Record Intact

The Polk Awards were announced this week, (kinda kicking off Awards Season) which means we've passed another solid year of outstandingness in world journalism, during which DumFux News extended its unblemished record of perfection having received a grand total of ZERO awards for reporting of any kind.  Again.

Brooklyn, N.Y. - Four reporters who revealed the extent of secret surveillance and massive data collected by the National Security Agency are winners of the 65th annual George Polk Awards in Journalism announced today by Long Island University. The four – from the British newspaper The Guardian and The Washington Post – were among 30 recipients from 15 news organizations who were recognized in 13 categories for work in 2013.

Reporting by those honored also triggered probes of statehouse corruption in Virginia and political payback in New Jersey, explored the gap between rich and poor in urban and rural locales, produced telling accounts of mass death in Bangladesh and civilian killings by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, exposed dark sides of pro football and major league baseball and examined community responses to mental illness that ranged from ineffective to absurd.

DumFux News has been around since 1996, and they've never won anything for anything.

No awards. Ever. No Peabody. No DuPont-Columbia. No Loeb. No Murrow. Not even an Emmy. Nada.

Today's WTF

Of all the douche nozzles on the air in whatever capacity - Joe Scarborough, David Gregory, Rush Limbaugh, Dan Marino, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Howie Long, Alex Jones etc etc et-fucking-cetera - how is it this guy has just recently managed to scrap his way back - to a thoroughly stupid time slot on a barely findable sub-heading of a sports channel that's not even available on an awful lot of basic cable packages; and one that can't quite figure out when the show might or might not run?  WTF!?!



The guy quotes Eddie Izzard for fuck's sake - on a sports show.  You honestly think that doesn't take some doing?  And do you think some of us don't know this is one of the guys (if not the guy) who made a 24-hour sports channel worth watching in the first place?)

Olbermann
ESPN2
Mon-Thu
11pm (usually - sometimes ya just hafta guess)

Lettin' It Get Ugly

It's important to remember that correlation is not proof - it doesn't necessarily mean that one part of the correlation is the cause of the other part(s).

Keep that in mind.

NYT editorial by SAMUEL BOWLES and ARJUN JAYADEV

Another dubious first for America: We now employ as many private security guards as high school teachers — over one million of them, or nearly double their number in 1980.

And that’s just a small fraction of what we call “guard labor.” In addition to private security guards, that means police officers, members of the armed forces, prison and court officials, civilian employees of the military, and those producing weapons: a total of 5.2 million workers in 2011. That is a far larger number than we have of teachers at all levels.

What is happening in America today is both unprecedented in our history, and virtually unique among Western democratic nations. The share of our labor force devoted to guard labor has risen fivefold since 1890 — a year when, in case you were wondering, the homicide rate was much higher than today.

5.2 million of us - it means that more than 1.5% of our total population is fully engaged in "protecting" the wealth of some Americans from other Americans.

It Isn't Ending Well

I'll have to listen to this a few more times to get it all, but I have some serious doubts that my mood will improve.



We have a capitol building chock-full of people who're really good at getting elected, fucking with each other, and practically nothing else.

With the economy in free fall, Obey met with his Republican counterpart Jerry Lewis of California to start writing a bill.

“And Jerry just grinned and said ‘Dave, I’m sorry, but we’ve got orders from headquarters, we can’t play, we can’t play,’” Obey recalls. “He said it twice.”
Whatever Republicans thought privately – some of them told Obey they agreed that Congress needed to pass a stimulus bill – they weren’t going to publicly help the new president help the economy.

But that wasn’t the scariest thing, Obey says. He realized many fellow House members – Democrats and Republicans – simply lacked a sophisticated understanding of the economy and government spending policy.

“One of the problems that you have today, is that a lot of members of Congress just don’t know a hell of a lot anymore,” Obey says.

We are so fucked. 

Seems A Little Silly

...but sometimes ya gotta beat the horse even after it's dead(?)  I honestly don't know what else to say about it.  Climate Change (most probably due to AGW) is a real thing, and somehow, we still have a substantial percentage of people who just can't bring themselves to recognize it.

I refuse to give Marsha Blackburn any time on my little blog here; and I sure as fuck hate even acknowledging a preening fluffer like David Gregory; so I'll just give ya'll this little bit:

Something Else

...that'll prob'ly never happen.  But hey - we can dream.



Take a good look at Alexis Goldstein

Cosmo Strikes Out

This appeared on Cosmo's Facebook page, and reaffirms what most of us have known for a while about dumfuk magazines "for women".

(paraphrasing a favorite comment):

Dear Cosmo -

Kindly take your ridiculous, arbitrary dictates of what women should want to look like and shove 'em back up your ass.

Sincerely,

Every guy on the planet who's had to spend hours reassuring a wife, girlfriend or daughter (ie: any real-world-perfect-for-me woman) that she's not fat and grotesque, all because assholes like you insist on undermining her confidence by playing on her fears just so you can sell her a load of shit she doesn't need in the first fucking place.

It's An Act Of God

God makes a gi-normous fucking mess, and everybody else gets to clean it up.  Is that why so many "conservatives" claim god as one of their own?

So basically - god's that one dickhead you don't invite back for the next party(?)  I can dig it.

Following Up

I keep hoping the nonsense about "dangerous vaccinations" has receded enough to get  people back to reality, but every so often, one of my Facebook buddies just has to post some bullshit that re-amps the fear.

YouTuber potholer54:




This potholer guy does some good work.  Here's his takedown on Ken Hamm:

Love Is The Answer

Some mid-winter tunes - reaching for softer breezes and milder climes.

Crystal Blue Persuasion --Tommy James and the Shondells

Samba Pa Ti --Santana

Moon Dance --Van Morrison

The Day After

We always get some kind of post-game shit, so what the hell:

Today's Pix

It's Valentine's Day, Dammit

...so make sure you clear your box(?)

C'mon ya bastids - aerobicise!

Virginia Is For Lovers

...again...kinda.  (The judge stayed her own decision to allow for appeal)

A federal court decided yesterday that Virginia's constitutional amendment banning same-gender marriage is stoopid.  Yay, Judge Allen.

Richmond Times-Dispatch:

A federal judge struck down Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban Thursday, finding that it violates the equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen followed arguments by the plaintiffs in Bostic v. Rainey who had argued that the 2006 amendment to the state Constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman denies gays and lesbians the fundamental right to marry, essentially making them second-class citizens.

"There can be no serious doubt that in America, the right to marry is a rigorously protected fundamental right," the judge wrote in her ruling. "The Supreme Court has recognized repeatedly that marriage is a fundamental right protected both by the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."

Wright Allen, appointed to the bench in 2011 by President Barack Obama, added that marriage rights are "of basic importance in our society, rights sheltered by the Fourteenth Amendment against the State’s 'unwarranted usurpation, disregard, or disrespect.' "

"The right to marry is inseparable from our rights to privacy and intimate association."

I guess I can only assume the wingnuts are unhappy, cuz it seems a rather mysterious silence has descended over Goober Nation.

RedState = nuthin'
Fox Nation = crickets
Breitbart = zip
WND = it shows up, but it's just a link to a very short piece at NBC

As of 10:45AM today: Mostly Bupkis.

There was one story (well below the headlines) on the DumFux News site, but gosh, "Comments are currently closed for this article".  What on earth could that be about?

For Your Valentine