Jesus Was Beast, Man

So, in the face of the criticism that they're not following the teachings of their savior, do these TheoCons change their approach?  No, of course not - they just change Jesus.  They change history all the time - why not simply redefine the "son of god" to fit their political narrative?



Oh yeah - please tell us General Boykin, if a real man (like Jesus) has bulging biceps and a thin waist and veins popping out on his forearms - and not the "effeminate" wuss you claim the church has turned him into - I guess I'm wondering why you're not trying just a little harder to follow that example?  Looks to me like you could benefit from lugging a few rocks around your own bad self.

You can't be like that Girlie Jesus, so you turn him into Hunk Jesus; and then you can't be like that Jesus either.  Fail at every turn.  Here's what ya do: head down to the bank, take out all your money, and then go buy yourself a fuckin' clue.

hat tip = Addicting Info

Unwitting

Remember "Total Information Awareness"?

It's been kinda interesting to hear how outraged people said they were when they found out NSA was scooping up emails and phone calls, and then to see how it's all but become a non-issue lately.  I'm not saying they should've done everything it appears they've done - there's a bunch of it that's flat out illegal, and I stand by my "fuck you, NSA" campaign all the way.  But really, how hard do we make those guys work, considering all the little pieces of info we leave lying around almost every minute of every day?



Privacy only works if you close the door and draw the curtains once in a while.

Best Be Doin' Somethin' About it

Paraphrasing JC Cregg: "Does it bother you at all that they have to stop every few minutes because somebody requires medical attention?"

KUSA - Denver Broncos safety Rahim Moore had surgery Monday morning for lateral compartment syndrome in his lower leg, interim coach Jack Del Rio said.

Moore is out "this week for sure, possibly longer," Del Rio said. He was experiencing pain during Sunday night's win against Kansas City.

Compartment syndrome occurs when pressure within the muscles builds. This pressure can decrease blood flow, which prevents nourishment and oxygen from reaching nerve and muscle cells, according to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.

"It's a new one for me. I'm learning about it. It's kind of one of these freakish things that kind of occurred," Del Rio said. "It can be a very serious injury and can lead to loss of limb or loss of life."

Concussions and Brain Disease and Crippling Joint Damage and Steroids and Thuggery and and and - I wonder if we're seeing the beginning of the end for football.

But then I get the feeling that it's all part of Bread and Circus - it keeps us occupied with trivial spectacle while our "leaders" busy themselves making our decisions for us.

Today's Pix

The KrugMan Speaks

Paul Krugman - NYT

Barry Ritholtz reminds us that we’ve just passed the third anniversary of the debasement-and-inflation letter — the one in which a who’s who of right-wing econopundits warned that quantitative easing would have dire consequences. As Ritholtz notes, they were utterly wrong. Also, rereading the letter now, you have to wonder what kind of economic model they had in mind. They asserted that:

"The planned asset purchases risk currency debasement and inflation, and we do not think they will achieve the Fed’s objective of promoting employment."

So they’d be inflationary without being expansionary? How was that supposed to work? There were a few actual economists in the group; do they subscribe to the doctrine of immaculate inflation?

When you get it wrong, you're supposed to say something along the lines of, "Oops - sorry - my bad", and then you're supposed to shut the fuck up for a while so people who haven't got it wrong can be heard.  That's the way I learned it; I'm pretty sure that's the way most of us learned it; so why do we continue to listen to these Wrongsters, and keep giving them any kind of platform to say wrong things?

Oh yeah - because it's not about getting it right, it's only about getting it "balanced".

Silly me - never mind.

BTW: Immaculate Inflation?  Fuckin' genius is all that is.

Today's Gun Freak

From our dear neighbor to the south:

WILKESBORO, N.C. — A man accidentally discharged his gun inside a Wilkesboro GNC store during a discussion about the second amendment, striking a printer, according to police.

According to a Wilkesboro Police Dept. incident report, officers responded to the GNC store on Winkler Street around 8 p.m. Tuesday.

A witness told police he was speaking to a customer and they were discussing second amendment rights and guns around 6:50 p.m. The customer then pulled out his handgun and accidentally fired a shot, striking a printer, the witness said.

The customer then reportedly told the worker “he could not go down for this.”

The customer was described as a white male, younger than 28-years-old, brown hair, brown eyes, 5’8″ and around 170 pounds. He left the store in an early 2000s model dark colored Honda Civic.

No injuries were reported.

Just remember - office machines can be dangerous and vicious.  Damned thug printer prob'ly had it comin'; it must've threatened the poor guy and he had no reasonable alternative but to stand his ground and shoot the thing before it inked him or paper jammed him or violently taunted him again with another indecipherable error code message.

One From The Rude Pundit

Hard to say it better'n this:

11/14/2013 Obama to Nation: Keep Your Fuckin' Plans, You Stupid Cowards:

In a sane era, not an ideal one, but a sane one, the President would have gone to congressional leaders and said, "Hey, what are some things we can do to make the Affordable Care Act work better?" Now, in the fantasy sane era - and, again, we're not saying it's some fuckin' "Kumbaya" era of holding hands, but just a time when people in the government actually want the government to, you know, function like a government - members of both parties would offer things that they would like to see in the law. Democrats might have said something about outreach. Republicans might have said something like "Why don't we let people keep their heath care plans?" Things would have been negotiated and the law would have been strengthened or, at least, smoothed up a bit.

