End of the month.
Please show our sponsors some love.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Happiness Is A Warm Putz.
Do you want this man armed? No. No, you do not.Frightening.
KNOXVILLE — Handguns could find their way onto Tennessee college campuses — legally — under one of the latest gun bills coming before the General Assembly.State Rep. Stacey Campfield’s proposal, scheduled for a hearing Wednesday before a House Judiciary subcommittee, would allow any full-time faculty and staff member with a valid permit to bring a handgun onto their public college campus.
“By banning guns on campus you are not banning the criminals,” the Knoxville Republican said Monday. “All you are banning is the people from being able to defend themselves.”
But University of Tennessee officials worry about the effect.
“Based on input of our law enforcement officials and people who we think know best how to provide safety on a campus, we don’t think it is a good idea,” UT vice president Hank Dye said. “We think it could open the door to a lot of things that are detrimental to general safety.”
Inevitably:
Yet, UT-Knoxville law professor and Libertarian Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds said he supports Campfield’s bill.“I have a number of students who are licensed to carry weapons and I’d feel safer, not less safe, knowing that they are carrying on campus. I certainly would feel safer if some of my colleagues were armed, too,” he said.
ooh, tough crowd!
Another day, another Teabagging LOL: the "Western Kentucky Tea Party" in Paducah, KY.
Folks, I've been to Paducah, Kentucky. Getting 200 homicidally angry right wing shut-ins to bitch about taxes and Obama in Paducah is about as impressive an accomplishment as running through an animal shelter wearing a sportcoat made of ham and getting the dogs to chase you. Paducah is the kind of place where they hate George Bush because he was a liberal.
Make It Stop.
Dear Andy McCarthy,
Using the deaths of 11 million people to make a point about a salary cap -- or, for that matter, waterboarding -- is not as clever as you think it is.
Ass. Hole.
Love,
TS
QOTD.
We’re in danger of creating a crony capitalism in which again and again and again, personal decisions are being made by bureaucrats and politicians that affect the lives of thousands of people without the rule of law. That’s a very dangerous environment.
Confidential to Angie Harmon.
We have no idea who you are.
No one thinks you're a racist -- just a stupid, d-list celebrity douchebag who's had enough botox to kill a horse.
Next?
Monday, March 30, 2009
Teabagger Epic Fail pt. 10374292
This picture is priceless. Priceless in a way that none of the other pictures of four yahoos standing around with homemade signs have been.
It's Only a Matter of Time...
Before National Review readers can pay for the privilege of fondling WFB's corpse.
Idiot.
This exchange on Bill Maher's show with Rapper/Actor Mos Def about the Taliban pretty much sets the standard for dumb and incoherrent [sic].
Says this guy:
Say what you will about Bill Maher, but he's about a million times smarter than Bill Whittle -- and considerably less crazy.
Palin throws a bone. A crazy, crazy bone.
Having long since lost interest in the welfare of Alaskans or governance thereof, The GovTard has dropped the last remaining pretenses of civic duty and is now governing solely for the purpose of setting up her 2012 kamikaze run at the White House. To wit, see what MudFlats has to say about her new choice for Attorney General.
Roger L. Simon: Still A Dick.
Roger Simon still thinks it's the height of cleverness to use the family troubles of Democrats as a cudgel with which to hit them.
Then:
I am trying to suppress my schadenfreude at the tragedy of the Gore family today, but I have to admit it’s difficult. I have always found Al Gore to be one of the most fatuous individuals on the national and now international scene - a phony scientist, a phony filmmaker, a phony Internet inventor, I could go on and on - and the fact that his son was arrested today with a pharmacy’s worth of painkillers in his car (plus a little grass) is no surprise. If the Gores were my parents, I’d want to medicate myself too.
Now:
Karma will not be kind to this man.Would having Joseph Biden for a father drive you to drugs?
Possibly.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Socialism!
There really isn't much difference between Limbaugh and Beck and elected Republican leaders.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
All aboard the USS Teabagger!
If you had the cash for an expensive cruise vacation, who would you share it with? If you're anything like Instaputz - and you are - you'd share it with none other than the cream of the wingnut crop.
For the price of a ticket starting at a mere $2500 (with the website encouragingly noting that "rates are being lowered", always a sign of healthy sales) you can go on the National Review cruise by Holland America. Yes, for less than $5000 you can grab a berth on the world's biggest floating sausage party. And once you're out in International Waters, well...wink wink! Oh, the sights you'll see.
Watch Karl Rove take a dip in the pool, layer upon layer of oily, crenulated back fat rippling in the Mediterranean breeze. Watch Yosemite Sam John Bolton chat idly with guests as he leans against the rails and wonder how you might effect escape if you pushed him overboard. Watch K-Lo be mistaken for prey and harpooned by a careless team of Norwegian whalers. Watch Rich Lowry awkwardly make love to the hot tub water jets as nearby guests talk about Palin 2012. Watch a sodden Jonah Goldberg hit on Tony Blankley in the mistaken belief that he is K-Lo while Blankely does nothing to disabuse him of the notion. Stumble into the wrong cabin at 4:30 AM to find Dick Morris and Cal Thomas locked in an enthusiastic but logistically complicated 69.
Yes, all this and more can be yours.
I almost feel like the liberal world needs to scrape together donations for a ticket and send someone undercover.
Friday, March 27, 2009
InstaPutz Quiz.
Without checking teh googles, answer the following question:
Out of what conflict did the term "mission creep" arise?
...Answer: Somalia
Bush's great victory in Afghanistan.
Where is all the anger from the Putzes and Malkins of the world for the disaster Afghanistan?
I'm Sure He's Being Ironic.
