were trying to kill off all of our troops by cutting off funding.
Even when he's wrong, he isn't wrong, and fuck you you fucking fuckhead fuckers it's all so hard and who could really expect him to separate true from false. and in any case the REAL PROBLEM is that people on the internets are mean to Joe Klein.
He is small, and an incredible wanker. Also, too, a whiny ass titty baby. A hypocritical one.
I managed to do this without even getting to wanking from the pre-ESCHATON DECADE era. So much wanking.
A few years ago Joe Klein wrote a book called "Politics Lost: How American Democracy was Trivialized by People Who Think You're Stupid." Surprisingly, it wasn't a repentant autobiography, a Lee Atwater-style mea culpa, because if there's anybody who knows how to trivialize Democracy it's Joe Klein, and if there's anybody who thinks you're really fucking stupid it's Joe Klein. Who are you? Just about anybody not named Joe Klein, unless you're a Republican alpha male or a general with some shiny medals. The reason to read Joe Klein is because he's smart, you're not, and if you disagree with him or disrespect him you're likely not just stupid, but an extremist. It's one of his favorite words.
It isn't available online, sadly, but Kevin Baker writing for Harper's got the essence of Joe:
Far from the objectivity that he claims, Klein exists at a perfect confluence of infantalism: all politics must be directed towards meeting his personal needs and prejudices, and all politicians must constantly entertain him.
He's a fairly typical Democrat who hates Democrats, liberal who hates liberals, the real problem with the Democrats being unions, hippies, people who hate the military, people who vote for Democrats, the Democrats they vote for. The usual.
He spent years being America's Concern Troll when it came to Iraq. He opposed the war except, you know, he didn't really bother to tell anybody. He wasn't all that much of a fan of how things were playing out, but the real problem, of course, were the Democrats who were trying to kill off all of our troops by cutting off funding.
Even when he's wrong, he isn't wrong, and fuck you you fucking fuckhead fuckers it's all so hard and who could really expect him to separate true from false. and in any case the REAL PROBLEM is that people on the internets are mean to Joe Klein.
He is small, and an incredible wanker. Also, too, a whiny ass titty baby. A hypocritical one.
I managed to do this without even getting to wanking from the pre-ESCHATON DECADE era. So much wanking.
The Future
Will involve the PR department sending me requests to embed their marketing materials for free followed by the legal department informing me that they're going to sue me and have me arrested.
Half a joke, but the latest round of the internet copyright wars has had nothing to do with copyright and everything to do with control. They want to own the internet and kick everybody else off of it.
Half a joke, but the latest round of the internet copyright wars has had nothing to do with copyright and everything to do with control. They want to own the internet and kick everybody else off of it.
Plunder
No tanks needed.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Three European railway companies are interested in buying all or part of Greece's railway business, as the debt-laden country sells assets to satisfy its lenders, people familiar with the discussions told Reuters.
Shocking
Someone dares to suggest that free market fairies can't always create money out of thin air.
But more than that, I have yet to understand any logic of the "infrastructure banks." It's just another way to siphon public value off to private interests.
But more than that, I have yet to understand any logic of the "infrastructure banks." It's just another way to siphon public value off to private interests.
Rubber room or steel bars
With every new bill, the people in Washington are announcing that they are either crazy or thieves. And, no, I do not just mean the Republicans. Everyone who put the poison in the laughably-named JOBS Act deserves to be arrested, but Obama signed it.
See, Atrios keeps saying, "Maybe somebody should do something," but they are doing something - they're making things worse.
Signed,
Not Atrios
See, Atrios keeps saying, "Maybe somebody should do something," but they are doing something - they're making things worse.
Signed,
Not Atrios
Thursday, April 12, 2012
What Views?
I think reasonable people can disagree about building height limits in DC, but I've long been fascinated by the always asserted notion that with the current height limits there are unobstructed views of various DC landmarks all over the city. I've spent a reasonable time there and this just isn't true at all in any way.
Gambling Our Way To Prosperity
A second casino in the city is probably inevitable, and this is at least a decent enough (on transit) location for it.
The Freak Show
It's always difficult to resist talking about the latest Freak Show event. The temptation to scream SHUTUPTHISSOSTUPIDPLEASESTOPTALKINGABOUTIT is overwhelming. But that just seems to encourage.
No Wanker Today
Countdown has to finish Tuesday, so I'm running out of days off here.