Alas, we do not live in such an era. Instead, we must deal with the constant buzzing of our water boatman politicians. The water boatman is an insect that, relative to its size, gives off a mighty sound. It makes this annoying chirp/buzz by constantly rubbing its dick on its belly. There's your picture for the day: Ted Cruz grabbing his tumescent cock and scraping it back and forth across his hairy stomach as it emits a call for perverse teabaggers to mate with his narrow, self-serving ideology.

Instead of Barack Obama and the House GOP agreeing that the law is the law and making it function for Americans, we get the sight of Obama appearing before the press corps and saying, more or less, "Goddamn, I'm sick of you motherfuckers whining about your shitty ass health insurance getting canceled because your provider is just a bunch of sick, greedy dickheads who would murder you where you sit if it would squeeze one more cent of profit out of your useless bodies. You wanna cling to your high deductible, low benefit policy for another year because you're scared that the black man president might be right and all that Fox 'news' noise might be wrong? Fine. Fuck it. Kiss my ass and keep your shit plan. Don't come whining to me when it turns out that your insurer drops your sorry ass when you get too sick for it. You asked to be grandfathered in, so lick grandpa's balls and tell me how tasty they are now. Now, can we please talk about the fact that Republicans want to kick over 100,000 people who just got insurance off it?"

Imagine for a moment, just one clear moment, what would have happened if, after the law passed, Republicans hadn't been such total pricks about the ACA, if just a quarter of the votes to repeal Obamacare had been on things that make the law stronger (or even more Republican). No, they couldn't. That would legitimize the law and Barack Obama as president. They have to keep hitting at the ACA as if it's the last windmill in Spain. Just think, though, what would have happened if all states had set up their own exchanges, if they had accepted the Medicaid expansion, if, if, if. It wouldn't have been perfect, but at least it would have worked as it was created to work instead of the horrific Frankenstein monster of a thing it was forced to become. The only way not having a public option for insurance works is if the states acted responsibly. They did not, in a way calculated to undermine the President and a Congress from just a few years ago. Democrats got suckered, again, into thinking that Republicans would behave honorably.

If President Obama seems frustrated, it's because he should be. Used to be people gave a damn when a law was passed. They shifted their perspective and acted in concert with the law. If they disagreed with it, they elected new people who overturned it (if the courts wouldn't). The tactics used by the right on Obamacare would have made Abbie Hoffman at his most radical say, "Goddamn, that'll lead to anarchy." On January 1, there's probably gonna be hospital sit-ins or some such shit. And it's hilarious that the GOP is acting as if, pre-ACA, it was all free gold and pussy for people with health insurance, not that it was (and is) a cruel, callous, capitalist system that saw people routinely kicked off their policies for taking one too many pills or being a little late with a payment.

So can we move forward now? Is it possible to get to that place where we simply try to, for fuck's sake, get people some health care and not act like it's a privilege for the few?

When The Law Is An Ass

From The New Statesman:

The second kind of civil disobedience, which is the one that I wish to consider, is its employment with a view to causing a change in the law or in public policy. In this aspect, it is a means of propaganda, and there are those who consider that it is an undesirable kind. Many, however, of whom I am one, think it to be now necessary.

Many people hold that law-breaking can never be justified in a democracy, though they concede that under any other form of government it may be a duty. The victorious governments, after the Second World War, reprobated, and even punished, Germans for not breaking the law when the law commanded atrocious actions. I do not see any logic which will prove either that a democratic government cannot command atrocious actions or that, if it does, it is wrong to disobey its commands.

It's a bit dense and wordy and even a little passive, but the guy makes a point worth remembering.

Perception Drives Outcome

Above all - never admit you were wrong.

Ain't It Kinda Funny

The Richmond Times-Dispatch ran a "story" today telling us we've spent almost 600,000 Virginia Taxpayer Dollars on lawyers' fees in the littlest big-ass scandal we've seen in a while involving Governor Bob McDonnell - ol' Vaginal Bob his-own-bad-self.

Virginia taxpayers are on the hook for more than $570,000 in legal bills in connection to a criminal case involving a former Executive Mansion chef and related gifts investigation of Gov. Bob McDonnell.

The story dutifully reports the doin's and goin's-on at the AG's office - mentioning the Virginia Attorney General's Office a good half-dozen times in a 300 word story without once actually using the name of Ken Cuccinelli, so I'm just saying it strikes me as being a little peculiar since The Kooch happens to be the current AG for The Commonwealth of Virginia; and he happens to have crapped out in his campaign to be Governor, partly because of his connection to Vaginal Bob; and he happens to be actively fund-raising for a Republican candidate who's locked in a recount battle to settle last week's election, and seems to be a totally ethics-averse coin-operated politician who makes a habit out of wearing his ass for a hat.

Well, OK - and plus also too, I'm saying: Librul bias in the mainstream media my dyin' ass.  How could one "newspaper" make it any more obvious that it's in the pocket of one particular political party?

Is it really just too much to ask that you guys do your fuckin' jobs?