Private Plzen

A Simple Prayer

2012-02-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

Moloch Most Slimy,
Please keep Professor Dangerous from ever being elected or promoted to
any position that would keep him from commenting on politics.

This is darling (bless his heart), but...

In that but lies the rub.

C

Craaack

2012-01-24T19:44:00.000-08:00

And another one out of the park.
Pepe Escobar has been en fuego* lately.

C

*Pardon my lame ass attempt.

Silk Knot

2012-01-17T17:48:00.000-08:00

Pepe Escobar has a deep piece up at TomDispatch.

A taste:

Westerners seem to forget that the Middle Kingdom and Persia have been doing business for almost two millennia. (Does “Silk Road” ring a bell?)

It's very linky and analysis dense.

C

Happy New Year

2011-12-30T16:35:00.000-08:00

And I will leave you with words from Wolcott

As you reach the later innings of allotted time, “keeping up” seems ever more quixotic and a case of diminishing returns...

Drum Roll, Please

2011-12-12T21:06:00.000-08:00

The Guardian has some great physicist quotes up about the Higgs Boson.

So I'd like several Higgs particles, Higgsinos, some ghostly stuff, and a pony.

Did I mention that they are aware of all internet traditions?

C

Balls

2011-11-21T20:41:00.000-08:00

Here is what this page had as a banner on 21 Nov., 2011

http://english.ucdavis.edu/

The faculty of the UC Davis English Department supports the Board of the Davis Faculty Association in calling for Chancellor Katehi’s immediate resignation and for “a policy that will end the practice of forcibly removing non-violent student, faculty, staff, and community protesters by police on the UC Davis campus.” Further, given the demonstrable threat posed by the University of California Police Department and other law enforcement agencies to the safety of students, faculty, staff, and community members on our campus and others in the UC system, we propose that such a policy include the disbanding of the UCPD and the institution of an ordinance against the presence of police forces on the UC Davis campus, unless their presence is specifically requested by a member of the campus community. This will initiate a genuinely collective effort to determine how best to ensure the health and safety of the campus community at UC Davis.

Update in 30 days

Subbed out

2011-11-16T19:21:00.000-08:00

Douche-hat is Jimbo's metier, but his points refer to deeper issues.
A taste:

Sure, why not? Might we just take a moment to mention, here, that this is more-or-less what the FBI was up to forty years ago, and most of our efforts since then have gone into creating some Half-Plausibly Deniable Universe in which Dirty Hippies were 50% of the problem back then, and 100% of the Losers. We're still being policed by Bull Connor; its just that today he's got a better PR department.

A Pretty Good Week

2011-07-10T16:27:00.000-07:00

What Flying Rodent said,

Let me put it this way. During the week when the Guardian - a paper that Nick and his pals have spent years dumping oceans of shit over - rocked the foundations of the world's most powerful media empire, shut down a criminal enterprise and brought a genuine scandal of public interest to the front doors of Number 10 and the Metropolitan Police...

Fancy some popcorn?

C

For Future Reference

2011-06-06T16:32:00.000-07:00

Professeur Dangereuses on Ellen Willis.

Glen Beck - Old School

2011-05-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

Like Digby said...

My Hero

2011-03-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

As evidenced by the two previous post, I am a follower of Krugthulu.
That said, there is this Hoosier...

For the love of Voltaire, how often do people need to be reminded that all our enemies are idiots? Can one in three Americans even point to Libya on a map? (Can 2 in 3 point out Africa?) It's like the Red Menace was that bad boy boyfriend we broke up with after high school, but still fantasize about during those monthly three-minute sessions with the actuary with the combover we wound up with.

Read it all here.

Do you have anything to add Professor Krugman?

2011-02-28T18:37:00.000-08:00

Indeed. And it’s not just the Germans. It’s amazing how this whole crisis has been fiscalized; deficits, which are overwhelmingly the result of the crisis, have been retroactively deemed its cause. And at the same time, influential people around the world have seized on the idea of expansionary austerity, becoming ever more adamant about it as the alleged historical evidence has collapsed.

Hell, even I was a Frankfurter.

But, to quote Keynes: When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?

Battle of Wits

2011-02-17T19:54:00.000-08:00

as always, I'll take the ref.

My view is that Quiggin is right as far as right-wing politicians are concerned: for the most part they know that Obama was born here, that he isn’t a socialist,that there are no death panels, and so on, but feel compelled to pretend to be crazy as a career move. But I think Chait has it right on the broader movement.

Update: To include link to the post. Central to my point.

Pffft...supercomputers

2011-02-11T17:43:00.000-08:00

Nice Wired article

I especially like this;

By 2007, phones held six percent of world processing power, but the big story was gaming hardware, which shot up to a quarter of the total computational capacity, pushing the PC back down to a two-thirds share. Supercomputers are apparently rare enough not to measure.