Fap fap fap.Robert Stacy McCain:
What I want to know is, when did you queers -- a term I use in that signifying radical postmodern transgressive sense, you understand -- stop being cool like that? Because from everything I see, all the intolerence, close-mindedness and judgmentalism nowadays is coming from you.
Yeah, that's right. It's like when the Germans went from being famous for beer and lederhosen to being famous for gas chambers and ovens. Ordinary gay people, I get along with fine. But ever since the Reagan administration, everything is about The Movement, isn't it?
"Gay" is no longer about disco music and sharing some butyl nitrite with a thirsty long-haired teenage dopehead while the Donna Summer thumps out of the sound system. Now, being "gay" is some kind of politicized identity (like being "Aryan") and the leadership of The Movement -- those Faggot Fuehrers and Dyke Dictators who want to tell you what to think -- spend all their time teaching people to hate anybody who disagrees with The Movement.
Quietly writing Reynolds/Horowitz slash fic
Putz plugs David Horowitz's latest repetition of the only (empirically baseless) thing he knows how to talk about, One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America's Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy. While the title seems long and cumbersome, it was chosen only because Horo-tard's original choice, AAAAAAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I AM FUCKING INSANE! HELP ME PICK THE UNDIGESTED CORN OUT OF MY CRAP! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!, was unavailable.
QOTD.
Sara K. makes me lol:
Five months after the end of the most comically horrifying Republican presidential campaigns in modern history, McCain/Palin staffers are still figuring out that Sarah Palin was kind of awful. Also, Levi Johnston should thank his stars that Governor Palin is not his mother-in-law, because if she is that passive-agressive with her friends, just imagine how insufferable she’d be with the guy who’s fucking her daughter.
Pantload Misses Freedom Fries, Nom Nom Nom.
Yes, because it was always a goddamn stupid name.
...Want further affirmation? PW's third-stringer is pissed about the name change, too -- so much so that she's wheeled out Debra Burlingame to bolster her argument. Q.E.D.
Goldberg in six months: "I warsh myself with a rag on a stick!"
"Card Check" bashing, Jonah? Really? I mean, this is what you have to talk about on 3/25/09? I understand that you don't leave your house very often, but living entirely in the world of the internet should make you more aware of the fact that your shrill colleagues wore this one out six months ago. Maybe a post about Kerry's Vietnam record for next week, big guy?
The overwhelming laziness that produces a post like this leads me to believe that by the end of the year we will see video of firefighters knocking a wall out of Jonah's house to remove him with a crane as he plaintively wails for someone to bring him a trash bag full of fried dough.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The Least-Threatening 5 Words In The English Language.
Courtesy of Moe Lane:
[D]on’t fuck with Mickey Kaus.
Breaking news! Researchers discover way to make Palin dumber.
Get her involved with Scientology. You know how the old saying goes, automatons love company!
And the Award for Biggest WATB Goes to...
"There are so many people I want to thank..."K. Daniel Glover for his groundbreaking work in, "The Quest To Right The Good Ship Obama."
[clap! clap!]
There's a lot of hilariously Special Olympics-level stuff here, but I'm particularly fond of these two sentences:
"Now, well short of the much-hyped, 100-days milestone of Obama's presidency, the media seem to be contemplating annulment, or worse, a nasty divorce."
and
"The mainstream media's goal now is not to serve as an objective and critical government watchdog; it is to get the Good Ship Obama back on the course they expected it to travel."
It must be fun to live in a world in which these two sentences are not contradictory. I want to go there!
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Stunning, and stunningly long
If you want to see the best, almost-in-plain-English explanation of the economic rationale (or total lack thereof) behind the toxic asset repurchase program, clear 20 minutes from your schedule and read this.
Obama's job sucks. Inaction is not an option and all of the options for action blow.
American Power calls me a "hardline radical."
Cute.
Meanwhile, the woman he's defending just called the Obama administration, supported by over 60% of Americans, an evil foreign enemy.
File under "Truth getting in the way of semicoherent right-wing bile"
Obama and his teleprompter gaffe.
Yeah, not so much. Nice try, though.
Shit So Stupid Even Goldberg Wouldn't Write It.
During slavery and Jim Crow, a number of blacks moved abroad, to Europe or Africa or the USSR, but again, these movements never gained much traction...
...Juuuust in case.
John Hinderaker, still an idiot.
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is one of Minnesota's most effective spokesmen for conservatism.I have nothing to add.
Well, except this...
Rod Dreher, Evil Piece of Shit.
Rod Dreher actually believes in the afterlife, so I hope he understands that when I say that my fondest wish is that his crunchy con ass should rot in hell for eternity, I am not speaking figuratively. In fact, I'm willing to entertain the possibility that Hell does exist, if for no other reason than that Rod will need a place to go when he dies and I don't want him in Brooklyn.
It cannot happen with enough haste.
If homosexuality is legitimized -- as distinct from being tolerated, which I generally support -- then it represents the culmination of the sexual revolution, the goal of which was to make individual desire the sole legitimate arbiter in defining sexual truth. It is to lock in, and, on a legal front, to codify, a purely contractual, nihilistic view of human sexuality. I believe this would be a profound distortion of what it means to be fully human.
....Well said, Bethany.
Our Commenters Are Funny.
Chin up, Dr Mrs Ole Perfesser. The day will come when a man will finally have the chance to be President, or Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or CEO of a major corporation, or Pope, or Perfesser of Law at a 4th-tier state school, and women will stay at home and bake cookies. But until that day, keep fighting the good fight.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
I guess "Internet Home of the Self-Loathing Schizophrenic" was unavailable
Read a teabagger whining about how the "MSM" didn't see fit to cover the huge (they claim 300 people, which means about 100) Teabagging in Ridgefield, CT.
