Standing In Line

Priority Queueing is anti-democracy.  I'm not gonna squawk about express check-in at a hotel or picking up the rental car or whatever a company wants to do with - or for - people who spend more money than I do.  But next time you fly somewhere, be sure to look for the TSA express line at the airport security thingie, and check out TSA's program. Pay to play was never more exciting.

TSA Pre✓™ allows select frequent flyers of participating airlines and members of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Trusted Traveler programs to receive expedited screening benefits during domestic travel. Eligible participants use dedicated screening lanes for screening benefits which include leaving on shoes, light outerwear and belts, as well as leaving laptops and 3-1-1 compliant liquids in carry-on bags.

Maybe it's a good sign - if TSA is saying they'd like to move towards not treating everybody like a criminal, demanding we all prove our innocence, then OK.  I still get a bad feeling though.  TSA's been in business for almost 10 years now, and while they've made certain claims in the past about thwarting terrorist attempts, we don't hear much of anything about them any more - and you know damned well they'd be all over the news jumping up and down celebrating if they could document anything even close to breaking up the next 9/11.  But instead, we hear mostly about the occasional oops when the FAA tests the system and an agent wearing an Allahu Akbar t-shirt manages to get a chain saw and a bazooka and 5 kegs of black powder past the Toll Booth School washouts at a security checkpoint.  So it'd be nice if TSA is getting closer to the point where they'll just go away, but knowing that no government agency ever just goes away, I guess we can look forward to a long relationship with airport security because somebody is busily figuring our how to make the whole thing very very profitable.

Only slightly tangential, give this one a listen (from 99% Invisible):

The Political Stage

Episode 3 from Andrea Seabrook and Decode DC:

Via Facebook

I'm really trying to be a nicer guy - so I didn't post this on my facebook page in response to a "friend" who posted something pretty horrendous.

To wit:

What I didn't say on Facebook:

Yeah - OK - Biden totally laughed because people (people he might've actually known) died in the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi.  And if you believe that, then you're a fucking idiot.

Like I said, I'm trying to be a nicer guy about this kinda shit.

Pay Attention

Conservatives" are changing their tactics.  They seem to know that they're gonna get called out for their bald-faced racism whenever they put up some anecdotal crap about "welfare cheats" or "food stamp fraud" that (at least) invite the inference that the bad guys are always "black people".  So they're now going out of their way to include the statement that the dirty rotten perpetrators of these horrible scams are "white".

Fast forward to the part where I say, "So the fuck what?"  You're still just makin' shit up.  You're still trying to pull some very heavy-duty wool over everybody's eyes.  You're still a bunch of low-life, snap-collar, dock-sider, frat-boy legacy pukes who want nothing more than to cement your entitled little asses into positions of privilege and power without ever having to work for anything more than a merit badge that your mommy and daddy bought online to make sure you could put "Eagle Scout" on your application to an exclusive private college - and to make sure you grew up with a feeling that you earned every little thing that made it possible for you to "succeed" - like being born white, and middle class, and going to school in the suburbs, and and and - you pretentious milk-sop fuck.

But, of course, the real problem - the thing that's holding you back from really achieving the spectacular heights of your destiny as a player at the upper reaches of the Ruling Class - "those people"; they must be to blame.

Here's a re-animation of the dead rotting corpse of Ronald Reagan - or more accurately, his efforts to divide us along the fault lines of Status - ie: Welfare Queens etc: (snopes.com)

And remember 2 things:

1. They don't call it Class Warfare until we start to fight back.
2. Once they call it what it is, we've already won.

What Happened

The wisdom of Bob Mondelo:

We have spent the last decade training the public to watch contests on television and then vote.

Gettin' It Done - 23

23. Passed Credit Card Reforms: Signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act (2009), which prohibits credit card companies from raising rates without advance notification, mandates a grace period on interest rate increases, and strictly limits overdraft and other fees.

It seems like such a good thing - transparency and a reinforcement of requirements to treat people fairly; to codify the plain truth that honesty is pretty important when we're doing business with each other.

