Seth Takes A Closer Look

True believers following a domineering personality, driven by Paranoia, Conspiracy and Resentment - and isolated to the point of never listening to anyone outside their own little group.

That's not a political party - that's a cult.

And I know I shouldn't say it, but can't we just skip ahead to the part where they all do the Kool-Aid thing?

Meme For A Day

What if I told you plants are farming us? What if they give us food and oxygen just so we grow and then become fertilizer for them when we die?

Oh, By The Fucking Way

The day before yesterday was Teddy Roosevelt's birthday - he would've been 158 years old. Yay, TR.

Now, how do you suppose we managed to celebrate the Father of Public Lands; the guy who invented the National Park?

We acquitted and released the Bundy Gang, sending a swell message to the rest of Y'all Qaeda (thanks, tengrain) and every fucking yahoo with a gun, a bad attitude and a 7th grader's understanding of the US Constitution that it's open season on the BLM and pretty much all the other institutions having grown out of a deep abiding respect for the land and for the commitment that your rights don't include doing whatever the law can't force you not to do because you're gullible enough to swallow every little piece of shit that floats by on the intertoobz.

One more thing - Nullification has a distinct aroma, and it seems to be strongly wafting in from points west.  You thought the 90s were pretty fucked up?  Hang loose and just watch what comes next.

Cosmic Muffin have mercy.

New Music

Blind Pilot
  Umpqua Rushing
  Packed Powder
  Don't Doubt
  Joik #3

hat tip = Little Green Footballs

New Rules

"...grow the fuck up - she's a civil servant, not a craft beer."

Today's Podcast

...and an empty bag of fucks that Barack Obama left behind.



Starting at about 39:40 - Stimulus and Keynesian Spending will happen (soon, more or less) because the bankers and the investor class need it, therefor demand it. The Bond Market will drive it.  Maybe that's partly what those Wall Street speeches were about(?)

And Barack Obama hitting the trail to campaign for down-ballot candidates like a fucking boss.

You can't change anybody else's heart - you change policy - you enact laws that change people's behavior - and over time, those hearts will change themselves.

Nowhere To Hide

Everything gets pushed down the priorities list because it's Election Season - and of course, it's always Election Season any more. 

The fact that we can't quite figure out what's the right thing to do here is one of the things that's getting people killed, as it hastens the demise of our little experiment in self-government.

We can't just walk away from the need for energy - even the shitty fossil fuels kind of energy right now - but if the Acquisition Cost for that energy includes poisoning the water and the air and the food - which means sick and dying people, which means fewer customers to buy the shit you're trying to sell - then what the fuck is the point?

We can't take the Human Cost out of it, and the proof of that should be obvious - without humans, there are no customers, and since every business is Customer-Centric, every business proposition without humans is unworkable. Cuz it's long been solidly established that even tho' you love to fantasize about it once in a while, it's rude to kill the customers.

Make a deal with the companies, and with the directors and managers who benefit from the pipeline. A deal that includes a requirement for every decision-maker and every decision-influencer to show up (with their wives and kids) onsite every month and chug 32 ounces of water taken directly from the wells their operations might impact.  

We should prob'ly include politicians in that one as well.   

You wanna be the guy calling the shots? Fine - you get to live or die (literally if need be) with the outcome.

Mike has spoken. So let it be written; so let it be done. 

Pussy Riot (NSFW)

The Guardian:

Tolokonnikova said she recorded the song in February with the US musician, guitarist and producer Dave Sitek, whom she described as “one of the biggest feminists I’ve ever met”. The video was shot in Los Angeles.

Tolokonnikova said Sitek was inspired by her phrase: “Does your vagina have a brand?”. “So it made total sense to write a song which celebrates [the] vagina with him,” she said.

“This song could be considered an answer to Trump. But I believe the idea of powerful female sexuality is much bigger than any populist megalomaniac man … Vagina is bigger than Trump.”

The Russian punk band’s latest video Straight Outta Vagina, released on Tuesday, features Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova wearing white clerical robes and trademark balaclava, plus a chorus line of men and women sitting in toilet cubicles and standing at urinals. There is also an inflatable duck.

In typically provocative style, the video includes the lyrics: “If your vagina lands in prison, then the whole world’s going to listen.” And: “Don’t play stupid, don’t play dumb, vagina’s where you’re really from.”

Slice-N-Dice

Getting a majority of the votes doesn't necessarily mean you get a majority representation.  

WaPo:

A recent analysis by political scientists John Sides and Eric McGhee suggests that Democrats are poised to win a majority of votes in U.S. House contests but walk away with a minority of seats — again. As I wrote last week, a big factor in this odd disparity is the way some Republican state legislatures have gerrymandered congressional districts in a way that gives them far more House seats than their popular vote totals would suggest.

For a refresher on how gerrymandering happens, recall that the Constitution mandates that every 10 years, seats in the U.S. House are doled out to states according to state populations, as determined by the decennial census. In 2010, for instance, it worked out that a state got one house seat for roughly every 710,000 inhabitants. States have to assign each of their House seats to a congressional district. This requires drawing a map that splits a state up into a number of geographic regions, each with a population of about 710,000.

In most states, this process is done by the state legislature with the approval of the governor. So you see where the potential for shenanigans starts to creep in: If the statehouse and governor's mansion are controlled by the same political party, there's not much to stop them from drawing congressional districts in a way that maximizes that party's representation in the U.S. Congress.

But first - is there a better name for a Political Scientist than "Sides"?

Anyway it seems the marketing geniuses have taken over the political process just like everything else.

Today's Pix