Life

2011-01-25T21:10:00.000-08:00

UPDATE 3. Commenters tell me Bachmann's got an actual rebuttal going on, but I don't get CNN and the web outlets aren't working. I'll take commenter dex's word for it: "like coming back from the bar at 2am to watch infomercials in hell."

Find it yourself.
You'll appreciate it all the more.

You're welcome.

C

Milieu

2011-01-12T17:44:00.000-08:00

I like that word.

Milieu

With that said, if you want opining go to Roy or Jimbo's place.
If you want the full Joe Friday (just the facts, Ma'am),
Will Bunch.

It was not that the shooter was studying Sarah Palin's map. Twasn't
Sharon Angle's "Second Amendment remedies". It was a bunch of posers
being told they were the second coming of Paul Revere or Bobby fucking Lee.

C

Obligatory

2010-12-25T20:58:00.000-08:00

May the Joy of this season fill you with need.
The need to do right by your fellow man.
The need to see your neighbor's child fare as well as your own.
And various, assorted needs to be named later.

In a Nutshell

2010-09-28T16:37:00.000-07:00

Over at Yves' place, Marshall Auerback nails it.
To wit:

...If that trend persists, then we do end up being like Greece. Not because of growing national insolvency, but more because our citizenry begins to view the government as a piggy bank to be exploited, rather than an instrument which mobilizes national resources for broader public purpose. Absent this political authority, everything begins to break down.

11 Sept. +9

2010-09-14T16:25:00.000-07:00

Roy was damn good when he was NY based.
He knows it.

I do not know how to reach Mr. Larsen directly, but if he's reading this (as millions do every day!), I would like to tell him: while it is always nice to be appreciated, our self-respect has never been dependent upon the goodwill of rubes. If you think we need to be forgiven our electoral choices, lest we should lose the great emotional (and scant financial) largesse you poured forth after September 11, let me assure you that your self-esteem is grotesquely overinflated. To prosper or even survive in this tough town, we do what we have to do, not what we think would be pleasing to the suburban bacon-cheeseburgermeister.

What Atrios Said

2010-08-16T16:28:00.000-07:00

Two Blocks Is A Million Miles

c

The Alternative

2010-07-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

I want to put up a part of David Kurtz's deconstruction of Rep. Anthony Weiner's speech on the floor of the House.

Too many progressives seem to want to sit on the sidelines until someone, a Marquess of Queensberry, comes along and changes the rules of the game to make it more civilized. What they don't seem to grasp is that democratic politics are the Queensberry rules. They replaced mob rule. The fractiousness, unpredictability, and feralness of politics are vestiges that remind us of what the real alternatives to democracy are. The real alternative is not a debating club and smoking jackets.

Tho Nature, red in tooth and claw

...and then

And what Krgthulu said.

C

Stop by Scott's place

2010-06-15T18:13:00.000-07:00

... and get the wonder of this

And hit the tip jar if you can.

C

Late

2010-06-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

I didn't comment on this until I processed a little more information.
Oh, and I was drunk.

In short, you'd want to make Israel look like a paranoid, bloodthirsty and extremely belligerent nation of racist freaks, determined to murder fuck out of civilians with total impunity year-in, year-out, so that the entire planet disowns them by, for example, withdrawing their ambassadors and issuing a barrage of denuncations.

Q. Do those elites really want to go there?
A. Yes

C

After Smack, Nothing Else Sastifies

2010-05-27T20:05:00.000-07:00

TBogg here, swinging for the fence.
Wanna taste?

Ha ha. So neighbor-lady is fucking Sarah Palin and not in the way that forces Rich Lowry and Matthew Continetti to give each other sad unsatisfying dutch-rudders

Speaking solely for myself,

HOMERUN

C

Just the facts, Ma'am.

2010-05-24T15:59:00.000-07:00

KThug is getting irritated

So a question for all the people who say that the economic troubles under Jimmy Carter discredited postwar economic policies: why don’t the troubles under Bush similarly discredit post-Reagan policies? Funny how that works.

I suggest you hide.

C

Nice To See It Crafted So Nicely

2010-05-21T16:51:00.000-07:00

Very Nice

Why th' hell would ducking, or side-stepping, the question have been preferable to affirming that his core beliefs include the idea that laissez-faire property rights trump personal rights, even in the most egregious cases? In a perfect world this wouldn't even be a story; it would be old news.

Go see the finished product here.

C

I Endorse This Message

2010-05-08T16:24:00.000-07:00

What John Cole said.

C

Highly Velocitized Brain-matter Alert

2010-05-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

Dear Ms. Coulter,
who among us would think that Arizona's SB 1070 could be offensive?

Well, the Phoenix Suns do.

