perfidy

Why the hell is THIS a top headline this morning? Could we PLEASE report on something newsworthy, like troops being slaughtered in Afghanistan or at least A-Rod playing cork-the-bat with Madonna?

Recent media reports indicate a confluence of such folk, participating in an eBay auction, and their leader, Mongo the Retard, apparently had $1,350 at which he was pissed:

Flakey sale nets Virginia sisters $1,350

Sat Mar 22, 8:25 AM ET

CHICAGO - Two sisters from Virginia sold their Illinois-shaped corn flake on eBay Friday night for $1,350.

"We were biting our nails all the way up to the finish, seeing what would happen," said Melissa McIntire, 23. "There's a lot of relief involved."
...

In the oft-simmering battle of relative state IQs, Virginia beats the state of the supposed buyer, I'd guess. Which is a bummer, personally, because he's from Texas.

Apparently, there wasn't room in the cornflake auction for all the retards, however:

Thousands stuck with fake art prints

Fri Mar 21, 5:20 PM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Take a second look at that signed Picasso print you bought on eBay.
...

"Hey, Cletus! Let's get on that there eBay and buy us some signed Picassos!"

While listening to sports-talk radio this afternoon on the Houston ESPN affiliate, I heard a popular locally originated broadcast of the Calvin Murphy show.

Mr. Murphy, a former star performer for the NBA's Houston Rockets, is a bit of a bomb thrower, and spends quite a lot of time talking about racial issues. He's interesting enough that this no longer bothers me nearly as much as it used to. Quite an entertaining gentleman.

For the past several days, they've been doing live remotes at one of the local Dave & Buster's restaurant/entertainment joints, and have had live audience participation in addition to their regular phone callers.

During one of the live audience segments, a guest took the mike and explained that, as a young black man (27 years old), he'd experienced the sting of racial prejudice for most of his life. He claimed (and sounded) to be well-educated, was planning a career in the ministry, and spoke clearly and eloquently about the times in Oklahoma where, while at white friends' houses, he was asked to sit on the floor rather than on the furniture, and of other times, while working in child-care environments (at his church?), where he was reassigned at the request of white parents whose kids were intimidated by his presence.

Calvin Murphy was, metaphorically at least, playing along and pointing out that "See? Even young, well-educated black men are still subjected to unfair discrimination based solely on their race", or sentiments to that effect.

Calvin's #2 (the actual radio guy who works full time at the station), Dave Tepper, to his eternal credit, stepped in and said, (paraphrased from memory):

"Pardon me, but I'd like to ask a question, as the designated white guy here. You're a pretty large man - about how much do you weigh?"

To which the young man allowed as how he tipped the scales at somewhere between 470 and 500 lbs.

After which, they went a commercial break and, I presume, discussed amongst themselves their certitude that, sure, yeah - he was considered intimidating to small children and was asked to stay off the furniture because he was black.

By those nasty Oklahomans.

[wik] Not directly related, but in the same galaxy

Enjoy watching the high and mighty taking a tumble?

Generally, my response to that question would be "No, not particularly, but thanks for asking". I do, however, make exceptions, and NY Governor Eliot Spitzer would be one of those. From a WSJ email alert of a bit ago:

March 10, 2008

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer apologized to his family and the public but didn't elaborate on press reports linking him to a prostitution ring. "I violated my obligation to my family and my own sense of right and wrong," he said in a brief statement with his wife by his side. Last week, federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed conspiracy charges against four people, accusing them of running a prostitution ring that charged wealthy clients in Europe and the U.S. thousands of dollars for prostitutes.

The one time attorney general for New York built his political legacy on rooting out corruption, including several headline-making battles with Wall Street while serving as attorney general.

Why does he rate my interest in (and hope for) his potential comeuppance? He's a haughty bully, a guy who made his name by being a 14K prick to every company from which he could mulct blackmail payments. As NY AG, he was like a pallid and uptight version of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

He virtually never took a case to court, and in those he did, he virtually always lost. His successes, if you can call them that, were largely obtained by bullying people into plea deals. Sometimes, people plead because they're guilty. Spitzer, a publicity hound of the worst sort, prosecuted his cases in the press, and bludgeoned people into plea deals, so I (perhaps incorrectly) give the victims the benefit of significant doubt in this case.

Spitzer has also been accused, quite credibly, of destoying companies, and thus harming the shareholders in those companies, for no legitimate cause. Other than the fact that he's a nasty, pasty, little holier-than-thou prick, that is.

