Brady's Balls

Today's Chart

Here's a comparison of mandated Paid Maternity Leave and Protected Maternity Leave in 38 "first world" countries. (I'm thinking you won't be surprised)

The article that goes with that chart deals with the trend of a declining birth rate in USAmerica Inc.

New findings from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey reveal that nearly half of women between ages 15-44 were childless in 2014, a 1.1 percent increase from 2012. This is consistent with recent National Center for Health Statistics data showing a six-year decline in U.S. birth rates. The report says America's fertility rates dropped to record lows in 2013 with women ages 15-44 only having 1.86 babies on average. In order to maintain a stable population, the average has to be at least 2.1 children.

Family-Friendly my dyin' ass. This is one of the reasons I find it so hard to resist kicking "conservatives" right in the nuts.

Wanna know why "Millennials" aren't buying into the American Dream?  They're not convinced there's any future in it for them.

About That Geller Lady Thing

Every time something happens like what happened in Garland TX, I'm reminded that "free speech" is a weapon as much as it is a tool.  And that goading some dumb sucker into a fight just so you can make a point (and a pile of cash) is about as craven as it gets.

I'm not suggesting the two dead 'jihadis' deserved anything but bullets in their heads once they started the shit, but let's at least admit their reaction was predictable - and predictable  to the point that we can condemn the fact that the provocation has almost nothing to do with Free Speech, and everything to do with making it justifiable (and profitable) to kill Muslims.  

Geller's little stunt produced exactly what it was intended to produce, which is Violence As Revenue Opportunity.

A good bit from The Rude Pundit:

5/06/2015

Conservatives Really Need You to Care About the Garland Thing

Honestly, conservatives, most of us on the left look at Pamela Geller's stupid ass Mohammed cartoon thing, which was attended by a handful of Fox "news" zombies and more media than it deserved, and think, "Well, if that's what you wanna do." 'Cause, see, we all knew that images of Mohammed piss off loser jihadi-wannabes who need to prove their street cred. So, oh, gee, you mean the deliberately provocative act provoked someone to violence? Well, fuck us all with a surprise stick. Shit, considering the nonsensical conspiracy theories floating around Texas right now, why not say that the two idiot gunmen were promised cash and seven minutes in paradise with Geller to come shoot up the joint in order to justify the whole goddamned effort?

But the right really, really needs us to give a shit. They need us to condemn Geller's show. Look at what Erick "Erick" Erickson of the Red State blarg had to say right after the shooting: "Over the next twenty-four hours, we can expect the media to wring its hands about 'Texas gun culture,' the unnecessary provocations of Pamela Gellar [sic], and a host of other issues. They will work very hard to suggest Muslims were somehow the victims and try to distance the story from Islam." Look at that list. One of those things has come true - about Geller being an attention whore who makes real whores think, "Fuck it. I should retire and give her the whole block" - and the rest? No one of any note has said shit about guns in this case (except maybe how the bad guys got the guns). No one has said Muslims were victims, except to say that a bunch of needy fucknuts tried their hardest to get a reaction from Muslims.

Later, Erickson says, "[T]he most telling thing to me is how quickly prominent leftists placed blame on the event organizers for holding than event instead of on a group of Muslims for deciding they can kill because they are offended." No, sweet, pudgy Christ fellater, we are all blaming the dudes with the guns. We can also say, without contradiction, that the event wouldn't have taken place if the threat of violence wasn't built into it, and that shit's reckless. By the way, aren't you the people who think that the problem with rape on college campuses isn't that rapists do it, but that sexy coeds get drunk and are easy targets?

Anyway, you know who some of the loudest voices against Geller are right now? Other conservatives who think Geller's full of shit, which, of course, made Geller screech even louder than usual. (That last link has all the cartoons from the event, and you will forever regret clicking on it.) Skeevier attention whore Donald Trump even said that Geller was "dumb."

Still, people like Rush Limbaugh blubber on about how much eeevil liberals don't give a goddamn about free speech. Meanwhile, most of us real lefties, not the fantasy flesh-eating gorgons conjured by the deranged minds of conservatives, feel about the cartoon display the same way we feel about flag burning: You have the right to do it, but you sure as shit aren't doing it to make people believe in your cause.

It's your right to fuck with people's core beliefs. And it's our right to think your point is worthless.

Today's Pix

Meanwhile, Back At The World

Per NOAA:

via HuffPO:

Average global levels of carbon dioxide stayed above 400 parts per million, or ppm, through all of March 2015 -- the first time that has happened for an entire month since record keeping first began, according to data released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Scientists with NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory have called the news a "significant milestone" in the growing scourge of man-made climate change.

“This marks the fact that humans burning fossil fuels have caused global carbon dioxide concentrations to rise more than 120ppm since pre-industrial times,” Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA's greenhouse gas network, told The Guardian on Wednesday. “Half of that rise has occurred since 1980.”