You're welcome.

C

ps Who would have thought some nice NBA franchise would have a Noche Latina?

pps Oh, wait. it isn't just the club, it's league-wide.

Oh,

2010-04-22T20:29:00.000-07:00

and Roy.

Make clicky the linky.

C

2 Great Tastes

2010-04-22T18:30:00.000-07:00

The bullet point data sets it up.
The analysis knocks it down.

And now the “conservative intellectuals” are SHOCKED that conservatives have closed minds. You all spent the last 30 years turning every issue into a binary construct, and then lying about half of the god damned equation, and now you are shocked that people’s minds are closed?

John Cole on mother fucking fire.

Or;

the next part of my schtick is I embed a video. But I can't find an embedable version. So just go over to youtube and listen to Cult Peace Dog BBC 1987.

C

Objective Reality

2010-03-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

This is better than "ground-dwelling band apes".

The implicit account here seems to be that, after all, we might hope we had these divine immaterial minds capable of directly apprehending truth, and then we might have a firm foundation for objective knowledge, but alas we’re stuck with these electrified meatsacks whose chief virtue was to make our grandparents relatively good at staying fed and shagging.

Which is what we are/do.

And now the cinematic release:

C

h/t Matt

Oooof

2010-03-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

We iz in ur gubmint

Making nu roolz

Arbitrary Numbers

2010-02-27T17:26:00.000-08:00

Didn't I hear to never trust anyone over 35?
Oh, yeah. That was a geologic era ago.

Peas

We Win

2010-02-23T17:10:00.000-08:00

I been waiting for this, as my gbcw post.

Democrats will keep the House and Senate at the 2010 midterms.

Thanks Lumpkin. h/t Digs

Out

2010-02-21T08:43:00.000-08:00

yesterday I hooted.
On the 1400 (CST) BBC news I heard that Al Haig was dead.
He was a fucking monster.

"Come on. Jesus! God! You know, you'd better get out and read Machiavelli or somebody else because I think you're living in a dream world!"

I love that whole blasphemer-wrapped-up-as-a-realist frame.

So as to not be misunderstood, peace to his survivors and blessings on his command.

I think he should have died in prison.

Fuck it! It's Links for You.

2010-01-22T17:01:00.000-08:00

I am severely depressed.

Coakley,Health Care, Indefinite Detention and some folk's hound.
And then the cherry-on-top.

Still, Roy can lift the corners of my mouth.

Think about it: Bill Hicks is dead and Jay Leno is coming back to The Tonight Show. And you still think there's a God?

Bill and Molly Ivins are sitting on a cloud working on reincarnation.

The material wites itself.

On Being An Optimist

2010-01-21T17:05:00.000-08:00

So, the other shoe has dropped.
First clunk from the apt. overhead was the election. We won. Yay!
The Administration installed a Wall Street-approved bunch to stabilise an horrible situation. This was thoroughly understandable.
Smart thing was, Big O left (get it?) an out. A guy to whom to pass it when the other team's defense collapsed into the lanes. Pass it to the outside. That would be Volcker

Thank you for your service Secretary Geithner.
You didn't fail Larry, but you may have to go to summer school.

C

ps I actually heard a Republican today say, "I hope they (R's) don't get overconfident". Yay!

The Tell

2010-01-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

Digby writes a tender intro about missed opportuities.
Dollars to Doughnuts she got the tbogg from this thread.
I got it bwo Betty
It really is a wonder; an amazement.
You know, some of these bloggers are kinda smart.

Another tease:

Progressives are really really sincere people. Liberals can’t be bothered.

I (Heart) Jimbo Riley

2010-01-15T17:01:00.000-08:00

'scuse me while I put my glasses on.

I'm guessing that if you brought together the great theologians of the age (I'm joking, but just play along) and asked them to contribute to an anthology entitled "What Works in Spirituality?" that you'd learn the continuing existence of Evil in the world, despite our having discovered the One True Religion any number of times over, is the fault of practically everyone except theologians.

Houston 2010

2010-01-02T14:32:00.000-08:00

Bum-bum-Buuuhhhhh

Now go and enable Atrios's trolley wonderland.
G;ive us transit corridors that people are willing to pay more to live on.
Give us a walkable set of neighborhoods and schools to tempt the Sugarland/Katy/Pearland/Woodlands "flighters" back to dense urban living.

And I want a pony.

C

Shorter WWII

2009-12-29T20:23:00.000-08:00

from here

FDR: Oh, I'm sorry, was wiping out our entire Pacific fleet supposed to intimidate us? We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and right now we're coming to kick your ass with brand new destroyers riveted by waitresses. How's that going to feel?

CHURCHILL: Yeah, you keep bombing us. We'll be in the pub, flipping you off. I'm slapping Rolls-Royce engines into untested flying coffins to knock you out of the skies, and then I'm sending angry Welshmen to burn your country from the Rhine to the Polish border.