As governor, he's continued this "I know what's best" motif, siccing his insurance commissioner, Eric Dinallo, on the bond insurers with instructions that time was short, and if they didn't hurry up and do Spitzer's bidding, he'd..., well, he'd do something. Spitzer and DiNallo have a history of Spitzerian overreach, as seen in the WTC reconstruction funding marathon recently forced to an end. Blackmail's almost too nice a word for the games these bastards have played.

Who knows what's really behind the WSJ story? Surely not I. But it doesn't sound good at all for El-i-ot, and I'm OK with that.

[wik] Also see, from Long or Short Capital: "Spitzer in a Ring of Pictures"

[alsø wik] It would seem that this fucking guy is toast. So much for the happy ending.

A fascinating article about a fictional character's take on the 2008 presidential election can be read here.

Discuss, fellow Ministers, since we seem to outnumber our readership by a margin of approximately 4:1.

And why, of course, couldn't it be both?

Willie Nelson wants President Bush impeached

AUSTIN -- American icon Willie Nelson says he supports efforts to impeach President Bush and "throw the bastards out," adding that the administration will do anything to stay in power, including staging an event to cancel the election.

I'm down with him disliking Bush and his cohorts - it's a free country, and he's entitled to his opinions, deranged, inflated, or otherwise. The presumption that there's some secret plot, or even the possibility of such, to derail the election is pure lunacy.
...

Nelson denied earlier reports that he said no planes hit the World Trade Center on 9/11. He said he was talking about WTC 7, which fell in the late afternoon of 9/11.

His denials ring hollow - the original stories on his status as a 9/11 moron seem more credible. The same fevered stupidity that drives his trutherism feeds his certainty that the change of government is to be thwarted.

Dipshit.

He and others like him who think we live in some form of a dictatorship that quashes voters' will and free speech rights seem not to catch the irony that they've not been placed into the reeducation camps of their addlepated nightmares.

When John McCain refers to himself as having been a "foot soldier" during the Regan Revolution, does anyone else automatically picture him stomping around in a Stormtrooper uniform?

Really - I need to know, having not been there in years.

Is it just Brattleboro, or are all people in Vermont completely fucking retarded?

I had a dream last night that Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush were having a secret love affair, and for some reason, I was sharing a one-bedroom apartment (and comically-oversized bed) with the two of them. So, at some point, they want to get freaky, and I have to stomp out of the bedroom in a huff.

Next thing I know, I'm in the kitchen frying bacon (because what ELSE do you do when two of the nation's most formidable political superpowers are making the beast with two backs in your apartment?) and suddenly, Bill Clinton comes bursting in, all "WHERE ARE THEY?" and I gesture toward the bedroom with my spatula. As he's heading toward the scene of the crime, I ask him to please not hurt anyone or break anything. He turns to me and starts laughing his ass off.

"Sweetie, I ain't gonna hurt nobody," he says. "I just wanna see what the hay-ull this looks like."

And then he starts hitting on me.

I really need to stop watching so much CNN.

Odd, but until now, it hadn't occurred to me that the phrase "editorial oversight" has two potential interpretations.

The first, of course, conveys the stern hand of a Lou Grant type character, ensuring that everything's square and nobody's left his zipper down.

The second, I'm reminded by an article in today's San Francisco Chronicle, is precisely what happens when too little attention is paid to the words that go into a published piece, or when a single word, such as "remaining", is omitted from the piece.

Investigation resumes today into fatal attack at S.F. zoo
Steve Rubenstein,Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Police this morning are investigating the sites at the San Francisco Zoo where a 350-pound tiger escaped from its enclosure and attacked three people Tuesday, killing one.

...

Doctors at San Francisco General Hospital said early today that the victims, whose identities have not yet been released, were recovering remarkably well. The men, Dr. Rochelle Dicker told KTVU, are "awake and alert" and in stable condition.

Yeah, except for the dead one, unless he's no longer considered a victim.

And further down, this bit of a description on the last time a tiger went apeshit at the SF Zoo:

On Dec. 22, 2006, the 350-pound Tatiana chewed the flesh off Lori Komejan's arm during a public feeding demonstration.

"And that, kids, is what it actually looks like when a tiger eats. Any questions?"

All small beer, I realize, but I've not experienced this much cognitive dissonance while reading an article in quite some time. Which might say more about me than it does about the Chronicle, but in this case, I think not.

