The biggest deal in the last 20 years of Rupert Murdoch's media empire (his attempt to buy BskyB in the UK) is stalled and may be dead because Murdoch has to prop up the share value of News Corp by accelerating his buy-back program - and of course the reason he has a stock price problem is because he had to shut down his single most profitable daily newspaper in his UK operation because of his suddenly revealed trouble concerning illegal wiretapping (and maybe fraud and obstruction and official bribery too) and gosh - not a single word of any of that is to be found anywhere on foxnews.com or Fox Business or Fox Nation; and there's been no ink all in The Wall Street Journal.
A multi-billion dollar deal that may go in the tank, and a major scandal involving one of the biggest media players in the world - and WSJ... uh...what? They missed it? It just slipped by unnoticed?
The good news is that maybe this finally rips the bandaid off and we wake up to what these assholes have been doing to us.
The bad news is that maybe this is how the real collapse starts.
Watch out for what happens in Italy in the next few months. (read this at The Agonist)
Jul 12, 2011
Tabloid Politics
Or maybe we could call it Pin-up Politicians; or Political Porn. Whatever it is, it is not a development that I can call serious.
Here's a look at what Newsweek thinks is journalism.
Here's a look at what Newsweek thinks is journalism.
My Dear Mr Boehner
For 2 years, and now especially during the big debate about whether or not to raise the Debt Ceiling, and what the US budget should look like, I've heard John Boehner say that his party just couldn't possibly abide imposing any kind of tax increase on the "job creators" in this country. (I ranted in some detail yesterday on the "tax-cuts-equals-jobs" malarkey)
Question: Exactly who are these job creators? They've gotten practically nothing but tax breaks for the last ten fucking years, and we've seen a net job increase of a little over 17,000 per month for that whole period. Seems to me they've gotten about everything they've wanted - so where's the payoff? What the fuck are they waiting for?
No wait; I keep forgetting that Boehner doesn't say that crap thinking he'll persuade me and change my mind. He says that because when the Rubes hear anything that hints at contradicting what they're being spoon fed by DumFux News, they tend to get a little nervous; so guys like Boehner need to rush around puttin' that big Republican cock back in their mouths to calm 'em down.
Question: Exactly who are these job creators? They've gotten practically nothing but tax breaks for the last ten fucking years, and we've seen a net job increase of a little over 17,000 per month for that whole period. Seems to me they've gotten about everything they've wanted - so where's the payoff? What the fuck are they waiting for?
No wait; I keep forgetting that Boehner doesn't say that crap thinking he'll persuade me and change my mind. He says that because when the Rubes hear anything that hints at contradicting what they're being spoon fed by DumFux News, they tend to get a little nervous; so guys like Boehner need to rush around puttin' that big Republican cock back in their mouths to calm 'em down.
Jul 11, 2011
Made In China
(Anticipating the standard response to this revoltin' development): Let's be sure we figure out a way to make "the unions" out to be the bad guys here. We have to remember that no matter what happens; if it's bad and it's something the "Libruls" don't like, then we need to Blame America First. And if it's bad and it's something the PseudoCons don't like, then we Blame Americans.
Whatever it is, we must never be allowed to look past our own biases to see a problem resulting from a policy or a law or a regulation or the lack of regulation that was put in place at least at the behest of a lobbying effort - if not something that was bought and paid for outright as the result of the decisions of some sliver-spoon fuck in the executive suite of some very large and very wealthy corporation.
We must be kept distracted. While we're busy bickering on a level that's really nothing more than Red Team vs Blue Team, these Dons of Corporatopia are free to continue bleeding us dry.
Whatever it is, we must never be allowed to look past our own biases to see a problem resulting from a policy or a law or a regulation or the lack of regulation that was put in place at least at the behest of a lobbying effort - if not something that was bought and paid for outright as the result of the decisions of some sliver-spoon fuck in the executive suite of some very large and very wealthy corporation.
We must be kept distracted. While we're busy bickering on a level that's really nothing more than Red Team vs Blue Team, these Dons of Corporatopia are free to continue bleeding us dry.
Beating A Dead Horse
Sometimes you just have to keep going over the same ground, and revisiting the same arguments ad nauseum just to stay even with the epidemic of ignorance in the American Body Politic.
Repubs in general, and their PseudoCon wing in particular, just refuse to let go of their fairy tales. Especially the one about "Tax Cuts Generate More Tax Revenue By Creating More Tax Payers".
Simply put, this is total bunkum. I know this because while I generally kinda suck at Math, I can manage some basic arithmetic, which is what the TeaBaggers (eg) like to believe is all they need to make their "common sense" judgements on tax policy.