I've been a bit jokey about the difficulties of writing the wanker posts, but in truth it has been difficult, though not because it's hard work or similar. The ESCHATON DECADE has been a pretty fucked up decade, a time when this country stopped even bothering to pretend to live up to many of its supposed ideals. We go to war and kill lots of people for no good reason, elites have eliminated any accountability for themselves for criminal wrongdoing, we've tortured and assassinated people, and the response to massive economic suffering and related criminal fraud has been to give lots of free money to the people who caused it all.
And one premise of his blog is that all of this shit happens, in part, because of the fucking wankers who rule our public discourse. Paying too much attention to it every day can be bad enough sometimes, but reliving it all again is actually a bit painful.
By request: Here's the story so far.
9th runner up Megan McArdle.
8th runner up Richard Cohen.
7th runner up Diane Sawyer.
6th runner up Jonah Goldberg.
5th runner up Lord Saletan.
4th runner up Mark Halperin.
I've been a bit jokey about the difficulties of writing the wanker posts, but in truth it has been difficult, though not because it's hard work or similar. The ESCHATON DECADE has been a pretty fucked up decade, a time when this country stopped even bothering to pretend to live up to many of its supposed ideals. We go to war and kill lots of people for no good reason, elites have eliminated any accountability for themselves for criminal wrongdoing, we've tortured and assassinated people, and the response to massive economic suffering and related criminal fraud has been to give lots of free money to the people who caused it all.
And one premise of his blog is that all of this shit happens, in part, because of the fucking wankers who rule our public discourse. Paying too much attention to it every day can be bad enough sometimes, but reliving it all again is actually a bit painful.
By request: Here's the story so far.
9th runner up Megan McArdle.
8th runner up Richard Cohen.
7th runner up Diane Sawyer.
6th runner up Jonah Goldberg.
5th runner up Lord Saletan.
4th runner up Mark Halperin.
Priorities
Some things should be scandals, but strangely aren't.
There are elements of the administration fail on housing that I chalk to the usual reasons (too cozy with the big banks, etc). But sometimes I look at what's happening and wonder if the people working on this stuff are just incompetent. You know, it's easy to sit around and talk about that great party you're going to have, but eventually someone has to go buy the kegs, hang up the decorations, and put the cocktail weenies in the oven. Doing stuff takes work.
WASHINGTON — A fund to support homeowners in the communities hit hardest by the collapse of the housing bubble has disbursed just 3 percent of its budget and aided only 30,640 homeowners in the two years since its creation, according to a report released on Thursday by a federal watchdog office.
The Hardest Hit Fund, which was created in the spring of 2010, grants money to state housing finance agencies for efforts to help families that are facing foreclosure. It has “experienced significant delay” because of “a lack of comprehensive planning” by the Treasury Department and limited participation by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the large mortgage servicers, said the report by the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
There are elements of the administration fail on housing that I chalk to the usual reasons (too cozy with the big banks, etc). But sometimes I look at what's happening and wonder if the people working on this stuff are just incompetent. You know, it's easy to sit around and talk about that great party you're going to have, but eventually someone has to go buy the kegs, hang up the decorations, and put the cocktail weenies in the oven. Doing stuff takes work.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
What Is Life Without A Touch Of Poetry In It
Reader s offers a haiku:
I like your blog much,
It does not take me long to
Read it in the morn'.
That's Real Money
Odds of it being paid?
An Arkansas judge fined Johnson & Johnson $1.1 billion Wednesday because of how its Janssen subsidiary marketed the antipsychotic drug Risperdal through the state Medicaid program, the Associated Press reported.
WANKER OF THE DECADE - Runner Up #4
Mark Halperin.
I'm not even sure what Mark Halperin's job is anymore, aside from being a dick on Morning Joe, but once upon a time he oversaw production of The Note, ABC News's morning emailed news tip sheet, back before such things were commonplace. It strung together a digest of the supposedly important news stories of the day with a gossipy self-important narrative which posited the existence of a "Gang of 500," basically the people who run Washington and therefore the world. You know, Mark Halperin, Mark Halperin's friends, people who kiss Mark Halperin's ass, Republicans, and assorted other worthies. This was in the post-9/11 era when, much as a segment of a prior generation continually imagined they were refighting the Spanish Civil War (unclear on which side), the DC chattering classes imagined themselves as noble warriors on the front lines of The Global War On Terror. In world of The Note, everything was good news for Republicans and Matt Drudge ruled the world.
