Parade Of Stoopid

The reason we get incredibly radical nonsense from our "leaders" is simply that we are willing constituents.



I am responsible for everything I think, say and do.  Me.  I'm not under the spell of some cosmic mesmerizer.  And I'm not going to follow blindly along behind anybody who claims to possess some kind of special magic;  or needs me to believe that his particular decoder ring is the only one that works when it comes to figuring out what Gondorff The Magnificent really meant by whatever it was that some half-literate guy wearing a goat skin singlet scratched into a clay tablet 1700 years ago.

I can be persuaded or inspired or cajoled and manipulated - but if I decide to act, the decision is mine.

Today's Pix

Today's Bumper Sticker

If you wanna live like a Republican

Vote like a Democrat

Well, I'm Shocked

Listening to smart people talking about shit that matters is one of the great joys in life.  And one of the truly great things about The Marketplace of Ideas is that when an outlet like MSNBC wises up and realizes it can let good stuff fill a partial content vacuum  - well, it don't get a lot better'n that.

This bit starts with Jamie Dimon and the giant fuck up that Wall Street continues to be.

Bias Confirmed

This is why I never call it anything but DumFux News.

It's a comparison of results on a basic factual-knowledge test for consumers of different news organizations.

hat tip = James Fallows

A Step At A Time

Just inching our way closer to Robocop II.



What could possibly go wrong?

The Man Factor

I posted a while back about some stupid dust up or another (wait a minute - this is a blog. All my posts are about some stupid dust up or another).

Anyway, one of the big Non-Troversies yesterday was that the White House had sent out "an obviously Photo Shopped" pic of Obama throwing a football.

(to wit:)

So actually, not bad - guy's got decent form blah blah blah.  Why are we attacking it?

Because The Kenyan Usurper must never be seen to possess actual Americanizing characteristics.

Because football good - Obama bad.  If Obama's good at football, then Repub Physics doesn't work anymore, and the pretend universe implodes.

Because part of that pretend universe is totally dependent on the DumAss Dems never thinking to ask, "OK - so what's your guy got?"

Where are all the pix of Romney doing manly things?  Go ahead - Google that one, and get back to me.

More About That IPO Thingie

From SFGate:

"Facebook left nothing for the common investor," Forbes Publisher Rich Karlgaard wrote. "The insider pig pile of (private equity) firms and celebrity Silicon Valley angels took it all. This is a rather new, post-Sarbanes-Oxley fact, and it should make Americans very, very angry."

This new Uber-Investor model is set up to make sure that the value of any new company being offered has already been stripped out before it "goes public".  At this point, facebook may have achieved that weird critical mass that makes some companies float along like a massive planetoid falling thru space, but anybody on the outside who buys shares from here on out is really just paying a voluntary tax that keeps the Hedge Funders and Sarbanes-Oxley lawyers healthy.

We're arguing over the possession of the corpse, and I think this is what Kleptocracy looks like.

About That IPO Thingie (updated)

We might be able to call it Sean Parker's Revenge by Proxy - can't wait for the movie.  I hope Oliver Stone is ready.

Anyway, facebook is the greatest thing since perforated toilet paper, and when you can't make a big messy splash with facebook's IPO, well, there's something not quite right.

The thing went public at about $38 a share, "spiked" all the way up around $40; and when it looked like it could seriously flop, the big underwriters had to jump in and take huge Price-Support Positions to keep the thing from going so deep in the tank you'd need a wormhole generator to find it.

So, whaddup widdat?  One thing for sure is that now a few very big investments houses own significant holdings in facebook.  I don't know any of the rules where these things are concerned, but you're talkin' JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs - so recent history would indicate "rules are for somebody else" and none of that crap about market-driven morality matters anyway.  Just let your imagination wander.

Maybe we're seeing more evidence of how people just don't relate to the structures of the economy.  I'll bet lots of people are in the standard default mode of "facebook's pretty cool - why are they always trying to fuck it up?"

For myself, I'll stay with "I don't trust those guys on WallStreet any farther than I could spit one of 'em".