So here it is:
Bush Tax Cuts 2001 - 2011 (remembering that Obama agreed to extend them thru 2012)
Conservative estimates say these cost us about $800,000,000,000.00; or about $80 Billion/Year.
If each job created by the Bush Tax Cuts pays an average of $30k per year, then the Feds collect about $6,000.00 in taxes.
So, if we divide $80 Billion (cost) by $6,000 (revenue), we need to have created more than 13,000,000 jobs per year, which means we needed to have added over 1,000,000 jobs per month in the last 10 years. When was the last time this economy showed a net increase of a million jobs in any month in the last 10 years? When was the last time we showed an increase of a million jobs in any quarter?
But, let's back up a little and say that I'm using wacky numbers and that my calculations are just way off the mark. OK; for grins and giggles, let's say I'm off by huge margins. Let's say the cost is only half of what I'm citing, and that the jobs created are paying 50% better than $30,000 a year.
Now we've got a cost of $40 Billion per year divided by revenues of $9,000, which means we only needed 370,000 new jobs per month over the last 10 years. Again, when was the last time we had a string of jobs reports that said we'd added 370,000 new jobs for any number of months in a row?
Reality: In the 118 months of W Bush and Obama, we've averaged a net increase of 17,144 jobs per month. I don't care how you look at it, a decade of deep tax cuts has failed to produce what the proponents of this policy promised us. We have to find it in ourselves to admit that it's a failure and that it belongs in the dumpster with The Great Society and The Domino Theory and a whole host of others that sounded good, but turned out to be little more than political flim-flam.
Fair warning: From here on out, if you try to float this shit by me, I will not preface my remarks by starting off with, "I'm sorry but..." I will straight-up call you stupid to your face, and I really don't care what else happens.
Repubs in general, and their PseudoCon wing in particular, just refuse to let go of their fairy tales. Especially the one about "Tax Cuts Generate More Tax Revenue By Creating More Tax Payers".
Simply put, this is total bunkum. I know this because while I generally kinda suck at Math, I can manage some basic arithmetic, which is what the TeaBaggers (eg) like to believe is all they need to make their "common sense" judgements on tax policy.
So here it is:
Bush Tax Cuts 2001 - 2011 (remembering that Obama agreed to extend them thru 2012)
Conservative estimates say these cost us about $800,000,000,000.00; or about $80 Billion/Year.
If each job created by the Bush Tax Cuts pays an average of $30k per year, then the Feds collect about $6,000.00 in taxes.
So, if we divide $80 Billion (cost) by $6,000 (revenue), we need to have created more than 13,000,000 jobs per year, which means we needed to have added over 1,000,000 jobs per month in the last 10 years. When was the last time this economy showed a net increase of a million jobs in any month in the last 10 years? When was the last time we showed an increase of a million jobs in any quarter?
But, let's back up a little and say that I'm using wacky numbers and that my calculations are just way off the mark. OK; for grins and giggles, let's say I'm off by huge margins. Let's say the cost is only half of what I'm citing, and that the jobs created are paying 50% better than $30,000 a year.
Now we've got a cost of $40 Billion per year divided by revenues of $9,000, which means we only needed 370,000 new jobs per month over the last 10 years. Again, when was the last time we had a string of jobs reports that said we'd added 370,000 new jobs for any number of months in a row?
Reality: In the 118 months of W Bush and Obama, we've averaged a net increase of 17,144 jobs per month. I don't care how you look at it, a decade of deep tax cuts has failed to produce what the proponents of this policy promised us. We have to find it in ourselves to admit that it's a failure and that it belongs in the dumpster with The Great Society and The Domino Theory and a whole host of others that sounded good, but turned out to be little more than political flim-flam.
Fair warning: From here on out, if you try to float this shit by me, I will not preface my remarks by starting off with, "I'm sorry but..." I will straight-up call you stupid to your face, and I really don't care what else happens.
Jul 10, 2011
Grief And The Media
It's been a while since Gil Scott Heron died, and it's been a while since I first saw this video from Jay Smooth. I'm putting it up now because I think I'm kinda starting to get what Jay's talking about when he criticizes some of the affects that all of this new technology is having on our ability to relate to the world and to each other.
Jul 9, 2011
A Simple Truth
Or rather, there's at least one simple truth about the big flap over the Debt Ceiling. So, to put it simply, what the Repubs are saying is that they ran up the bills all thru W's time in office (when they controlled the purse strings for 75% of that period), but now that it's time to raise the money to pay for all that spending, they're balking - they wanna renege on the obligation to pay for what they did. And, of course, they're pretty sure they can get the rubes to blame Obama for it, because he's the guy in charge now. And, of course the rubes will eat it up because that's what they do - the elephant shits on their heads, and they all say, "Thanks for the hat, boss".