The Note was all very self-referential and insidery, which had a certain appeal to outsiders imagining they were getting the water cooler chat from Very Important People, the aforementioned Gang of Wankers. It was what people interested in politics would read because they thought it gave some insight into the insider's view of how the world worked. And it did do that, but after reading The Note for awhile, with its jokey indifference to just about everything other than just how important the Gang Of Wankers truly was, the reader would begin to suspect that David Icke is right and we are actually ruled by a race of alien reptilian humanoids dedicated to the destruction or enslavement of humanity and that the Washington Swampland was actually the inspiration for the 3rd scene of The Garden of Earthly Delights. If human, and not alien, then The Gang of 500, as portrayed in The Note, were truly the worst people in the world. People so awful no decent human beings would dare get near them. The horror of this world was compounded by the fact that it seemed as if the notional members of the Gang of Wankers actually liked how they were portrayed. Nobody objected that I can remember, despite Halperin's expressed view of his tribe. After years spent elevating the stupid and the trivial, Halperin had a sad about it. And another.
It's hard to imagine a bigger saddo then someone desperate to court the approval of Hugh Hewitt As with most of the wankers, he's basically wrong about everything all of the time and then wrong just a little bit more. And did I mention he was a dick?
I'm not even sure what Mark Halperin's job is anymore, aside from being a dick on Morning Joe, but once upon a time he oversaw production of The Note, ABC News's morning emailed news tip sheet, back before such things were commonplace. It strung together a digest of the supposedly important news stories of the day with a gossipy self-important narrative which posited the existence of a "Gang of 500," basically the people who run Washington and therefore the world. You know, Mark Halperin, Mark Halperin's friends, people who kiss Mark Halperin's ass, Republicans, and assorted other worthies. This was in the post-9/11 era when, much as a segment of a prior generation continually imagined they were refighting the Spanish Civil War (unclear on which side), the DC chattering classes imagined themselves as noble warriors on the front lines of The Global War On Terror. In world of The Note, everything was good news for Republicans and Matt Drudge ruled the world.
The Note was all very self-referential and insidery, which had a certain appeal to outsiders imagining they were getting the water cooler chat from Very Important People, the aforementioned Gang of Wankers. It was what people interested in politics would read because they thought it gave some insight into the insider's view of how the world worked. And it did do that, but after reading The Note for awhile, with its jokey indifference to just about everything other than just how important the Gang Of Wankers truly was, the reader would begin to suspect that David Icke is right and we are actually ruled by a race of alien reptilian humanoids dedicated to the destruction or enslavement of humanity and that the Washington Swampland was actually the inspiration for the 3rd scene of The Garden of Earthly Delights. If human, and not alien, then The Gang of 500, as portrayed in The Note, were truly the worst people in the world. People so awful no decent human beings would dare get near them. The horror of this world was compounded by the fact that it seemed as if the notional members of the Gang of Wankers actually liked how they were portrayed. Nobody objected that I can remember, despite Halperin's expressed view of his tribe. After years spent elevating the stupid and the trivial, Halperin had a sad about it. And another.
It's hard to imagine a bigger saddo then someone desperate to court the approval of Hugh Hewitt As with most of the wankers, he's basically wrong about everything all of the time and then wrong just a little bit more. And did I mention he was a dick?
This Is My Life
10 years of writing this sucky blog and highlighting the wanking ways of Washington insiders.
Runner up #4 up at noon o'clock.
Runner up #4 up at noon o'clock.
Where's The TSA Rebellion
I honestly, though incorrectly, thought that during the great and glorious reign of the Keyan Muslim Socialist Usurper, that conservatives might actually serve some useful purpose. I figured they might, for example, turn stupid airport security theater into a cause, but despite Drudge's regular pushing of the "Big Sis" theme for Napolitano, they don't much seem to care. I guess it's because while they themselves don't want to the hassle, they do know that Other People certainly deserve it.
Oh well.
Oh well.
Isn't Anybody Paying Attention
I'm not sure how anyone expects "the housing market" to "recover" when buying a house now involves handing a bunch of money over to a bank which will then proceed to steal your house from you.
This behavior will continue until lots of people go to jail. And that, apparently, is off the table.
This behavior will continue until lots of people go to jail. And that, apparently, is off the table.
Fortunately There's A Policy For that
More misery!!!
They need a central bank that's willing and able to its job, which is boost demand, otherwise known as giving away free money.
There has also been further evidence of the hard economic times in Spain. Industrial output slumped 5.1% in February compared with a year earlier.
Investors are concerned that with a shrinking economy and rising borrowing costs, Spain might need a bailout.
They need a central bank that's willing and able to its job, which is boost demand, otherwise known as giving away free money.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Deep Thought
I haven't left my house or peeked out my window in 37 years, but I know for certain that everything outside sucks.
Stuff I Missed Because I Was Busy
Weird.