Of course, this was passed in May of 2009, when certain politicians were still thinking they needed to get something done to fix some of the problems that nearly dragged us over the cliff in 2008, and to put aside their petty ambitions and empty pursuit of power for the sake of power.

So the Credit CARD Act* passed with a level of bi-partisan support that scared the shit outa the Repubs.  They had to figure that they were helping Obama create a legacy that would put him on Rushmore if they weren't careful.  So they decided to stall.  And I think it's really just that simple.  If they keep stimulus bottled up, then they keep consumer demand bottled up too.  And the longer you can hold it off, the bigger the jump will be when you finally uncork it.  The economy will not stay bad for ever.  If Obama is gone and their guy's in the Oval Office when things really start cookin' again, they'll stand in front of a giant banner every month when the jobs report comes out proclaiming that everything good that happens from now on is because of they helped America put the steel back in our spines blah blah blah.

*the warping, twisting and torturing of the language in order to come up with memorable  titles for these laws illustrates part of the problem - I guess I understand that we can expect the American public to shade towards being Issue-Stoopid, but if we took the time and effort necessary to create the mnemonics, and put it into...fuck it, never mind.  "Issue-Stoopid" kinda says it all.

Just Ask

WIllard has developed a habit in his stump speech of late - he keeps saying his plan for the economy will create 12 million new jobs right here at home.  He also continues to attack the lazy-ass 47% by saying he doesn't intend to add more people to the welfare roles, and go on giving everything away for nuthin' - he's gonna help you by giving you a great job and letting you keep the money you earn for working that job.  And that's very close to verbatim - "...give you a great job..."

I guess I'm wondering 2 basic things:

1. What are these 12 millions jobs?  What sector?  What businesses?  Who's gonna be doing the hiring?
2. What news organization is going to step up and actually ask Willard for these details?

We hear a lot that Willard has made the claim.  We hear a lot that Obama doesn't seem to have an answer for it.  We hear all kinds of shit about all kinds of shit, but these Press Poodles apparently have become totally allergic to Journalism.

Could somebody just stop him and ask him to spend a lousy 5 or 6 minutes explaining one fucking thing?  Please?

The Debt

Willard and Gilligan have been hammering Obama with a few standard gripes that haven't turned out to be quite as lethally effective as they'd hoped they'd be.

One is "Obama's Promise" of an unemployment figure below 8%.  They started slammin' that one just as the figure slipped below the magic 8% level, and then slipped again to 7.8%, which of course prompted the freakout over Jobs-Report-Gate.

But they still had other "points" to make about the Obama Recovery Recession Horribleness of Socialistic Nazified Commie Redistributing Usurpitude - the meme that the economy sucked - NOT because the Repubs fornicated filibustered everything, but because of the Debt Monster looming over us and our massive off-shore tax havens just waiting for Obama to take the opportunity to swoop in and confiscate all of our Job-Creator Wealth, and the Debt Monster has only grown bigger and scarier (and more politically convenient as a point-scorer) under the Rule of Obama blah blah blah...

But, a ray of hope has appeared. New reports have shown that the nation’s debt has shrunk to a level not seen in 6 years, and the trend is continuing. Now our nation’s debt has dropped to $40 trillion, reducing our debt to GDP ratio to 3.29. While the amount owed is still great, this trend of paying off our debt and not increasing it shows a mental shift in the United States.

Oops.

Read more at Addicting Info.

Gettin' It Done - 24

What's the controversy over Equality?  I really don't get how you oppose something like that.

24. Eliminated Catch-22 in Pay Equality Laws: Signed Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009, giving women who are paid less than men for the same work the right to sue their employers after they find out about the discrimination, even if that discrimination happened years ago. Under previous law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the statute of limitations on such suits ran out 180 days after the alleged discrimination occurred, even if the victims never knew about it.