Take extra enjoyment in the fact that said Teabagger represents "the internet home for the American gay conservative."
Yep.
Andy McCarthy, March 10:
Anyone who actually listens to Rush's show knows he's the anti-racist.
Rush Limbaugh, today:
Rush Limbaugh was at it again on Tuesday, "confusing" Barack Obama with Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, and referring to the president as "one angry guy -- his wife is angry as well."
Limbaugh went on to "accidentally" refer to Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, as "Barack Ogabe.""The standard of living has increased in places where there are basic free markets," Limbaugh said. "Where there aren't, of course the standard of living has declined, such as Zimbabwe... now run by Robert Ogabe. Ah -- it's Mugabe. I was confusing him with a well-known Kenyan named Barack Ogabe. This is Robert Mugabe."
In Andy's defense, they do look alike.
[via]
"He then let his commenters lynch me publicly..."
Two folks who are loathsome by even wingnut standards are hatin' on each other. Enjoy it while it lasts.
...Ow?
I guess it was only a matter of time after Roger L. Simon eliminated their means of support and adult supervision that they would go Lord of the Flies on each other.
But He Sure Pimped A Lot for Amazon.
BRET STEPHENS: Will Obama Listen to Iran’s Bloggers?
Just for kicks, I took a stroll through Putz's archives, looking for a single post in which exhorted Bush to listen to liberal, anti-war bloggers.
Um, yeah.
Peak Putz.
Is this the ultimate Putz post?
AT LEAST THEY’RE NOT FLASHING THEIR BOOBIES. I think we can all be thankful for that. Congress Gone Wild.
Maybe!
In a mere 19 words, this hits upon at least three* of the major themes from The Book of Wingnut: a) women-are-icky, b) fat people are fat, but especially Ted Kennedy, and c) laugh at the funny man with the brain tumor.
Toss in a heh indeed read the whole thing strange if true, and you're in business.
*There may be subthemes I'm just not seeing. Please note them in comments.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Shorter William Jacobson: LEAVE GLENN & HELEN ALLOOOONE!
How sweet.
Jacobson (I have no idea who he is) appears to think Putz and Dr. Mrs. Putz need defending.
The post seems mostly to consist of "Alex is a poopy head" --- but it's worth reading the comments.
"As to whether you "hate" Instapundit, you took a cheap shot at Glenn Reynolds and his wife. Just admit it."Again, here's the "cheap shot."
Some of the biggest proponents of the “Going Galt” bandwagon in the blogosphere and at Pajamas Media are Glenn Reynolds and his wife, both of whom have jobs (Professor of Law at a public university; forensic psychiatrist) that are dependent on public, taxpayer-funded institutions.Simply pointing out the irony that Putz & Dr. Mrs. Putz live off the public teat while pimping an astroturf campaign to PROTEST OBAMAS SOCIALISM!!!!1!! is "cheap"?
Going Galt & Teabagging: pure asshattery.
Indeed.I’ve been following the growing “Tea Party” and “Going Galt” movements with no small amount of amusement, in part because there is really just too much sweet, delicious irony surrounding both of these groups of people (who, I might add, are largely the same people). Here’s a few observations:
- The “Tea Parties”, of course, started springing up in response to Obama’s stimulus package, a package whose largest fiscal component is a tax cut that will largely benefit the people in the income brackets who make up the Tea Party movement. That I find funny.
- The folks in the blogosphere largely cheerleading the Tea Parties are the same folks in the blogosphere who cheerleaded the war in Iraq. So apparently, government intervention to the tune of $650 Billion is okay to spend when it comes to an unnecessary war that in no way advances American interests, but not okay when it comes to building bridges, cutting taxes, helping state governments meet budget shortfalls, or making sure that Americans don’t get covered in lava. Gotcha.
(Disclosure: At the time, I did support the Iraq invasion, which in hindsight was stupid. I am also skeptical about the stimulus package as passed. But I wasn’t opposed to a stimulus package per se.)
- Some of the biggest proponents of the “Going Galt” bandwagon in the blogosphere and at Pajamas Media are Glenn Reynolds and his wife, both of whom have jobs (Professor of Law at a public university; forensic psychiatrist) that are dependent on public, taxpayer-funded institutions.
K-Lo:Salad::Putz:This Poll
This poll may be statistically meaningless, but given the WSJ's reader demographics, it's pretty interesting.
Needless to say, I expect Putz will give the tea party "groundswell" more attention than a poll indicating that the percentage of people unhappy with the Geithner plan is approximately equal to the percentage that at the tail tend of the Bush term thought he was doing a good job.
Commenter Sucked Into InstaPutz Vortex.
Charles Giacometti and I have just returned from Vermont.
Jesse Taylor officiated.
He really showed me!
I'm baffled by this.
The way I see it, it went like this:
1. Assrocket & Malkin: There was no media coverage of teabag protests! Wah!
2. Blue Texan: Yes there was, here it is -- and by the way, you're pathetic.
3. Putz: Gotcha to say 'teabagging.' Heh.
What am I missing here?
Holy shitballs, K-Lo has Battered Woman Syndrome
Shell-shocked by repeated beatings from the right, K-Lo has finally snapped and gone completely Uncle Tom. Remember, people think domestic violence is OK because of feminism. Repeat until Rich Lowry approves and gives you a job.
Hehindeedy!
Via Oliver, this is pretty funny:
Oh, and of course, the most ironic thing of all is that the Ayn Rand Institute, named for the radical for capitalism herself (whom I’ve always liked, even when I disagree with her), has been getting a lot of media attention from the “Going Galt” cheerleaders lately. This amuses me because the ARI is actually a non-profit organization. Radicals for Capitalism indeed.
