New Music

Jon Gomm - Ain't Nobody (Chaka Khan)



(hat tip = Little Green Footballs)

I can't recommend him for his singing voice, but the guy plays the fuck outa that git-fiddle.

Little Red State Fundy

A golden oldie from driftglass.

I'm not overly fond of the Scary Scenario.  Repubs use it all the time to spook people - trying to talk us into believing they've got answers to questions they're usually just yankin' outa their asses.  But I guess the difference here is that you can look at something like driftglass's Little Red State Fundy and see some real historical foundations for it.

So there's an element of "both-sides-do-it" - no denying that.  I just think it's important to remember always to test for False Equivalence.

Today's Cartoon

How We Do Things

Have you watched "the Sunday shows" lately?  Meet The Press and Face The Nation et al?   Does anybody watch that junk anymore?  I mean anybody who doesn't live and work in DC, or anybody who has any kind of actual life outside of politicking and/or keeping an eye out for the general douchebaggery that politiciking almost always leads to.

I was just wondering because of a piece by Charles Pierce:

But, as they say around the cool kidz table, people like Ms. Dowd set the agenda, and because the whole Susan Rice episode involves intimately the sacramentalized oozing of The Sunday Shows, there was a whole lot of Benghazi-ing goin' on, beginning on Face The Nation where former Prince Henry The Navigator foreign-correspondent Bob Schieffer somehow managed to pry the reclusive Senator McCain out of hiding to appear on the program. McCain promptly proved he is as shallow and muddleheaded as Maureen Dowd.

That little snippet makes it seem to me that David Gregory and Bob Schieffer are somehow considered important not so much as journalist watchdogs, but almost as another forum within government;  or maybe it's just that The Sunday Shows have become the Public Information Office for Capitol Hill.

I don't watch these shows anymore - haven't for quite a while now.  Partly because it's always the same people saying the same things, but mostly it got to where I tho't I was listening to a conversation that had nothing to do with me.  Like I'm just the guy serving the coffee at the Hangover-Recovery Brunch the morning after the usual Hearty Party for all these High Holy Pashas.

But what really cemented it for me was the advertising.

Boeing
General Dynamics
Lockheed Martin

Really?  How am I the target demographic for the F-22?  Am I supposed to rush right over to my local Amphibious Landing Craft dealer for...what exactly?  A test invasion across the neighbor's farm pond?  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over.

I think there's gotta be something else going on.  I guess it could be as simple as Power Talking To Power in a closed feedback loop that's so self-reinforcing that's it's almost impossible to break into it - or out of it - all I know is that it feels like I might as well be listening to Baghdad Bob.

Today's Time Suck

Wonderfully Worthless Websites (hat tip = JG)

Cat Bounce

Bury Me With My Money

Ringing Telephone

Giant Bat Farts

The Last Page

Today's Pix

Gun Control

...you're doing it wrong.

Healthy People

A pretty good point (from Wonkette):

Here is a lesson on capitalism and profitability courtesy four companies that refuse — REFUSE — to make sure that their employees are not handling your food with their tubercular hands.

Maybe next time you call ahead for a reservation, you should ask if all the chefs and wait-staffers have seen a doctor lately and if the owner of the joint is willing to guaranty you won't be infected because the pot washer working 29 hours a week at 8 bucks an hour couldn't afford to get a flu shot this year.

This whole stupid argument over Obamacare coming from some of these "conservatives" is just another great example of having people in charge of businesses who really don't understand the first fuckin' thing about business.

And this is what the first thing is:  If you don't take care of the people who take care of your customers, you won't have those customers for very long. (and I can't believe anybody would actually have to say that out loud - fuck)

New(ish) Music

Marc Cohn (yeah, I know - but try to ignore all the shit he's been known for)

The Krugman Speaks

I like Paul Krugman's stuff because it all seems to be totally reality-based.  He's a "leftie" (whatever that means), but his ideology doesn't get in his way.  And since he's engaged in a little thing called "science", it's generally a good thing to let the evidence lead you to a rational conclusion rather than trying to make the numbers fit a particular expectation of how you think the world is supposed to work.

Here's Krugman's whole post from yesterday's NYT:

Transatlantic Divergence

Deadline pressure, so not much blogging this weekend. But pursuing the theme that America is doing the least worst among major economies, here’s a chart I find illuminating:

In the early stages of the crisis, unemployment rose more rapidly in the US than in Europe. This mainly reflected differences in institutions: it’s much easier to fire people in America. From some point in 2010 onward, however, the US situation has gradually improved; initially some of the drop in unemployment was basically people leaving the labor force, but more recently there have been solid though modest gains in the ratio of employment to the relevant population (you have to adjust for aging).

Meanwhile, Europe has gotten much worse; now formally in recession, but the truth is that it has been going downhill all along.

Why the divergence? The obvious answer is that the austerity stuff broke out in 2010, and the austerians took over policy much more completely in Europe than in the United States.

That last paragraph is the main point.  And I think he's trying to tell us that if we give in to the siren song of Austerity, we just make it harder to get ourselves out of the hole we're in.  Also, I've heard others warning us against the effects of Shock Doctrine style economic policy.

We'll have to see, but it seems like Republican politics is not changing much.  I see the Benghazi crap as their attempt to manufacture a 2nd-term scandal for Obama, and now, with all this bogus posturing about a Fiscal Cliff (more like a short ramp IMHO) and talk of some Grand Bargain, they're trying to hang a major rap on him for a double-dip recession and whatever shitty thing that happens as a result of the sudden drop in Demand that happens when you make big cuts in federal spending.  And then, of course, as the 2010 mid-terms roll around, they make all the noise they can possibly make about how all the bad stuff happened on Obama's watch and we have to admit it's all about Obama's failed policy etc etc.