You can spin it or turn it around and claim that anybody who's trying to get the same rights as everybody else is "pushing a radical agenda" or "wants special rights" or whatever, but that's just truly empty political word vomit.  There's absolutely nothing weird or out of the ordinary about wanting to be treated fairly.

So wait a minute.  Hey, GOP - are you saying that keeping people down is actually the way it should be?  The way you want it to be?  Do you really mean that we need to maintain a system that ensures inequality so some of us will always enjoy an advantage that others don't have and will never even have a shot at getting?

You're saying the Republican Party no longer stands for values like Fairness and Equality.

And you're saying the Republican Party doesn't support the notion that people caught breaking the law should be held to account for it.

That's what you're saying.

Yeesh

Is this the image we wanna project to the world?  Is this really what makes guys like Ayman al-Zawahiri and Kim Jong Un nervous about how serious we are when we say we're gonna fuck 'em up if they come at us?  Seriously?

This guy is one or two election cycles away from having his own podcast so he can plug his new Celebrity Health & Diet Routine - and this is your guy, Repubs?  This is the Intellectual Heart of the GOP?

From Doghouse Riley:

You wanna work out in order to look like you work out, fine. It's a perfect match for your ideology. It's just too bad you can't use some of that Koch brothers juice to buy yourself a pair of Double Ds. And if your staff is too busy reading Atlas Shrugged to stop you from doing things like this photo shoot, well, good. But shut th' fuck up about it already, Birdlegs. Working out doesn't deserve any more praise than brushing your teeth does.

(hat tip = Balloon Juice)

So let's see - what do we get when we look around a bit?

But Paul Ryan is "the thinking man's Republican".  What a fuckin' circus.

Today's Pix

Two very probable results:
a) A Camera Operator and a Segment Producer are looking for work
b) They're still laughing their asses off

Your tax dollars hard at work

The guy in the blue sweater shot the guy wearing the hat.
The guy in the hat is seen here forgiving the guy in the blue sweater.
ergo: Eat shit, Right-Wing American Christians. 

Gettin' It Done - 25

At the risk of sounding way too "centrist":  I'm not a fan of the Liberal vs Conservative thing, especially where the courts are concerned.  I have to be able to make whatever judgment call I need to make based on what my gut and my brain tell me is the right thing to do without a lot of clutter and noise caused by ideology or party alignment.  I'd like judges to do the same.

I don't like thinking Scalia and Aleto and Roberts are crafting decisions based on what political impact they believe it might have on the the other 2 branches.  If I'm against "conservatives" doing that, then I have to be against "my side" doing it too.

Seems like we're kinda forced into it though; forced into thinking we have to take one side or the other, but if it's just always Us vs Them, how are we supposed to get past the conflict?  How do we move towards compromise and then onto resolution?

25. Protected Two Liberal Seats on the U.S. Supreme Court: Nominated and obtained confirmation for Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and third woman to serve, in 2009; and Elena Kagan, the fourth woman to serve, in 2010. They replaced David Souter and John Paul Stevens, respectively.

A Favorite Trick

From Addicting Info:

While the right-wing blamed the collapse on favoritism, and that the company was doomed from the start, checking on the history of the commodities market reveals another story. In 2006, when Solyndra applied for its loan, the cost of materials for the various types of solar panels was rather stable. What happened next, however, is what caused the whole system to collapse.

Guys with lots of money (and therefore lots to gain or lose depending on how things go) are always looking for ways to game the system.  Nobody doesn't know that.  If you think otherwise, please - having even a shred of decency or regard for humanity left in your being - avoid the use of tools and don't drive.  Stay inside at your computer until you learn enough not to be dangerous to the people around you.

These guys make big contributions to (ie: investments in) Congress Critters, and one of the perks they're paying for is access to inside information regarding markets and opportunities - as well as having a hand in shaping the policies that have huge effects on those markets and opportunities.

BTW - Free Market Competition?  Good for thee but not me, bumpkin.

So, you can stall the movement towards renewable energy and you can score points for the Red Team by making Obama look bad, and you can rake in a big pile of dough doin' it.