Congratulations, BT!
A proud recipient of a Putzalanche!
(And not a moment too soon, because FDL was really hurting for traffic...)
Sunday, March 22, 2009
VOTER FRAUD! FRAUD EVERYWHERE!
Looks like we finally found some of that voter fraud the GOP has been pissing and moaning about for years. The preceding indictment has been brought to you by ES&S Electronic Voting Machines!
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
I'm happy to help but...
It would be nice if the folks at MSNBC learned what "hat tip" meant.
My FDL post, from 12:45PM.
[See also]
So Cute.
K-Lo is so angry she's boycotting verbs:
[Notre Dame] took a giant step away from their identity as "Catholic." They rather be of this world than the one they supposedly exist to bring people toward.
That could well be the worst sentence in the history of the language.
Ron Rosenbaum attempts to talk sense to PJTV crowd
Comments/responses show predictable mixture of paranoia, blind rage which will eventually be directed at a Federal courthouse or abortion clinic, and 5th-grade writing skills.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Who will be the first to scream about 1938, Czechoslovakia and Obama's umbrella? There are so many options, but only the foolish among us would bet against the award going to someone from Commentary, The Weekly Standard, or one of the AEI "scholars," though Marty Peretz is always a nice dark horse in these Nazi-platitude contests.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!
Obama in his video had a lot to say about our “common humanity,” and — as if he were addressing, say, the government of Finland – dismissed “those who insist we be defined by our differences.” There were echoes there of another statesman’s remarks: “We are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace… “ That statesman, of course, was British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, upon his return from Munich in 1938 — and it can be found in the same statement in which Chamberlain promised “peace for our time.”
Never underestimate Claudia Rosett. The stupid is strong in that one.
...Heh.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Apparently every legal scholar on Earth was busy...
...so Hofstra University's law school brings in Glenn Reynolds as its "distinguished scholar in residence."
Either this was their 650th choice or Hofstra is a very bad law school.
OMFG.
The great Glenn Kenny left a comment at Roy's place that made me laugh so hard my face hurts:
Don't you just KNOW that right about now, Goldberg's staring into a tumbler of bourbon as a post entitled "Natasha Richardson Was Always Brain Dead" flickers on his screen, daring him to press "publish"?
A little perspective on the AIG bonuses.
Courtesy of the people who brought you the teabag movement.
Putz Flashback: The Start of the War.
E&P observes that on this day six years ago, Paul Krugman hit nearly every nail on the head in predicting what would follow. Yet consider the scorn he has had to endure from so many in the years since, who got it nearly 100% wrong.
Putz heaped scorn with regularity. As you can imagine, a look back at his output from March 19, 2003 is pretty goddamn embarrassing. However, it is also wonderfully instructive, as it encapsulates at least some of Putz's worst traits.
Pig ignorance:
TARIQ AZIZ: Shot while trying to defect, according to unconfirmed reports. I don't know how much credence to give this, but it's interesting.UPDATE: According to this report Aziz has defected, and is alive. Stay tuned. (LATER: Now the story has been changed, and says he hasn't defected, or been shot.)
ANOTHER UPDATE: Hesiod has a bunch of Aziz-related links, and suggests that the invasion is underway already.
Beats me what's going on. The fog of disinformation should be at its thickest right now.
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Diana Moon has more.
LAST ONE: Aziz is reportedly live on Baghdad TV pointing out that he's not dead and saying that people shouldn't believe such reports. Hmm. Maybe the whole thing was Iraqi disinformation.
Arrogance:
Personally, I think the French could have saved themselves a lot of diplomatic trouble by reading weblogs.
Naivete:
LOTS OF NEW WAR COVERAGE over at The New Republic, including this from Gregg Easterbrook, and this from Kanan Makiya.
And to think, a mere six years later Putz would change the course of media forever.
Dear Coach K, please STFU.
Another reason to hate Dook.
Didn't Coach K talk smack about Obama previously?
Casual accusations of insanity
We throw around words like "crazy" and "wingnut" when talking about the far-right on the internet, but such descriptive terms are largely figurative. Not with Pammy Atlas, though. I have no doubt that she meets every substantive criteria for being insane and belongs in a padded room where no one can hear her ramblings about birth certificates.
It's almost April. 2009. And she's still talking about an issue that even her own unhinged readership is tired of hearing about.
...TS INTERJECTS: ...but such descriptive terms are largely figurative. I respectfully disagree.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
What's really important
Right-wingers do such a good job of sorting through all the noise and finding the issues that are really important as we slide into a Depression. Like, you know, the status of National Prayer Day in light of an attention-seeking lawsuit by an atheist group.
Stay on top of that crucial issue, Alan.
Republicans Are Weird.
I'm glad that Rich Lowry finds the Red Cross report about how the U.S. tortured detainees "deeply disturbing," but this, frankly, is a little vexing:
I'm eager to hear what the other side of the story is—assuming there is one.
Does he expect Abu Zubaydah to admit, "Yeah, at first it really sucked, but eventually I sort of enjoyed it!"?
Why Is Jon Stewart Doing Obama's Bidding?
So confusing! I thought humor, much like reality, had a liberal bias!
Editing Goldblog.
I'm not sure what Jeffrey Goldberg is getting at here, in which he tackles the Avigdor Lieberman appointment.
It's a disaster because he's made himself into a racist.
I can't tell if Mr. Goldberg is suggesting that Lieberman isn't a racist, but has carelessly allowed the perception he is a racist to stick -- or, that Lieberman does, in fact, harbor racist thoughts, but can resist ("unmake") them if he so chooses.