All we really need to figure out now is: How do they make sure American Tax Payers keep having to eat the losses, and how do they turn that into a political liability for Obama, in order to hide the fact that tax payers are getting fucked with their pants on?

update:
oh yeah - when was the last time Wall Street launched something really good? And really, if you're a smart guy with great ideas, and you've spent the last 15 years or so bustin' your hump to make your cool little business work - why the fuck would you turn to any of these pricks for help when you know they're just gonna steal as much as they can carry and move on to the next sucker?  I don't get it.

Hiatus Alert

I'll be out for a few days.

Mike's New Hip - The Sequel

debuts tomorrow!

Meanwhile, In Malaysia

It's pretty sad, but it seems Justice has escaped and is trying to set up shop in SE Asia.  Hooda thunk it?

hat tip = Democratic Underground

via CultureMap Austin:

How is it possible that the unanimous conviction of a former U.S. President as a war criminal does not immediately register as the most important news of the day? Today's endorsement of Romney by the newly minted war criminal is getting far more traction in the news. (Though, as Politicker notes, the Romney camp has yet to comment on the news.)

Chase

Why is Jamie Dimon not being dragged thru the streets by his heels?  And when will any of these fuckin' crooks be held to account?

Crooks and Liars

The JPMorgan Chase story is also the story behind the financial crisis that has thrown millions of people out of work. It's the story behind our ever-growing wealth inequity. It's the story behind Washington's inability to prosecute criminal bankers, regulate reckless ones, and propose the economic solutions the rest of us urgently need.

Predictably, the pundits who aid and abet people like Jamie Dimon are dismissing this story's importance, pointing out that $2 billion (it could become much more) pales against the $19 billion in profit Chase reported last year.

But it was potentially $2 billion earned through crime. And more importantly, this story isn't just about Chase's errors and crimes. It's much bigger than that.

Today's Pix

Shouldn't every "anti-gubmint conservative" be tickled silly about this?

Here - lemme get that for ya

What Does It Mean?

These days, a "conservative: is a guy who loves America - or at least an idealized version of America - but seems to hate just about any American who doesn't look, think and act almost exactly like he does.

So how do I reconcile this one?  Justice David Souter quit the Supreme Court a coupla years ago, and took a pretty hard shot at his "conservative" peers on his way out, in the form of a dissenting opinion on a matter before the court at the time.  Meanwhile, Chief Justice Roberts (no relation to your beloved blogger here) used a procedural gimmick to delay the court's decision (Citizens United) long enough to make it impossible for Souter's critique to escape into the public domain - and his rationale was based on not wanting to harm the credibility of the court.

Didja catch that one?

hat tip = Balloon Juice

From The New Yorker - Jeffrey Toobin:

In one sense, the story of the Citizens United case goes back more than a hundred years. It begins in the Gilded Age, when the Supreme Court barred most attempts by the government to ameliorate the harsh effects of market forces. In that era, the Court said, for the first time, that corporations, like people, have constitutional rights. The Progressive Era, which followed, saw the development of activist government and the first major efforts to limit the impact of money in politics. Since then, the sides in the continuing battle have remained more or less the same: progressives (or liberals) vs. conservatives, Democrats vs. Republicans, regulators vs. libertarians. One side has favored government rules to limit the influence of the moneyed in political campaigns; the other has supported a freer market, allowing individuals and corporations to contribute as they see fit. Citizens United marked another round in this contest.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/21/120521fa_fact_toobin#ixzz1uxL8bOut

Today's Quote

"Every man has a right to an opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts." --Bernard Baruch

Thank You, Dr Chomsky

I was never a big fan, but the simple fact that so much scalding vitriol is aimed in his direction requires me to look for myself.



Special Bonus: David Frum at about 8:30.

I'm good with it until near the end (about 1:15:00) when he starts talking about the new "Libertarian Socialism" which will lead us to a spiritual transformation.

First, as soon as you tack that "ism" on the end of a set of philosophical tenets, you're well on your way towards the logical extreme, which means you've begun the slide into the abyss of self-cancellation.