Assuming my inference about what happened there is correct (and it might not be!), I'm certainly not going to waste much of my beautiful mind worrying about this guy, but still since I'm a mushy-headed liberal I can manage to empathize a bit with someone who is seeing their life spiral out of control, even if they (likely) caused it all.
Assuming my inference about what happened there is correct (and it might not be!), I'm certainly not going to waste much of my beautiful mind worrying about this guy, but still since I'm a mushy-headed liberal I can manage to empathize a bit with someone who is seeing their life spiral out of control, even if they (likely) caused it all.
Give People Free Money
We give a lot of free money to rich people in this country. Much of the money we give to not rich people in this country we do so because they've paid for the insurance policy (unemployment, social security). Food stamps are a not so terrible substitute to free money, but they aren't quite as good as just giving people the money. That only crazy bloggers are willing to suggest "give money to people who aren't rich" as a pretty good solution both for poverty amelioration and boosting the economy generally tells us that our political system is basically not capable of responding to the country's problems and needs.
No Wanker Today
Yesterday's took too much out of me I'm afraid. Still on track to hit the WANKER OF THE DECADE on Tuesday. I started early because I knew I was unlikely to be able to manage one every day.
Consider a wee donation to keep my blogs mighty.
Consider a wee donation to keep my blogs mighty.
Is There Some Basic Biological Growth Process I Missed Out On?
Sometimes when reading discussions on the internets I wonder if there's something that happens on the 18th birthday for most people such that all memory of being a teenager is wiped from their brains.
They Hates It
Our Galtian Overlords really do want to destroy Social Security. They have no interest in "reforming it" or "preserving it" or whatever. Some of them are haunted by the visions of someone else's grandmother not living in utter destitution, and others just want to steal the money or make sure rich people never have to pay any taxes again. Some grand bargain of revenue increases and benefit cuts to put it in actuarial balance until time infinity will not stop them from trying to impoverish old people and steal the money.
But I Thought They Were Proof Of The Awesomess Of Austerity
I don't know how the Galtian Overlords expect economies to recover when people don't have any money.
Our system of producing elites is clearly broken. We are now producing horribly incompetent elites. People of the too incompetent to know they're incompetent variety. There's evil in there too, but I think the real problem is stupidity and incompetence.
Our system of producing elites is clearly broken. We are now producing horribly incompetent elites. People of the too incompetent to know they're incompetent variety. There's evil in there too, but I think the real problem is stupidity and incompetence.
Tuesday Morning
Can never know for sure, but have a feeling this blog might be extra sucky today.
I got nothin'.
I got nothin'.
Monday, April 09, 2012
WANKER OF THE DECADE Runner Up #5
Lord Will Saletan.
Choosing which of the Lords of Slate would make this list was a bit tough. Weisberg's had more overall responsibility for the years long wankfest that is Slate, and a fine practitioner of the Art of Wanking himself, but Saletan still edged him out.
The Lords of Slate, including Saletan, come from the waning days of the era of High Punditry, when people with no particular knowledge or skills, but who are truly the right sort of people, from the right schools, with the right friends, would send their pronouncements down from the mountain onto the grateful population below. They are for some reason granted the magic power of punditry, the ability to survey the entire body of knowledge on a particular topic, and issue their final infallible decree in time for their deadline. All the experts in the world be damned, give The Lords an afternoon and an intern and The Truth can be determined, usually by determining that The Partisans On Both Sides Are Wrong, while arriving at their proclamations without nasty partisan preconceptions or agenda involved.
The problem with politics for the Lords is that people actually disagree about stuff. The solution to this problem is that everybody should agree with them about everything. Problem solved! And so much tidier.
This last trait comes out with Saletan in his endless writing about how the real problem with the abortion issue is that liberals don't think abortion is icky enough. If only liberals would, indeed, acknowledge that it is icky, that some abortions are really really really icky, that we all die a little bit on the inside when someone gets an abortion, that if only the wimmenfolk knew what horrible monsters they are when they do the sexytime that might eventually cause them to get pregnant and have an abortion, if stupid liberals would get behind education and contraception, and maybe a little shaming, and a bunch of moral prudery for Other People, instead of focusing all of our efforts on fetus killing, then we could put the whole issue behind us and abortion could be legal. Otherwise, well, your fault liberals for not agreeing with Saletan. Those back alley abortion deaths are on your consciences liberals! Also, too, dead doctors.