I don't believe either to be true; Lieberman doesn't seem to be putting on an act. Either way, perhaps Mr. Goldberg would approve of some judicious sentence-tightening?
It's a disaster because he'smade himself intoa racist.
Fixed!
BREAKING: Rush Limbaugh, still massively unpopular.
19%.
Keep apologizing and groveling and kissing his ass, Goopers.
Erick Erickson pwned by Tbogg.
I'm not part of the list but I hear that they're going to..... [looks both ways and whispers] get a negro elected President.
No. Really.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
This is what happens when your blog is linked on Boortz.com
Look at the libertarians in the comments...they're so cute when they furrow their little brows and try to be witty.
Hey, Jealousy.
The secret of the JournoList is out and Jeff Goldstein is plenty pissed, I think, because his side is out of power, has no ideas, and has become is, essentially, a gaggle of losers who have become proficient at saying "no" in 25 languages. In other words, the kind of people who get their talking points from John McCain's Twitter feed and whose fallback position is "More death, please!"
Says Mr. Goldstein:
Honestly, I think someone somewhere must be able to leak the names on this list. Maybe we should put up a reward. It sure would be interesting to see how the strings are being pulled.
And yeah, it matters, because these are the very folks who helped sell the country of a slick talking, teleprompter-fed charismat who, now that he’s found his way to White House, has set to work paying back his ideological backers by trying to quickly and fundamentally transform the very spirit of this country.
Totally. But I fail to see the problem.
I Believe This Only Strengthens My Point!
Via the conspiratorial Putz, Mr. Jammie has a eureka! moment in which he discovers that
[Jon] Stewart's brother, Larry Leibowitz, is head of US Markets & Global Technology at NYSE Euronext.
"I wonder," says Mr. Jammie, "is [sic] this pompous poseur Stewart has ever disclosed his Wall Street connections to his audience?"
TS wonders two things: 1) Who cares? and 2) Doesn't Mr. Stewart's "Wall Street connection" (and all the nefarious, unsavory things this implies) give his anti-CNBC shows even more credibility, not, as Mr. Jammie suggests, less?
Birchers have gone mainstream in the GOP.
Heh:
Neiwert has made this point before. Today's GOP is akin to the lunatic Bircher fringe of the right-wing thirty years ago.The audience for Beck’s Friday night special were each given copies of two books. One of them was Cleon Skousen’s Five Thousand Year Leap. Skousen, who died in 2006, is one of the legendary cranks of the conservative world, a John Bircher, a grand fantasist of theories about secret conspiracies between capitalists and communists to impose a one-world government under the control of David Rockefeller.
There’s always been a market for this junk of course. Once that market was reached via mimeographed newsletters. Now it’s being tapped by Fox News.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Glenn Reynolds should post stock charts more often.
Putz ran a post blaming Obama for the stock market losses on March 9th.
Since then, the market is up nearly 700 points:
Keep it up, Putz! My 401(k) is getting happier.
Lunatic militia fringe has internet, understands trackbacks
Looks like the Fine American Patriots of Rochester found the comment section of our thread mocking their "rally." While the photo may appear to show a 15-person sample of the lame, the halt, and the ugly, rest assured that they actually represent a mighty movement of Real Americans who understand the American birthrights of Freedom, Liberty, Bitching about Taxes, Not Exercising, and Growing Pony Tails.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Cheney: Obama puts US at higher risk of terror attacks
America: No one gives a shit what Dick Cheney has to say.
I mean, seriously, who (if anyone) pays any attention to this ass clown? Who solemnly nods their heads and says "Yes, exactly!" when Dick Cheney talks?
"Standards."
Mark Danner's piece on the Red Cross report, which sheds more light on how the U.S. tortured Guantanamo inmates, is nasty stuff:
Beginning with the chapter headings on its contents page — “suffocation by water,” “prolonged stress standing,” “beatings by use of a collar,” “confinement in a box” — the document makes compelling and chilling reading. The stories recounted in its fewer than 50 pages lead inexorably to this unequivocal conclusion, which, given its source, has the power of a legal determination: “The allegations of ill treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill treatment to which they were subjected while held in the C.I.A. program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
Shall we revisit Putz's sage words from May 2004? Sure.
There are dark moments, however, when I wonder if the world doesn’t hate us because we hold the moral high ground, and if many wouldn’t breathe a secret sigh of relief if we started living down to their standards.
Hehindeed, amirite?
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Please, Go Galt Yourselves Dr. Helen & Instapundit
Indeed.None of the people Dr. Helen interviews is actually Going Galt. More to the point, neither is Dr. Helen. She claims to be "mulling over ways that she can "go Galt". Allow me to help her out (along with Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, et al.) To Go Galt, she should:(a) Identify those things that she does that are genuinely creative and productive. If there aren't any, then the fact that it will be difficult for her to Go Galt is the least of her problems.(b) Refuse to do those things in any way that allows society at large, as opposed to a small circle of like-minded individualists, to benefit from them.It really is that simple. If she and the other bloggers who are calling on people to "Go Galt" don't do this, the only explanations are that they don't have the guts to do what they are encouraging others to do, or that they recognize that nothing they do counts as creative or productive, or that they just aren't thinking about what they write.
Friday, March 13, 2009
C'mon Ezra.
This is a bit of an inside baseball observation, but it's becoming clear that the columnist with the best access to the White House is, improbably, David Brooks.The evidence Klein presents for this claim is pretty weak, IMO.
Indeed Times Infinity.