There is no soul and no honor in any of this.

A New One For Me

A friend of mine sent me the link to this thing.  I get a real kick outa the pure weirdness of Retro Americana.

(hat tip = JG)

Gettin' It Done - 26

26. Improved Food Safety System: In 2011, signed FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which boosts the Food and Drug Administration’s budget by $1.4 billion and expands its regulatory responsibilities to include increasing number of food inspections, issuing direct food recalls, and reviewing the current food safety practices of countries importing products into America.

Seems like your basic no-brainer, don't it?  Here's the problem with letting a free market take care of these things:  dead people.  

It makes perfect sense that any company is going to do whatever it can do to protect its reputation.  There's a solid incentive to do things right and to try to ensure the safety of your customers - the thinking is that if your product causes harm to your customers, you won't have customers for very long, and so the problem fixes itself.  But every time we've decided it's not necessary to be proactive about these things, we end up with the same result - dead people.

All these smart business guys keep reminding us how smart they are, but they seem totally unaware of one of the absolute rock-hard fundamentals of the production process - no matter what it costs or how long it takes, doing it right the first time is always quicker and cheaper than having to go back and do it again.  And it's no different when you apply it to product safety.  Prevention is far more cost-effective than remedy.

But here's the kicker:  BizGuy knows his math, and he actually is fully aware of the Prevention-vs-Remedy Formula.  He's walked himself thru the exercise and he's decided to attack the problem of Remedial Cost by purchasing a few Coin-Operated Politicians, who'll simply block the consumer's path to the remedy.  PR, De-Regulation and Tort Reform make for a winning combination.

Throw in some Union Busting and we're right back where we started 240 years ago.

Today's Prank

Try leaving this on some windshields at work or at the mall or whatever.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

Colbert

(hat tip = Crooks & Liars)

Hey, Willard

About that tax plan.  If you cut taxes 20% across the board, but you make it not add to the deficit by eliminating loopholes and deductions; uhmm, isn't that the same as saying you're gonna pay for your tax cuts by raising taxes?

And if the whole thing is revenue-neutral anyway, maybe we could just not fuck with it in the first fuckin' place.

Thank you.

Disparity Sucks

The usual way of things is for fewer and fewer people to gather more and more of the available power and wealth; while more and more people have less and less.  Eventually, the "lower classes" are left with nothing more to lose, which is when they turn into the mob and simply show up inside your gated communities to take what they want.

It's the "natural order"; Darwinian principles at work; that's just the way it is.  'Twas ever thus, and ever thus 'twill be.

Everywhere else in the whole world, and for as long as there's been even the barest hint of social structure, we've seen the same pattern play out over and over and over again.

But not here.  We're supposed to be the exception.

From The National Journal, via US Uncut:

Income inequality in America has reached levels not seen since the Gilded Age. As Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, noted in June, “America has the highest level of inequality of any of the advanced countries — and its gap with the rest has been widening.”

Gettin' It Done - 27

Remembering that nothing in Washington happens without the GOP saying OK at some point, Obama managed to get the new START treaty OK'd.  So lemme see if I've got the basic GOP position on armaments right.  We wanna limit the numbers of nuclear weapons and delivery systems - and we wanna commit to these limits as a way to demonstrate to the world that we're peace-loving and law-abiding, and we expect everybody else to do the same; because we believe that when we reduce the number of weapons in the world, the world becomes a safer place.  Is that about it?  You can see where I'm goin' with this cantcha?

The world is safer without so many weapons, but here in the US, we have to make sure that everybody in every saloon, every school, every library, bus station, every church is packin' a gat.  Cuz that's what'll keep us all safe.

They say that shit with a straight face too.

27. Achieved New START Treaty: Signed with Russia (2010) and won ratification in Congress (2011) of treaty that limits each country to 1,550 strategic warheads (down from 2,200) and 700 launchers (down from more than 1,400), and reestablished and strengthened a monitoring and transparency program that had lapsed in 2009, through which each country can monitor the other.