That's how I remember it too.

C

Updated

UNCLE JOE: These crazy mother fuckers should have killed me because I decimated the Soviet Army before you invaded.
Don't worry about me. Worry about theit crazy asses.
Oh, and we have a lot of armor.

head fake

2009-12-28T19:13:00.000-08:00

While my email buddies were Ooohing and Aaahing over some strange apparatus, here is where the cool kids hung out.

SNAP

2009-12-25T04:26:00.000-08:00

Matt has a nice riff,

This generates profits for food retailers and also for food producers. For greedy for profit food retailers and food producers. Indeed, one of the biggest supporters of SNAP are truly evil agribusiness concerns that are sort of destroying the world.

.

All policy in an arch voice.

Passing

2009-12-20T18:12:00.000-08:00

Grand Ayatollah Montazeri has passed.

No God could have had a more humane spokesman.

My deepest feeling of unity with those that loved him.
And my deepest respect for the people of Iran's loss.

C

"....and get the fuck off my lawn"

2009-12-19T16:46:00.000-08:00

You should read Roy's schtick at V2.

Who expected anything less?

Undersea Volcanoes

2009-12-17T18:37:00.000-08:00

from as close as me to you

Update

And here

You all pay for the F-22's. My money is going for Grizzly Bear DNA studies and the ROV Jason.

(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)

Smackdown X 2

2009-12-15T18:51:00.000-08:00

Battle of wits. Good guys win.
Ezra v. Lane
Doghouse versus Brooks.
Recorded here for posterity.

C

Vaya con Carne

2009-12-13T19:01:00.000-08:00

I sure liked me some Gene Barry.

And judging from The Times, I've got good tatse:

In an interview with Nan Jarrett for an Internet fan site in 2000, Mr. Barry recalled that he was appearing in the final season of the television comedy “Our Miss Brooks” when a producer asked him to play Bat Masterson.

“The idea of playing a saddle-type cowboy was repulsive to me,” he said. “Then he told me about the derby hat and cane, and I went by the costume department and saw the outfit that Masterson would wear, and I couldn’t resist.”

Thanks, Gene

C

Classicist

2009-12-10T20:08:00.000-08:00

This is some serious shit from Holbo

Frum: Look, if you shave the beard, everything will be … better.

BG: You’re a moonbat.

Frum: It’s all related to … foreign policy and wheelchair access in public school, in ways that … would take a long time to explain.

BG: Get away from me!

Frum: Look. Just shave your beard!

Seinfeld had his Soup Nazi. Frum is sort of a Suit Nazi. (OK, that’s too mean.) A kente cloth-free zone. An advocate of radical (what shall we call it?) sartorauthoritarianism. Society and culture conservatively dictate everyone’s dress code down to a whisker.

And why?

Because otherwise you wouldn’t be (wait for it) FREE!

A Tiny Voice

2009-12-02T17:55:00.000-08:00

The rah-rah-rah email from VP Biden was nice.
My response was notably less so; to wit:

Dear Vice President Biden,
I realize that President Obama campaigned on finishing the fight in Afghanistan.
I am also old enough to have lived through LBJ "finishing" JFK's legacy war in S.E. Asia.
I am not sanguine about the possible outcomes.
In addition, DADT and DOMA are a priority for me, just like the FSM and the Anti-war Movement were priorities to my "co-religionists" at UC Berkeley in the 60's.
You and the President's team are just gonna have to deal with that.
My deepest regards,
A Disgruntled Democrat

I guess I read too much of The Hoosier Sage's stuff.

C

Update: I guess it doesn't pay to respond to the e-mails. I got a "No such user" message.
Please don't anyone tell Jill.
Requisite profanity, Fuck.

Flying Cigarettes

2009-11-01T19:20:00.000-08:00

Srsly,
how can anything come close to this for awesomeness?

Questions Surround Lou Dobbs’ ‘The Taco-Eaters Shot My Wife’ Story

Instaclassic

C

Well Deserved

2009-10-30T07:08:00.000-07:00

AKMuckraker gets a small token of the esteem in which she is held across the Progblogs.

A taste

My Nana had a quilting frame in the garage.
I am still sleeping under a beautiful quilt that she made more than 30 years ago.

Gotto go now. My face is leaking.

C

Stay Classy, 'Pubes

2009-10-26T19:25:00.000-07:00

Post on the RNC website:

Isn't Loving v. Virginia a court case? Shouldn't the imperative verb be "OVERTURN!!!"? You know, like Roe v. Wade?

Should I wonder what the Author/Cretin thinks about Lawrence v. Texas?

Yep, yep, duh and nope

And all of Matthau after that...