Lots of people in this country see our President as, um, not too heavy in the brains department. I don't disagree with that assessment. But apparently he's smart enough to have learned the lesson known by fat people for years, which is that if you want to appear thinner, surround yourself by people fatter than you.

And if you want to appear smart...

Well, just be glad there wasn't anything nuculer involved.

This happened to one of my friends. You have to read it in her words, though, to really get the full gist of it.

Part the First
Part the Second
Part the Third

There you are, minding your own business. Sitting on the La-Z-Boy, drinking a gin and tonic, watching the news channel most suited to your ideological preferences. Bamf! you are magically transported into the past. It’s 1939. What do you do?

That’s pretty much a no-brainer, really. Western Democracies v. Genocidal Nazis? You sign up for the duration, you pitch in for the big win. You convince someone or other in the government or military that yes, you are from the future, and no, you’re not a loonytoon. There’s lots of contributions you could make. You could tell the Navy that their torpedoes don’t work, and that somewhere in early December ’41, Pearl is going to get shellacked. You could tell the Army that the Sherman tank needs something bigger than a 75mm gun if it’s going to go up against the best that Germany has to offer. Warnings about the invasions of Poland, France, Crete, the USSR.

Lots you could do to make a positive impact. Of course, we won the war anyway, so no big deal if you take a nap, either.

What if you went back further? Its 1861, and again, pretty much a no-brainer. The Great Emancipator v. Slavery. Same deal – things turned out pretty well in the long run. The Union was preserved, and the rednecks and peckerwoods got their slaves freed. You could shorten the war though, if you could convince Lincoln that Little Mac was a poncy coward, and you need a hard-fightin’ general like Sherman in charge.

And what if you went back still further? Your barcalounger appears in a field south of Alexandria and it’s 1774. Which side do you pick? Heavy-handed and arrogant British colonial masters, or whiny, prickly, sensitive proto-rebels? I was pondering this the other day in the car, and I find that this isn't a no-brainer.

I’m an American, and I like being an American, and I think my nation is kick-ass. Well and good. But I am aware that the British weren’t being that unreasonable in asking the colonists to pitch in some of the costs for their own defense. But the American colonists were a prickly bunch, and jealous of their rights. And so, while the British demands were not in themselves unreasonable – let’s just say that the British didn’t exactly go out of their way to accommodate American opinion on the matter.

And that’s the nub of it right there. The Americans said, no taxation without representation. The British King and government said, stop being children. It was very much like Dad telling his teenage son he doesn’t get a vote on where the family goes for vacation, and the son goes off and sulks for eight years when the fam doesn’t go to Cancun or wherever Brooke Burke went on Wild On; and instead goes someplace sensible and boring like Disney World. Except instead of a good, thorough sulk under black lights, it was eight years of war.

Once things had more or less gone past the point of no return, things naturally got a little heated. The Declaration of Independence makes Great Britain and King George sound like what a Berkeley professor thinks of the United States and our current president. And both are occasionally technically accurate, but really missing the point. In 1776, Great Britain was one of (being generous) three nations in the entire world that had some form of representative government. So, like the patchouli-dipped Berkeley Prof, the colonists were ripping on the one nation in the world that was least tyrannical, least despotic, and least arbitrary in its governance.

We know what happens. In the end, it turned out all right. The sulky, black clad teen moves out of the house, and into slum housing on campus. He becomes friends with everyone his dad warned him about. Like France. He continues to have desultory fights with Dad, but distance makes it a little less painful. Eventually, the teen grows up, gets a job, and with some indirect help from Dad (maybe Mom slipped him some cash now and then) finds himself prosperous and much less pissed off at Dad. After a century or so, Dad and Son are best friends, present a united front to the rest of the world, and really can’t remember why they hated each other once.

While not exactly a new thought, what if it didn’t happen that way?

What might happen if the American colonies stayed inside the Empire? First, there would have to be changes in the Empire. By the 1770s, the Americans were probably a little too pissed off to make things easy. Yet, there were those in Parliament who were sympathetic to the American position – Fox, Burke, and others. Sadly, Pitt was to ill to be of much help. And none of them were in power. Franklin spent most of the immediate pre-war period in London, and spent most of that time trying to reconcile the two sides. All of these efforts were wasted on the stubborn intransigence of the British administration.