And btw: Obama played much the same game when he was on the other side of the fence. Nobody comes outa this smellin' fresh.
Take a look at Bruce Bartlett's 5 Myths About The Debt Ceiling.
Put this together with the crappy jobs reports for May and June, and I don't see anything but shit storms coming over the horizon. The stimulus is pretty much all tapped out, the PseudoCons are yankin' the Repubs around like they had tails, and the Dems seem intent on missing yet another opportunity to grow some balls.
One last thing: I think The Repubs actually believe that no matter what happens, they'll be able to make a case that Obama has broken the law, or is taking some outrageous action that's outside the bounds of the Constitution - so what's really happening here is that they're trying to set him up for impeachment.
Ya heard it here first.
And btw: Obama played much the same game when he was on the other side of the fence. Nobody comes outa this smellin' fresh.
Take a look at Bruce Bartlett's 5 Myths About The Debt Ceiling.
Put this together with the crappy jobs reports for May and June, and I don't see anything but shit storms coming over the horizon. The stimulus is pretty much all tapped out, the PseudoCons are yankin' the Repubs around like they had tails, and the Dems seem intent on missing yet another opportunity to grow some balls.
One last thing: I think The Repubs actually believe that no matter what happens, they'll be able to make a case that Obama has broken the law, or is taking some outrageous action that's outside the bounds of the Constitution - so what's really happening here is that they're trying to set him up for impeachment.
Ya heard it here first.
Jul 8, 2011
A Christian Freaks Out
The lady seems pretty calm at first - and the recording has nothing about what leads up to her tantrum - but then she gets just a little nuts.
I do wonder about the affects of all this constant exposure of our behavior to millions of people via the inter-tubes. Seems like everybody has a camera, and there's an awful lot of casual surveillance going on.
I do wonder about the affects of all this constant exposure of our behavior to millions of people via the inter-tubes. Seems like everybody has a camera, and there's an awful lot of casual surveillance going on.
Jul 6, 2011
Taxation
"We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem."
"Taxes are too high in the US."
"No wonder companies are trying to shelter their income; corporate taxes are sky high."
All of that is bullshit. To wit (Citizens For Tax Justice):
"Taxes are too high in the US."
"No wonder companies are trying to shelter their income; corporate taxes are sky high."
All of that is bullshit. To wit (Citizens For Tax Justice):
Jul 5, 2011
Today's Brain Lesson
Try not to think about Frank Luntz or DumFux News.
I may have posted this before - dunno; don't care. It's enlightening and bears repeating.
I may have posted this before - dunno; don't care. It's enlightening and bears repeating.
Jul 4, 2011
Told Ya So
From Ed Pilkington, Guardian:
Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. But her case is by no means isolated. Across the US more and more prosecutions are being brought that seek to turn pregnant women into criminals.For a country supposedly filled with smart people, some of the things we do are just fuckin' stupid.
Jul 3, 2011
What To Call 'Em
What do you call somebody who can't stop deifying Ronald Reagan, but who also says they would never vote for anybody who raises taxes, compromises with Democrats, and negotiates with America's enemies?
What do you call somebody who says he hates government intrusion, but insists on making the government the final arbiter of morality and propriety in cases of entertainment and radio and TV and print material and internet content?
What do you call somebody who says the government must prevent women from making their own decisions about child-bearing?
What do you call somebody who conveniently ignores the first 13 words (out of 27 total) while trying to make a case in favor of "a strictly constructionist interpretation" of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution?
What do you call somebody enjoying a nice long career at Northrup Grumman who states flatly that the government never creates any jobs?
What do you call somebody who says illegal aliens are too lazy to work, and are at the same time, trying to steal their jobs?
You call these people PseudoCons.
(hat tip: The American Scholar)
What do you call somebody who says he hates government intrusion, but insists on making the government the final arbiter of morality and propriety in cases of entertainment and radio and TV and print material and internet content?
What do you call somebody who says the government must prevent women from making their own decisions about child-bearing?
What do you call somebody who conveniently ignores the first 13 words (out of 27 total) while trying to make a case in favor of "a strictly constructionist interpretation" of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution?
What do you call somebody enjoying a nice long career at Northrup Grumman who states flatly that the government never creates any jobs?
What do you call somebody who says illegal aliens are too lazy to work, and are at the same time, trying to steal their jobs?
You call these people PseudoCons.
(hat tip: The American Scholar)
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