2009-10-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

Didn't you know?
All mild men are vicious.
They hate themselves for being mild
and the extroverts whose violence...
has a strange attraction for
nice girls who should know better.

And any sentence that ends with Misses Lampert.

In a nutshell

2009-09-30T18:19:00.000-07:00

What Dougj said:

It’s natural that some will take refuge in the simplistic pretension of neoconservatism.

Let's say it together:

Fuck

Jay-Rox

2009-09-25T17:38:00.000-07:00

I was gonna write a little blurb on this guy

He has been absolutely smokin' on health care. So some props were in order.
But then I remembered Iraq (aye), Surge (aye), illegal surveillance (aye) and
torture immunization.

Thanks Senator, for the work you have done for the people of West Virginia and
America as a whole.

Maybe you could spend a sec thinking about a little brown baby blown up in Haditha
or a newlywed couple incenerated on their wedding night (with fourty or fifty of their closest friends and family).

Fuck

Archived

2009-09-17T19:07:00.000-07:00

Aravosis Obama racist symbology recap

Somethings old and somethings new.

Thanks John, for swimming through that sewer, so I don't have to.

C

2009-09-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

The best gun post I have ever read.
Especially this,

McArdle would rather not dwell on that ugly fact of guns. They are not toys. They are not megaphones. They do not utter cute or funny or pointed commentary on the state of American polity today. They dispatch useful weights of metal at high speeds across considerable spaces with an accuracy restricted by the quality of the machine and the skill of its operator. Reality matters.

I don't give a shit one way or the other about McMegan. It is only that her shit is so typical of the right/libertarian stream of offal that SMACKDOWN is so appealing.
Reality matters (to some -ed.).

C

bwo curv3ball

Exception

2009-09-12T09:41:00.000-07:00

What Daniel Larison said

The difference between eastern and western European reactions to the Bush administration and its foreign policy decisions could never be found among the actual voters in either part of the continent. What was different in France, Germany and (later on) Spain was that their governments sooner or later represented public discontent with U.S. policies, while the governments of so-called “New Europe” sided with Mr. Bush against their own peoples.

This guy makes me respect the small-c conservative view.
His work is a thing of beauty.

C

When America Sneezes...

2009-09-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

the world catches a cold.

Since the company was floated on the stock exchange in 1997 and then recapitalised by the state for €9bn in 2004, the company has been restructuring on a massive scale and has reassigned many jobs, leading to employees having to change jobs overnight or suddenly move to a new workplace, hundreds of kilometres away. Very difficult when you are in your late 40s and have been doing the same job within the company for 20 or 30 years. According to the unions, some employees have seen their job reassigned 20 times since 2004. Since 1997, the company has shed 60,000 jobs and reassigned 70,000 in a company that today boasts a workforce of 100,000 employees.

We have been moving public utilities to the private sector long enough to know that it is not a more efficient model to follow. See Montana Power.

aimai MOAR

2009-09-07T12:05:00.000-07:00

Pretty fucking much.

I agree with the article one hundred percent--rare for me when it comes to the WaPo. That's because I'm one of the activists and fundraisers who worked for Obama and because this is exactly what I didn't vote for. I didn't vote for him and his to f*** around once they got into power. I didn't vote for President Snowe, or President McCain, or President Grassley or President Baucus. I voted for Obama because he was the only viable choice and he was running as a serious Democrat. If he wasn't serious about being a Dem and pushing Dem causes--which to me are synonymous with liberal and progressive causes--he shoudln't have, for example, run on the "public option". We bought him, we own him.

Glad I clicked Read More. Thanks John, and a tip of the old chapeau.

The Unbroken Circle

2009-09-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

Torture, illegal detention, unconstitutional surveillance,
and now this.

Aiding Torture, is that doctors actively monitored the CIA's interrogation techniques with a view to determining their effectiveness, using detainees as human subjects without their consent. The report concludes that such data-gathering was "a practice that approaches unlawful experimentation".

I wonder if we detained any twins.

Consolidation

2009-08-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

As Mrs. Greenspan frames it for Jane,

Mitchell: Civil war?

Hamsher: I think that there's going to be a problem. I think that the White House did not factor in that members of the House would have a very difficult time in their heavily leaning Democratic districts taking a bad vote and there are enough of them that could keep this thing from passing without Obama stepping in and committing to get the public plan that he campaigned on.

What Atrios says.

Would be more than happy to lose Rahm's Kids in Congress, and hope we do.

Now I am no Nate Silver, but 20 less house seats means 237 for the D's, and if every loss is a gain for the R's (which is rediculous considering that they are as popular as roach spray) then they end with 198. Stull a 39 seat advantage.

Vaya con dios, Mother Fuckers!

C

Birfers, Deathers etc. ad nauseum

2009-08-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

What Atrios said.