What could change that? I don’t know. The incompetence of the British Leadership more or less guaranteed that the war would happen, and then that the British would lose. And lord, was the British Leadership incompetent. A demonstration of the immediate effects of his frankly idiotic policies might have had an effect on King George – early on, the colonists felt that George was their ally against the corrupt Parliament, when nothing could have been farther from the truth. The king had absolutely no sympathy for the Americans. But he was taught and surrounded by idiots. Up to the last minute though, efforts at reconciliation were proceeding on both sides – with the advantage of hindsight, these could certainly have been strengthened.

The result? The American colonists considered themselves to be true British subjects – with the same rights and duties as their kin on that island off France. What if the Americans got representation in Parliament? That would have kicked the legs out from under the biggest complaint the colonists had. The travel time between the colonies and the metropolis would have been a problem, sure, but not an insurmountable one. And travel times were reduced quickly over the next half century anyway.

Later on, Britain considered several proposals for federalizing the empire, and some might actually have worked. An early solution, integrating colonies directly, would have laid a precedent for future colonies – Canada, Australia, New Zealeand, South Africa would have been the most obvious beneficiaries. But the benefits might have spread to other less likely candidates like East Africa, China, India and even Ireland.

There was a window of opportunity there, in the late eighteenth century. Thumb-fingered leadership combined with an anomalous decline in the relative strength of the Royal Navy and the absence of a credible threat to the lives of the Americans happened just that once. Would the Americans have been able to bail in 1805, with Napoleon sending troops to the new world and Britain at risk? And by the end of the Napoleonic wars, the economies on both sides of the pond would have been well integrated. American troops would have fought in Wellington’s battles.

The only big question is that of slavery. Thing is, though, that the compromises embedded in the US constitution probably prolonged slavery long enough for the Civil War to happen – that, and the fact that for the first half of the Nineteenth Century, the North and the South were more or less evenly matched. Britain ended slavery earlier. And the South would not have been in a position to resist the entire rest of the Empire. Also, there would likely have been a more equitable solution – a phase out, buy out, or something. The Civil War might just be avoided altogether.

A federal empire might have been a more stable structure than the patchwork empire that Britain created over the Nineteenth century. And I don’t think that continued Union with Great Britain would have retarded, much, the eventual development of the industrial power of America. With that engine of production in their back pocket, England would have been able to bear the costs of Empire rather more easily.

Americans came late to the idea of Empire (aside from that whole manifest destiny thing) but that was because it didn’t suit our unique idiom. We were on the outside of Empire. On the inside, though – think of how the Scots helped, enthusiastically, create the British Empire. Would Americans have been different? Likely not. American missionaries, industrialists and soldiers of fortune working from inside the British Empire would be a substantial additional push.

With America on board, the Empire would have likely grown even more than it did over the course of the 19th century. Whereas American interventions in Central America and the Caribbean tended to be temporary, as a part of the British Empire, they might have been permanent. British interests in the Western Hemisphere would have been vastly greater. There might have been a Panama canal decades earlier. Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, and others could have fallen to the pink stain on the map. British presence in the Pacific would also likely have been greater.

On the flip side, those parts of the American Southwest that were taken from Mexico might not have – except for Texas. Though Texas might have remained independent. The Louisiana purchase wouldn’t have happened, but that territory would have been taken from the French over the course of the Napoleonic wars.

It would have been an interesting world at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. If I remember correctly, the United States and Britain had the two largest economies, with Germany a close third. If not, then something very similar to that. So, the combined Empire would be likely be on the order of twice as strong economically as its nearest competitor. A vast interior free trade market would encompass all of North America and Oceana, the Subcontinent, East and South Africa, the good bits of China, and of course the British Isles and a myriad tiny little places here and there.

WWI might have been a little different. Even more so if the Empire stayed on the sidelines while all the other powers wasted themselves.

On the pro-independence side, there is clearly much good, especially in the long term. The United States has been a powerful force for good in the world (yes, yes, despite many flaws – shut up) and it’s absence from the world scene over the last two centuries would lead to very large differences in the course of history. What would we miss? I think the most important would be the ideas in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution – and even more to the point, the very thought that documents like these matter. A written constitution, with enumerated rights for people and restrictions for government is a very powerful, and very good idea. The United States, with its ideal of tolerance and assimilation to an ideal rather than an ethnicity is another huge plus. Would North America as a British colony still be a melting pot? Probably not so much.

Still and all, just imagining Hamilton, Jefferson, Franklin, and the rest of the Founding Fathers throwing down in Parliament with Burke, Fox and Pitt is just delicious. I still don’t know which side I’d want to help – but I think if the easy chair landed in 1760, I’d have tried to make sure there weren’t two sides.