A few years back Saletan decided to direct his attentions to the most important question of our time, "Are Black People Stupid?" This is a question that's floated up several times during the DECADE OF ESCHATON, playing out in roughly the same way. Someone rediscovers crackpot racist pseudoscience. People like me with some familiarity with the stuff who have been around this block before point out it's crackpot racist pseudoscience by and for racists. People with a bit more expertise chime in. The Bold And Noble And Brilliant pundit concedes, perhaps, that there are some racists here, but on careful review of the evidence, it is, in fact, likely that black people are stupid.
One doesn't need even need to ask if he supported the Iraq war. Duh. To Saletan, the real tragedy of the Iraq mistake (that he supported, of course) is that it's now harder to repeat the whole mess in Iran. After writing that in his entry in the "how could somebody so noble, bold, and smart as me have gotten that whole war thing wrong" genre so loved by "liberal hawks", he concluded:
You already forgot!
And, finally, the last paragraph in this column is like The Funniest Joke In The World in the old Monty Python sketch. You are unlikely to survive reading it. I warned you.
Choosing which of the Lords of Slate would make this list was a bit tough. Weisberg's had more overall responsibility for the years long wankfest that is Slate, and a fine practitioner of the Art of Wanking himself, but Saletan still edged him out.
The Lords of Slate, including Saletan, come from the waning days of the era of High Punditry, when people with no particular knowledge or skills, but who are truly the right sort of people, from the right schools, with the right friends, would send their pronouncements down from the mountain onto the grateful population below. They are for some reason granted the magic power of punditry, the ability to survey the entire body of knowledge on a particular topic, and issue their final infallible decree in time for their deadline. All the experts in the world be damned, give The Lords an afternoon and an intern and The Truth can be determined, usually by determining that The Partisans On Both Sides Are Wrong, while arriving at their proclamations without nasty partisan preconceptions or agenda involved.
The problem with politics for the Lords is that people actually disagree about stuff. The solution to this problem is that everybody should agree with them about everything. Problem solved! And so much tidier.
This last trait comes out with Saletan in his endless writing about how the real problem with the abortion issue is that liberals don't think abortion is icky enough. If only liberals would, indeed, acknowledge that it is icky, that some abortions are really really really icky, that we all die a little bit on the inside when someone gets an abortion, that if only the wimmenfolk knew what horrible monsters they are when they do the sexytime that might eventually cause them to get pregnant and have an abortion, if stupid liberals would get behind education and contraception, and maybe a little shaming, and a bunch of moral prudery for Other People, instead of focusing all of our efforts on fetus killing, then we could put the whole issue behind us and abortion could be legal. Otherwise, well, your fault liberals for not agreeing with Saletan. Those back alley abortion deaths are on your consciences liberals! Also, too, dead doctors.
A few years back Saletan decided to direct his attentions to the most important question of our time, "Are Black People Stupid?" This is a question that's floated up several times during the DECADE OF ESCHATON, playing out in roughly the same way. Someone rediscovers crackpot racist pseudoscience. People like me with some familiarity with the stuff who have been around this block before point out it's crackpot racist pseudoscience by and for racists. People with a bit more expertise chime in. The Bold And Noble And Brilliant pundit concedes, perhaps, that there are some racists here, but on careful review of the evidence, it is, in fact, likely that black people are stupid.
One doesn't need even need to ask if he supported the Iraq war. Duh. To Saletan, the real tragedy of the Iraq mistake (that he supported, of course) is that it's now harder to repeat the whole mess in Iran. After writing that in his entry in the "how could somebody so noble, bold, and smart as me have gotten that whole war thing wrong" genre so loved by "liberal hawks", he concluded:
I wish I'd absorbed these lessons before the war. The best I can do now is remember them before the next one.
You already forgot!
And, finally, the last paragraph in this column is like The Funniest Joke In The World in the old Monty Python sketch. You are unlikely to survive reading it. I warned you.
Pain
Above my pay grade to have any opinion on the specifics, but it does seem like pain relieving medication gets a lot more attention than other long term potentially dependency inducing drugs.
Centrists
I think some self-styled fans of centrism know exactly what they're doing, which is attempting to repackage right wing policies to make them more acceptable to the great unwashed moochers and parasites.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Suck It Up Losers
I think this is third moment in my adult life (basically after each recession) when there's a segment of the population saying, basically, that there's no reason that the younger generation should expect to have it as good as they did, and what a bunch of losers they are for not having good jobs.
The Greatest Country In The World
I basically hate all of the people who rule us.
I'm sure the god botherers on the Sunday shows will mostly be talking about who should and shouldn't be fucking.
I'm sure the god botherers on the Sunday shows will mostly be talking about who should and shouldn't be fucking.
Sunday Bobbleheads
It's the annual conservative God botherer day on the Sunday shows, so just go eat some chocolate.
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