Remember this? Well, Joe Nocera says it better than I ever will. He says that while it's hard not to feel sorry for Madoff's victims, "one also has to wonder: what were they thinking?"
At a panel a month ago, put together by Portfolio magazine, Mr. Wiesel expressed, better than I’ve ever heard it, why people gave Mr. Madoff their money. “I remember that it was a myth that he created around him,” Mr. Wiesel said, “that everything was so special, so unique, that it had to be secret. It was like a mystical mythology that nobody could understand.” Mr. Wiesel added: “He gave the impression that maybe 100 people belonged to the club. Now we know thousands of them were cheated by him.”And yet, just about anybody who actually took the time to kick the tires of Mr. Madoff’s operation tended to run in the other direction. James R. Hedges IV, who runs an advisory firm called LJH Global Investments, says that in 1997 he spent two hours asking Mr. Madoff basic questions about his operation. “The explanation of his strategy, the consistency of his returns, the way he withheld information — it was a very clear set of warning signs,” said Mr. Hedges. When you look at the list of Madoff victims, it contains a lot of high-profile names — but almost no serious institutional investors or endowments. They insist on knowing the kind of information Mr. Madoff refused to supply.
I suppose you could argue that most of Mr. Madoff’s direct investors lacked the ability or the financial sophistication of someone like Mr. Hedges. But it shouldn’t have mattered. Isn’t the first lesson of personal finance that you should never put all your money with one person or one fund? Even if you think your money manager is “God”? Diversification has many virtues; one of them is that you won’t lose everything if one of your money managers turns out to be a crook.
“These were people with a fair amount of money, and most of them sought no professional advice,” said Bruce C. Greenwald, who teaches value investing at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University. Mr. Hedges said: “It’s like trying to do your own dentistry. It is a real lesson that people cannot abdicate personal responsibility when it comes to their personal finances.”
And that’s the point. People did abdicate responsibility — and now, rather than face that fact, many of them are blaming the government for not, in effect, saving them from themselves. Indeed, what you discover when you talk to victims is that they harbor an anger toward the S.E.C. that is as deep or deeper than the anger they feel toward Mr. Madoff. There is a powerful sense that because the agency was asleep at the switch, they have been doubly victimized. And they want the government to do something about it.
I spoke, for instance, to Phyllis Molchatsky, who lost $1.7 million with Mr. Madoff — and is now suing the S.E.C. to recoup her losses, on the grounds the agency was so negligent it should be forced to pony up. Her story is sure to rouse sympathy — Mr. Madoff was recommended to her by her broker as a safe place to put her money, and she felt virtuous making 9 or 10 percent a year when others were reaching for the stars. The failure of the S.E.C., she told me, “is a double slap in the face.” And she felt the government owed her. Her lawyer, who represents several dozen Madoff victims, told me he “wouldn’t be averse” to a victims’ fund
Even Mr. Wiesel thought the government should help the victims — or at least the charitable institutions among them. “The government should come and say, ‘We bailed out so many others, we can bail you out, and when you will do better, you can give us back the money,’ ” he said at the Portfolio event.
But why? What happened to the victims of Bernard Madoff is terrible. But every day in this country, people lose money due to financial fraud or negligence. Innocent investors who bought stock in Enron lost millions when that company turned out to be a fraud; nobody made them whole. Half a dozen Ponzi schemes have been discovered since Mr. Madoff was arrested in December. People lose it all because they start a company that turns out to be misguided, or because they do something that is risky, hoping to hit the jackpot. Taxpayers don’t bail them out, and they shouldn’t start now. Did the S.E.C. foul up? You bet. But that doesn’t mean the investors themselves are off the hook. Investors blaming the S.E.C. for their decision to give every last penny to Bernie Madoff is like a child blaming his mother for letting him start a fight while she wasn’t looking.
Diminishing returns
Looks like Ann Coulter, the woman who proved that it's possible to write a book without ever having read one, is having trouble finding enough functionally literate wingnuts to purchase her "new" book. Of course, one has to imagine that even the kind of troglodyte who would read her shit has figured out by now that everything she writes is exactly the same.
Also, plagiarized.
Bleg. (updated!!!!)
Please send pics of this:
New York City Tea Party
Location: New York, New York
A rally will begin at 10:00 AM at "Charging Bull" at the northern end of Bowling Green on Friday, March 13, 2009, to demand an end to throwing debt at debt BEFORE the markets do it instead in a much more final fashion. This march will proceed to the New York Stock Exchange and stop there for a bit, march on to Federal Hall, stop for a bit, then on to NY Federal Reserve Bank and stop for a bit, back down to Wall St via Pearl St. (so as not to miss the AIG bldg) stop in front of AIG bldg for a bit, then end back at the Bull.
Date: March 13, 2009
Time: 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM EST
Oh dear.
Says Roy:
We just ran down to Bowling Green, home of the Bull, to attend today's Tea Party protest. You may remember these are a big thing in conservative circles, and one in City Hall Park two Saturdays ago drew 200-250 people. This one drew a dozen brave souls, though there were a couple people who wandered in and out, so in the interest of fairness we won't make that a firm number.
[via]
Speck in Your Eye.
After using an untold amount of bandwidth on the minutiae of Trig Palin's provenance, it's a little rich for Andrew Sullivan to write:
Ross Douthat has a paper trail. Digging up college journalism seems a bit low to me, but, to be honest, if this is the worst they've got, Ross is fine.
Equally ridiculous: the notion that Douthat should get a mulligan for the stupid, venal shit he wrote when he was in college, simply because he was in college.
Speechless. Truly speechless.