"If we ever got to Hillarycare in this country, Canadians will have nowhere to go for health care"

Rudy Giuliani

The UK Telegraph came up with a list of the 100 most important Liberals and Conservatives. Bush didn't make the top 20, and Lieberman is the only man on both lists. There were no women, blacks or hispanics on either list.

In news which will surprise everyone but Ross, there's an anti-Republican bias in the media.

It seems that Ron Paul has the Botnet-American community in the bag.

First post. Here I go!

As a general rule, I don't write much about politics. Lord knows I have my own political views. Mr. Kate, I'm sure, would be happy to tell you how much fun it is to listen to my bilious gibberish during any given presidential address. However, in everyday life, I prefer to avoid it. It's pointless. If I'm with a group of people who share my political affiliation, then the conversation just seems like verbal wankery. And there is nothing I deplore more than, say, listening to a couple of half-drunk douches engaged in a scintillating debate about the socio-political implications of Roe v. Wade. How bloody original. Hey, who wants to do shots?

However ...

My mother is in the habit of forwarding me electronic manifestos that appear to have been written by some Cletus sitting around in his underwear and tube socks while on break from 24-hour online border surveillance. The one she sent me today, however, got me all riled up because it essentially implied that the vast majority who voted Democrat in the 2000 presidential election are/were tenement-dwelling, welfare-abusing murderers, and that the Democratic party is systematically destroying democracy as we know it.

So, after replying-all to the e-mail (thereby involving a large portion of my extended family) and feeling very self-satisfied with my thoughtful, intelligent response, I started digging around online and eventually realized that the offending e-mail was the apparently-notorious "Fall of the Athenian Republic," which has its own debunker page on snopes.com.

Ahem. Foot, this is Mouth. Mouth, Foot.

Lesson learned. Just more evidence that I have no business whatsoever talking about politics. Perhaps you'd like to hear a story about my cats?

From last week's Economist (subscription), in a story explaining the inevitability of Hillary's ascension to the presidency:

Most Americans are happy with the idea of a female president (if not with this particular female). And the presidential field is full of people who are “different” in some way, from John McCain, the oldest man to run for president, to Rudy Giuliani, the most divorced man to run for president, to Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon, to Dennis Kucinich, who is, well, Dennis Kucinich.

As a side note, the reasons they cite for Hillary's inevitability are the same reasons that would cause me to give consideration to casting a vote for Mrs. Clinton. She's head and shoulders above all the other contender. (yes, it's singular - Silky Pony is a spent non-force, and the rest are even more laughable).

As a further side note, they also list multiple excellent reasons she shouldn't be elected - high negative ratings, continuation of a two-family dynasty that's been in place for a quarter century, her presumed underlying shrillness and dictatorial nature, the risk of her husband outshining her at every turn, and the return of the same cast of cronies who made a hash of many elements of the first Clinton presidency. Whatever - she's still the class of the Democratic slate, right now, even though she's "different".

While looking for the answer to a completely different question, I ran across this nugget at Yahoo Answers:

Should politicians who fillibuster be tazed?
And put on Americas funniest?

This from a person named “Dr. Spanky”. Oddly, the site doesn’t appear to list where s/he went to med school or garnered a PhD, but since it appeared, ignoring the inherent irony of the site’s name, on Yahoo Answers, you know it’s a credible and important question, needing an answer.

Or not, as it turns out. Most of the several answers were provided in what I think was the spirit of the question. One, however, I think his name was “Buzzkill”, responded:

No, because the rules specifically allow for that activity.

You cannot (reasonably) punish someone for following the rules. All you can do is change the rules.

And since he’s flagged as a “Top Contributor”, whatever that implies, I guess there’s supposed to be some authority behind his revelation, for which we’re all better off. I’m sure that his next act, after posting that clarification, was to go out and yell at the neighbor kids to get off his god damned lawn.

[Wik] Apparently, I ran across that question while it was still fresh, and Buzzkill’s comment was less than a minute old. Serendipity, I guess. Anyway, the discussion’s already degenerated to whinging about brown shirts with Tasers, how they should actually taser the guy who started a war based on lies, and the usual bullshit claptrap. It was fun for the couple minutes it lasted, though.

[alsø wik] But wait - the fun’s not quite over yet! This, from the (appropriately) self-monikered “Deep Thought”:

Why stop at tazering for filibusters? I’m sure there is good money to be made if you just let people tazer Robert Byrd for fun. Think of the potential. 535 members of Congress. Millions of upset voters. We could pay off the deficit.