O-mentum

2009-08-01T20:13:00.001-07:00

I don't renember where I first saw it; probably Haaretz.
But this is big. Abdullah plan big.

I know. Very linky!

C

Steady

2009-07-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

Nice post

This is nothing compared to the S&L crisis. There were 28 weeks during the S&L crisis when regulators closed 10 or more banks, and the peak was April 20, 1989 with 60 bank closures (there were 7 separate weeks with more than 30 closures in the late '80s and early '90s).

Socialism

2009-07-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

So one goes to the Denmark gov website.

Here is one of the 2 rotating stories

I am so fucking there.

C

Dude

2009-07-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

My favorite political barometer for Iran is His Honorable Eminence Hosein-Ali Montazeri. I have already done the fanboy thing here and here .

I think this elderly cleric might have a problem with the direction the political elites have decided to take the Islamic Republic.

"those who have lost, religiously and reasonably, the credibility for serving the public, are automatically dismissed, and the continuation of their work has no legitimacy."

(grain o' salt recomended for ingestion of CBS translations of Farsi).

Expiation I) Better feel for the source material including dating and context.

Matt calls it

2009-07-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

Bullshit

Dear John, Katrina*

2009-07-06T18:33:00.000-07:00

Well, thanks for nothing Mother Fucker!
Since either you did a half-assed job of vetting,
Or your unique political calculus rendered this, into an enduring American blight,
I give you the Adios

I will probably not make the point in genteel society, but Katrina and Palin are part of your political legacy.

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

That's the penultimate stanza of the Rime

C

*I am not referencing the B-day cake one here, but just the cupcake variety here.

Natalie

2009-06-30T20:50:00.000-07:00

All I can say is Fuck Me!

Tainted Tab

2009-06-30T19:40:00.000-07:00

For edification's sake this is the same tab I was using to study the non-verbal gestures of one of our Supremes.
Ewwwww

Whatever.
From the littlest of acorns....

what Glenn said at Firedog Lake

The rage caused by the realization of limits to American power mixed dangerously with (mostly) white male resentment over civil rights and feminism. It created a monster cultural volcano full of violent, scapegoating hatred and self-doubt. Over the next few years we were further demoralized by Watergate, the first Arab oil embargo, and our own suddenly obvious lack of nerve. Covered in ash, we slouched on. And called it Disco.

I think Glenn's writeup is the absolute best endorsement for Gram Parsons to be in the Songwriter's Hall of Fame.

No offense meant to Natalie or Townes.

c

Clerics

2009-06-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post I mentioned Grand Ayatollah Montazeri.
He's back at the top of the charts.

The key move for the next few days revolves around Grand Ayatollah Husayn Montazeri's call for three days of mourning for the dead, from Wednesday to Friday. The progressive view in Tehran - and among the exiled Iranian intelligentsia - is that this is a very sophisticated, back to 1979, civil disobedience code, suggesting citizens should go indefinitely on strike.

and Pepe Escobar knoweth his shit. Check out the whole thing.

Lettermangate

2009-06-16T19:15:00.000-07:00

What Roy said.

This would be a good place to add a disclaimer decrying child rape etc., but I'm done engaging the Star Trek chess bullshit maneuvers of these freaks. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

Dots? What dots?

2009-06-16T18:47:00.000-07:00

Of what Tienanmen can tell us about Iran.

From Farley

While there's some mystery as to the fate of Tank Man, I don't doubt that the CCP found Tank Commander and put a bullet in the back of his head at the first opportunity.

snip...

I think, however, that the center of gravity of the state remains with Tank Commander. To the extent that the United States, other Western regimes, non-governmental organizations, and pretty much anyone else want to affect the course of events in Iran, the key is to convince Tank Commander not to shoot.

And this from Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri

A government not respecting people's vote has no religious or political legitimacy," he declared in comments on his official Web site. "I ask the police and army personals (personnel) not to 'sell their religion,' and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before God."

Let us hope that this unrest will end with the minimum of bloodshed and horror.
The good news is that this could truly lead to a more open political space in Iran, for movement both domestically and internationally.
The bad news is that interventionist dumbasses could still scotch the deal. The US should express keen interest in, and appropriate support for, the free expression of political dissent. It must also leave the rest to Iranian actors.

C

note: I am specifically referencing Frank Gaffney with my interventionist dumbasses remark. There are many others. They get no link and neither does Dumbass.

Coding

2009-06-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

What HTML said:

The Iranian elections are the perfect bait for the multitude of sociopaths in greater wingnuttia, and particularly in its neocon division. Obama’s Cairo speech already got them hyperventilating; some are already apoplectic. There is always a danger, considering Obama’s “bi-partisan” fetish, of a rightwing push influencing his policies which, in this case, would make things worse for the Iranian dissenters. So the stakes are high, and we have to push back, by showing these sick-fuck wingnuts for what they are.