This is so pathetic I can barely muster the courage to mock it - here's a photo of Wednesday's Teabagging in Rochester (amusingly described as "about 40" concerned citizens):
Thursday, March 12, 2009
What if you read about some politician in Iraq telling another he needed to "read the Koran."
You'd think, geez, those people need to modernize, eh?
And you'd be right.
Asks Sullivan:
The Bible is now the first requirement for a Republican leader?Yes. This has been another...
Corner Twofer.
1.
I guess conservatives think this play on words -- a conflation of Jesse Helms and President Inadequate Black Male -- is the height of humor. Surely Obama, too, would have called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress"; tried to stop the Senate from approving Martin Luther King, Jr. Day; supported the apartheid regime of South Africa; and blocked attempts by President Clinton to appoint an African-American judge to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Right?
Or not. Then again, Hitler was a liberal because he was a vegetarian, so what do I know?
2.
QOTD from our pal, Peter Wehner:
I thought Ari destroyed Matthews, and did so in a calm, factual, reasoned way.
Yep.
Confession.
There are exceptions, but for the most part I'm not sympathetic to the individuals and organizations that get screwed by Madoff.
As Mark Seal's VF piece makes clear, these folks never conducted any due diligence on Madoff Securities, never wondered why they were making money in down markets -- in short, never questioned a goddamn thing so long as, at least on paper, they kept getting an outsized ROI.
The lesson people want draw from this mess is that there's a greater need for regulation; I agree, but that's the easy lesson. It's more difficult to admit the obvious: that a lot of people, for a lot of years, essentially tossed their skepticism out the window because they kept receiving (bullshit) monthly statements that made them feel good.
Isn't this a problem, too?
Where's my damn CNN segment?
The person behind GoingJohnGalt.org is so sad it actually makes my ass hurt:
What a "movement!" Should we point out the daily stats for Instaputz? FireDog? Kos? BarelyLegal.com?UPDATE: We’re gonna hit 100 unique visitors today. Crazy. I feel like the unprepared host of a unplanned party, wishing I had more than this jar of olives, half a bag of Doritos, and a frozen pizza for my guests.
Their viewer really enjoyed this, I'm sure
Instarube proudly links to his latest tete-a-tete with Skeletor where boners go to die Michelle Malkin on PJTV in which they laud the Teabagging "movement" - 30,000 people nationwide, which is sad enough before realizing that number is wildly inflated. I'm sure PJTV's viewer enjoyed the discussion.
Being proud of one's gig interviewing Michelle Malkin on PJTV is like a band bragging about the fact that it has a house gig in Branson opening for Yakov Smirnoff. In Soviet Russia, tea bags you!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Annenberg InstaPutz Challenge.
The first one of y'all lovely people to get on Dr. Mrs. Putz's show with an utterly bullshit "gone John Galt" story gets a prize.
First prize: a t-shirt specially made for the winner that says "I Punk'd Putz."
I have defecated things that were smarter than Victoria Jackson
Does FOX actually think it helps conservatism to give camera time to this retard? She's obviously a big Atlas Shrugged fan:
Jackson: My motivation is gone, because he will punish me if I'm successful.
Motivation to do what, Victoria? Write that big screenplay with Julia Sweeney? Try to get a walk-on cameo in the next Tim Meadows movie? From the looks of it, your only motivation for the past 20 years has been to huff Scotchgard and make three daily trips to Old Country Buffet.
Chuck Norris talks secession
And my answer is, how soon can you start? If we can get Mississippi and Alabama to join, I'll start the damn revolution myself.
RedState: The Marines hate Obama!
The crowd that obsesses over 300/Lord of the Rings war porn* doesn't seem to know much about the Marines.
*$1 to Atrios.
Sucks for You, Teabaggers, #2.
Putz informs us:
TEA PARTY PROTEST IN ARKANSAS this Saturday...
The over/under is four attendees, mainly because there's nothing else to do in Little Rock on a Saturday.
...Previous.
Forward this to Glenn's boss
From personal experience I feel that conservatives in academia would probably get along splendidly with all of their colleagues if they weren't such insufferable assholes with planet-sized martyr complexes. What say we forward this snippet of wisdom to Glenn's boss at Knoxville Community College (formerly UT)? Perhaps Dr. Simek can explain the difference between a for-profit enterprise looking for handouts and a public educational institution. Or maybe UT can reject its federal funding and save cash by cutting all faculty members who can't pass Logic 102.
Bye, Glenn!
An unfortunate comeback
Ayn Rand and Objectivism are making a comeback on campuses - and boy is it fuckin' irritating.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Donations that make a difference
Since we all have a lot of money laying around these days, it's important to make charitable donations only to groups that really put it to good use. Like FredPAC.
Alternatively, you shovel the money into a raging bonfire. Same difference.
New Majority vs. Glenn Reynolds
PSJust sitting here watching a tape of Cantor on CNN this a.m. w/ John King, I have to say, I think the GOP is being foolish in using the stock market woes to hammer Obama.
Sure, his policies or lack thereof are part of it. But there are numerous other factors too (one being the tidal wave of redemptions hitting hedge funds which the media is either unaware of or loathe to mention).
But here's the thing. Putting aside the fact that the 21% decline in the S&P-500 since Obama's Inauguration isn't that much bigger than the 18% or so back in 2001 from Bush's Inauguration to this same point in time, what is the GOP gonna say when the market inevitably bottoms, turns and rallies with a vengeance (even if it's only a counter-trend move of several months)? Are they then gonna say, well ok, it looks like the market is showing that Obama's policies are the right ones and are instilling confidence?
Guess who looks like a putz today?