Lotsa people spend lotsa time worrying about and wondering why it seems "The Millennial's" are so self-absorbed and uncaring. If ya get a chance to sit down and talk with a few of 'em, ask a coupla questions about the way we're runnin' the joint and what they think the future holds for them.  And then try not to fuck up your knuckles too bad punching the mirror when you get home.

They are the way we've taught them to be.

Sounds Of Resistance

What About Me --Quicksilver Messenger Service

Things Goin' On --Lynyrd Skynyrd

What Did You Learn In School Today? (cover) --Stacey Randol and Michael McBurnett

I'd Love To Change The World --Ten Years After

Make Me Wanna Holler --Marvin Gaye

Bid 'Em In --Oscar Brown Jr

We Beg Your Pardon --Gil Scott-Heron

If I Had A Rocket Launcher --Bruce Cockburn

What The World Needs Now / Abraham Martin and John (DJ mashup 1971) --Tom Clay

Go Larry Go

hat tip = Talking Points Memo

The Real News (updated)

Step 1) Find somebody who knows something
Step 2) Ask a few smart questions
Step 3) Shut up and let him talk

hat tip = FB buddy DR via truthdig

(And Uh-Oh.  My guy Martin O'Malley took a bit of a hit there (starting at about 3:45) when Mr Powers slags him for misunderstanding the Broken Windows approach to the point of total FUBAR.  I guess I need to figure out a way to ask him about that.)

So, wouldn't it be nice if we could take a hard look at the whole process?  Maybe we could start with: Coin-Operated Politicians getting elected partly on Big-Money donations from the Crime-&-Punishment Industries which eventually makes for a very tidy loop of criminalization and recidivism (Bust. Bargain. Jail. Repeat).  The cycle of Poverty, Ignorance and Crime isn't a bug in the system - it's a fucking feature.

And as a nice bonus, it gives our returning war heroes some occupational therapy so they can work out those PTSD issues that they don't have and that nobody ever needs to talk about because they couldn't possibly manifest themselves in the worst possible ways at the worst possible times - but like I said, let's not worry about any of that. Ever.

Anyway, concentrating your Zero-Tolerance approach on the "problem areas" almost ensures those problem areas will forever remain problem areas.  Which is, again, actually the point.  While it's being sold to us as Public Service, law enforcement is being administered as a Profit Center.  And the Revenue piece of any good business plan includes Recurring Revenue Opportunities - Returning Clientele, Customer Retention, Repeat Business, pick a buzz phrase, any buzz phrase.

BTW - the people filling our prisons aren't the "customers" of the Crime-&-Punishment Industries; the same as the patients filling our hospitals aren't the "customers" of our Healthcare Industries.  The main point there being that a healthy patient is a detriment to somebody's profitability the same as a law-abiding citizen walkin' around free isn't putting money into the pockets of an ever-widening system of interlocking "security" businesses.  

But weirdly - healthy patients and law-abiding citizens are very good for taxpayers and premium payers and business owners and families and and and.  So how come it seems like somebody doesn't want us to be particularly free or particularly healthy?  It's a wonderment, ain't it?

Prisoners (like Patients) are both the raw material and the product.  This is a strictly Business-to-Business proposition. The customer base consists of corporations which spend lots of time effort and money getting you and me to line up so we can volunteer to get scammed into believing we're buying ourselves a little law and order; some peace of mind; a feeling that we'll be allowed into the powdered wig salon just as soon as we've kissed all the right asses and stepped on all the right fingers - when actually, we're just identifying ourselves as resources for a system that eats people, extracts power and money, shits people back out; and then starts over again.

What, you weren't still thinking Law Enforcement's about enforcing the law, were ya?  You're so cute.  We live in USAmerica Inc, silly - America's business is business.  And business is fucking great.  

You're very important to us, so please stay in line - we'll get to you soon enough.

Today's Contextualizationing

There really was a time (quite a while ago) when Geraldo Rivera was thought to be a journalist.

The very well-practiced frozen smile on Rivera's face is a dead give-away that he suspects just how irrelevant he is; and that he's afraid that that irrelevancy is about to be shown to the world.  He desperately wants to be the gutsy plucky reporter he thinks he used to be as he's almost literally running away from that guy.

And the fact that he can't hold a candle to that guy's arguments is great tribute to the simple fact that whenever anybody working for the DumFux News crew ventures outside the bubble, reality short-circuits their closed-loop thinking and the whole program craters in on itself.

To be (kinda) fair, most of the other Press Poodles have run into similar buzz saws - it's just a little more satisfying when I get to watch some schmuck working for the GOP's PR Channel shit himself in public.

And now this:

Tweet Trend

Been seeing a lot of this one lately.

"Violence doesn't accomplish anything." That makes the US military budget an even bigger waste. Let's fund schools instead #BaltimoreRiots.

— Anonymous (@LatestAnonNews) April 29, 2015

Not Even Close

...IMHO.

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“Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don't much care for.”  --Molly Ivins

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