Excused

2009-06-11T19:39:00.001-07:00

The rest here.

NOTE THIS IMAGE IS THE PROPERTY OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.
NOTE THIS IMAGE IS THE PROPERTY OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.
NOTE THIS IMAGE IS THE PROPERTY OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.

Comes Through

2009-06-09T21:35:00.000-07:00

Paul Miller, the GM of the Uptown Park McCormick and Schmick's (46) is today's recipient of fondest wishes.

A riddle, if you please;

How can these seats be among the worst seats in the park?

When you fucking drop the opener to the cubs 7-1.

C

photo) Pudge's first trip to the mound to try to settle Moehler. It didn't work.

Policy

2009-06-05T19:42:00.000-07:00

What D. Aristophanes said.

How long did the inmates run the asylum of our national dialogue? A long fucking time, and it blew goats so profoundly that it’s no wonder many of us have been unwilling to pronounce that the nightmare is over. If only for fear that, like black mold in your bathroom, the crazy would come back in full bloom if we didn’t keep scrubbing and worrying at it as if it was still a powerful force.

When I see a parody site (no offense HTML) do better meta than the wonkospere, I am aggrieved.

C

ps Ohwhatthefuck

if you really take a good look around, you’ll find that kooks like Pam and Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck and Dick Cheney have finally been fully outed as the freakshow monstrosities that they always were

If you can't find the noun, it's monstrosities.

Sooo

2009-06-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

just got back from the bay with some fresh wooden coaster pr0n for ya'.
It looked way cool from the bay side with a tight parabolica at the water's edge.
Too sad, rainy and camera out of reach.

and what watertiger said:

{I} have to admit that the novelty of saying "I told you so" wore off a long time ago.

unlike watertiger I am gonna hoot an' holler till we run every last one of them from office.

Way I was raised,

C

The Road to Damascus

2009-06-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

I have converted to Sggzidrixianism.

I know it is not traditional to get your Supreme Deity from a blog post. Nor is it proper cricket to accept a spiritual overlord just to poke fun at the beliefs of those who practice what Doghouse Reily aptly tags "our abiding respect for all forms of bronze age superstition".
That said, I have made my decision to render unto my imaginary LORD all I am or ever will be!!!

Excuse me,
I gotta email Roy to find out how my gracious new OHFF* prefers his sacrifices.

C

*Only Holy Friend Forevah

These pills

2009-06-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

Doghouse

the best thing we can do for the Right, and its Multiple Identity Crises, and for the religious one-issue agitators who can't seem to grasp, let alone engage, the legal issues involved, is to begin demanding they answer the hard questions about their own positions, and stop giving them space to throw the same old shit at everyone else. You know what the man said about the Borgias, the Swiss, the Renaissance, and the cuckoo clock.

Yup,

C

Topography of Bedwetting

2009-05-31T09:50:00.000-07:00

We in Left Blogistan are blessed by a diversity of voices.
Marcy's timelines, Glenzilla's prosecutorial kleig light,
and Digby's narrative

We didn't know what happened on the inside at the time, but it was clear they were losing it from the very first moments. Having Bush race all over the country on the first day, the bellicose stupidity of their rhetoric and the absurd reaction to the anthrax attacks showed that our leadership was anything but calm, cool and collected. The media jumped in immediately with breathless, uncritical hero worship of Rumsfeld's lunacy and Bush's cowboy rhetoric, turning the instantaneous, opportunistic pivot to Iraq into an inevitability.

Pretty much.

No fuck?

2009-05-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

Thers is on fire.

Oh good. Lanny Davis has an opinion on how Democrats should respond to political smears. This always works out well.

First: anybody who actually read the speech knows that Sotomayor did not misspeak. She made a good, legitimate point, one that nobody gave any shit to conservative justices for when they were going through confirmation.

Second: who cares about Hannity and Limbaugh? They're clowns, and everyone knows it, except their moron disciples.

Third: Lanny Davis? Really? You're fishing for crap from Lanny Davis? Hilarious. That's like fishing for brown trout in the Gowanus Canal. What's next, you're going to quote somebody like Chris Lehane, who isn't even an effective weasel? Hahahahahaha!

Oh. Wait.

And the obligatory GBV video.

Headie Scratch

2009-05-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

Owls aren't as cute as parrots.

No offense.

Flashback

2009-05-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

Not really, I was a Diesel and Dust convert.

Tres Amigos

2009-05-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

It is bad enough when I read or hear one or two of these description. All three together is very jarring.

"There are also threats from neo-Nazis, ultra-nationalists and Christian fundamentalists that they will beat us if we appear on the streets."

Racists, Nativists and Zealots, OH MY.