Second, never bet against human nature.  If your system requires people to behave as anything other than people, then your system just ain't gonna work - not any time soon anyway.

But third, maybe it's more of a chicken-or-the-egg proposition.  Maybe it does work the way Chomsky imagines it working, where if you take the idea of Libertarian Socialism, and mash it up together with the need for a spiritual transformation, you nudge the evolutionary process - the philosophy and the transformation serve to carry each other forward.  I like that one better.

We're #1

...except when we're not - or about stuff we shouldn't be - or somethin'.

We have an amazing capacity for deluding ourselves.  And while it's not exactly unique to Americans, it seems like we have some special kind of weird need to buy into our own bullshit.  Maybe it's because our insistence on Free Speech made the slide into Propaganda unavoidable.  Maybe it's because we've allowed Free Speech to mean we can say whatever we want to say without being held to account for its consequences.

We think Foreign Aid makes up 25% of the Federal Budget, and that a more appropriate level would be about 13% - when it's actually less than 1%.

• 48% of Americans believe Healthcare Reform has been repealed.
• 51% don't know The US Supreme Court has 9 Justices
• ...and 54% can't name even one of 'em.
• 78% know Larry, Curly and Moe, while 58% can't name all 3 branches of the US Government.
• 125 million American Christians can't name all 4 Gospels.
• 67% of adults in the US can't find England on a map.
• 80% of us consider ourselves Above Average Drivers.
• 41% can't name the current Vice President of the United States.
• 7% think funding for Public Broadcasting represents more than half of the federal budget.
• As recently as 1999, 20% of Americans thought the Sun orbits the Earth.

Economic Mobility

"The South is the native home of American poverty" --Gene Nichol, director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

I really wish this would come as a surprise - just once in a while.  Why is it always The South?  There're 9 states doing worse than the average and they're all in The South, and they're all Deep Red politically.  The politics in every one of those states is dominated by Right Wing TeaBaggers and/or Christianists, but certainly by radicals who're pretending to be "conservatives".

Utah's an obvious outlier, but on the other side of that coin, there're 8 states doing better than average, and 7 of those are either Hard Blue or toward the blue end of Purple.

I don't know what exactly has to happen to change all of this, but I do know that not much will change until people figure out for themselves just how badly they're being swindled.

Where Credit Is Due

Jon Stewart is a fucking genius.

Politicizing Mothers' Day

Ann Romney has a piece in USA Today all about the glories of motherhood and the importance of cherishing our moms.  Wow - way to take a tough stand on that one, Annie.

Go read it if you think you need a little blast of meaningless treacle from about 1915.  For my own self, this is one of those times I wish I could spell the sound I make when I puke.

It's hard to imagine now, but before the birth of my first child, I had never held a baby. Not once, not in my entire life. No baby at home to tend, no niece or nephew to babysit. So you can imagine, the day my first boy was born I felt woefully unprepared.

She tries to make it sound like she's some kinda "regular person".  She isn't.  She'd never held a baby?  Seems odd 'til you take a quick little Google spin thru her old neighborhood, or do a bit of reading on Bloomfield Hills Michigan* where she grew up.  She probably never did any laundry or cooked a meal for herself either.  Not that any of that makes her a bad egg in any way - just that it doesn't make her any kind of kindred spirit with anybody who's ever struggled with any of life's little obstacles.  It's hard to imagine Ann Romney ever being denied much of anything, or a time when somebody wasn't shinin' her ass over one thing or another.

*Bloomfield Hills ... consistently ranks as one of the top five wealthiest cities in the United States with population between 2,500 to 9,999 — it currently is listed at the number four position and in 1990 it was ranked number two,[6] and has the highest income of any city outside of California, Florida or Virginia. The median income for a family is over $200,000. In 2000, 49% of residential property in Bloomfield Hills had a value of over $1,000,000.[7]

Generally, I don't mind when campaign consultants insist on trying to pull this kind of crap; I just wish they weren't always so fucking clumsy and obvious about it.