How long we gotta watch these three thugs riding around in the same car to figure out they might have something in common?

Fuck

C

X-posted to Break Glass

And it does work. Quite regularly.

2009-05-12T16:20:00.000-07:00

Spackerman over at the Lake

Nor, after more Americans died from terrorism under Bush's watch than under any other presidency, did Gore press a partisan attack. Because that would have proved he was a small man during a big moment. Strange how that works.

More please

splng

Me too

2009-05-09T07:39:00.000-07:00

I hate these people so very much.

ZOMG, Greenwald Stoned

2009-05-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

A douche called Glenzilla out and was righteously crushed.

Which led me back to Izzy. Here is one of the things he wrote:

To be a pariah is to be left alone to see things your own way, as truthfully as you can. Not because you're brighter than anybody else is -- or your own truth so valuable. But because, like a painter or a writer or an artist, all you have to contribute is the purification of your own vision, and add that to the sum total of other visions. To be regarded as nonrespectable, to be a pariah, to be an outsider, this is really the way to do it. To sit in your tub and not want anything. As soon as you want something, they've got you!

That works for me,

C

Even Antonin?

2009-05-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

O wither, Norm? O wherefore, Norm?

This is also why Billmon* thinks the US Supremes won't dare touch this sucker. Scalia tried to keep Bush v. Gore from being used as a precedent precisely to avoid the threat to Republican separate-and-unequal election facilities nationwide.

*It is so profitable to society generally and me in particular that Billmom has decided to keep his hand in.

bwo Phoenix Woman

A Conservative

2009-04-27T18:17:00.000-07:00

Larison at his blog Eunomia

I have started doubting whether people who are openly pro-torture or engaged in the sophistry of Manzi’s post are part of the same moral universe as I am, and I have wondered whether there is even a point in contesting such torture apologia as if they were reasonable arguments deserving of real consideration. Such fundamental assumptions at the core of our civilization should not have to be re-stated or justified anew, and the fact that they have to be is evidence of how deeply corrupted our political life has become, but if such basic norms are not reinforced it seems clear that they will be leeched away over time.

bwo John Cole, of course

Reconciliation

2009-04-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

And now we get healthcare.

I'm with Krugman.

Can't wait to see the exploding heads over this one.

C

Texas, Treason and Trevino

2009-04-25T09:02:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to post on this since the kerfuffle irrupted.

Josh Trevino (no tilde and no fucking link) tries to paint a simple assertion as a corruption of history (that would be the accepted history according to the cant and prattle of the Nativists).

Erik Loomis Ph.D went all liberal-biased fact on Josh's ass.

Kinda glad I hesitated to pull the trigger. The shit storm continues.

Dr. Loomis has continued his analysis of a modern secessionist Texas.

But of course, Texas committed treason in defense of slavery twice.

The historical narrative pains me even more than when I had my "Come to Jesus" moment about "Uncle Billy".

Oh, and Rick Perry (R-Tool), thanks a ton for unpacking this suitcase of dirty laundry (the whites) in the public square. Douchebag.

C

Added) this wicked slapdown in media res.

The next time

2009-04-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

someone asserts that the sub-prime market killed the economy, point them here.

A taste:

There were negatively amortizing loans everywhere: Option ARMs for homeowners, toggle PIKs for corporations, and of course interest reserves for Construction & Development loans (always common, but are blowing up on lenders).

C

bwo Atrios

Family

2009-04-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

A nice video of some of my Step-son's relatives.

Dosen't look like a gang fight to me.
It looks more like a session of the U.S. House.

Fly away

To a simpler time

2009-04-11T17:58:00.000-07:00

Well produced.

C

Boooooring

2009-04-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

The one thing I would add to Prof. Krugman's statement that

Instead, however, finance turned into the monster that ate the world economy

is the word again.

C

Hey Paul Krugman your country needs ya', Man!

2009-03-22T04:54:00.000-07:00

Cri de Coeur

2009-03-16T20:09:00.000-07:00

I respect someone who does this;

I left academia for a variety of reasons, but one of them was the fact that more people read my shitty blog in about the first 3 weeks than would ever read any of my academic papers. And a related reason was that I thought the culture of the profession, at least in this country, worked against outspoken liberals. In my experience (this is anecdote, not survey), the majority of economists I knew were Democrats, if not especially liberal ones, but still they were generally more comfortable with economist public intellectuals who were right wing cranks than they were with left wing public intellectuals. Paul Krugman is shrill and whatnot.

Anyway, the point is... The Left needs more "respectable" economists who are willing to put themselves out there in public discourse space. You know, blogging, op-ed pieces, radio, teevee, etc. I was asked recently to list them and I didn't come up with many. Stand up and be heard!*

Odds are he will be ignored.

C

*I copied the entire post.