The Washington Generals scored occasionally, too
Anyone notice Putz's absolute boner for Chris Dodd (try a ctrl-f search for "Dodd" on his front page)? Yes, Dodd is in trouble. Yes, the GOP might actually pick up a Democratic-held seat in 2010. Way to go, guys! One pickup in three Senate elections is great! Read that last sentence in the condescending tone usually reserved for people who finish out of the medals at the Special Olympics.
But seriously, GOP, way to go! Too bad Dodd only holds one seat, or his potential defeat could make up for the fact that you can jam a fork in Specter, kiss Martinez's open Florida seat goodbye, and, well, if there's anything important Richard Burr (NC) wants to get done he might want to do it soon.
Democratic Pickups, 2006/2008: MT, MO, RI, OH, PA, VA (x 2), OR, AK, MN, CO, NM, NC, NH
Republican Pickups, 2006/2008: *crickets*....but Chris Dodd might have a challenger soon!
Click Yer Links, Putz.
On the surface, there's not much surprising about this:
MICHAEL YON: Victory in Iraq: Next Stop, Afghanistan.
Yeah, I know. What's funny is that Yon's own words inadvertently belie Putz's rah rah spurt! jingoistic tendencies.
Please keep in mind that whenever I publish in a magazine or newspaper, the editors chose the title and blurb.
Duh.
Roger Kimball tries to be funny, fails.
A "12-step plan" to wreck the economy. We should pay attention because this is one subject on which Kimball and his kind are clearly experts. I know I'm supposed to be snarky, but seriously, if I wanted to know how to fuck up the economy PJTV is the first place I'd go for information.
And Then We Mock Putz.
It's the circle of life, but with retards instead of lions:
UPDATE: See, here’s why I post about this stuff. Two hours after my write-up, Instapundit links Gateway Pundit with the headline “Still airbrushing Obama’s Wikipedia page.” And thus, a false story from a conspiracy web site gets promoted by a mainstream author and law professor.
Mr. Weigel has the good sense not to be surprised by this...
OMG we are going to war with Britain!
Wingnut meme of the week(end): Obama snubs Britain, our whitest and therefore most important ally! LGF announced "Obama Botches Meeting with British PM" while Frank Gaffney furiously wanked away with "Farewell to Britain," to cite just two examples.
My, after seeing those alarmist headlines I could not imagine what Obama had done. Did he refuse to meet with the Rt. Hon. Mr. Brown? Sever formal diplomatic ties with the UK? Convert the US Embassy in London into one of those half-KFC, half-Taco Bell monstrosities? Offer PM Brown $40 in lotto tickets for an hour with his wife? Press his nuts against a scale model of Westminster Abbey whilst shouting "SUCK THIS, QUEEN ELIZABETH"?
Turns out that reality is a little more prosaic. Obviously not the finest moment in the history of diplomacy, but not quite the War of 1812.
Hahahahahaha!
No, wait. I'm not finished.
Hahahahahahaha!
This is the biggest whambulance in the history of whambulances.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Like getting lectured on parenting by Chris Benoit
Sure, Benoit is an outdated reference at this point. But it's the first thing that comes to mind when I hear Jim Cramer lecturing us (and the President) on solving the economic crisis. Keep the hits coming, Jim. We await your wisdom with bated breath.
A battle of delusions
Tom Blumer of NewsBusters whines that the massive, well-attended Teabagger parties aren't getting enough media attention. Putz disagrees - they're getting lots of attention and really starting to make a difference! It's a pitched battle to see whose take can be more unhinged from reality.
Department of Redundancy Department
Check out "Patriots for America," now featuring 40% more eagles. I think there is an informal contest being conducted in the comments to see who can design the shittiest banner for Wednesday's Teabagging in Rochester (enjoy the weather, dicks!). So far this is the winner, IMO:
Also, this comment made my day and caused Blogger's spell checker to explode:
Comment by William L. Hart Jr. on February 26, 2009 at 10:23amGood luck with that.
I have had an idea that probably will work if we can pull it together and get'er done. A while a go i was sitting and a thought hit me. If everyone next time voteing would vote ONLY for anyone who is NOT an incumbant. All politics is local so start with the dog catcher and work up to the mayor. Vote them all out every election cycle and in 4 years, We The People would be back in charge of government.
Look Away, Look Away: Thomas Woods Returns.
Tom Woods, BT's old chew-toy, has a new book and a place to pimp it:
IN THE MAIL: Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse.
The forward is by Ron Paul (or maybe Lew Rockwell?), which gives Putz the distinction of promoting the work of a neo-Confederate and an anti-Semite in one shot.
Stay classy!
Law of large numbers
It is a fact that humans absolutely blow at estimating the number of individuals in groups, and determining crowd sizes at rallies is as difficult as it is controversial.
Many years in front of groups of people (in bands, as a teacher, doing stand-up) have exposed me to the common practice of doubling crowd sizes in hindsight. When the promoter tells you about the awesome show last night before a crowd of 200, there were 75-100 people there. Tops. No harm is intended, it's just something people do and we take these figures with many grains of salt.
Putz, on the other hand, isn't content to jack up his ridiculous Teabagger event crowds by a mere 100%. He says the event in Green Bay attracted 1200. Look at this picture (more, including their hilarious signs, here).
If that is 1200 people, I have a 5-foot cock. That is maybe 200 people judging by some of the other photos. Maybe. Here's a picture of the "400-500" attendees at the Lafayette, LA circle jerk:
Note the clever use of an old photographer's trick, taking the picture from ground level to minimize the rear of the crowd and make a small group look like a throng. And if you really want a giggle, check out this crowd of "75" in Salt Lake City.
Come on, Putz, this is one of the basic rules of showbusiness. Everyone expects you to make shit up, but it has to be at least plausible. Don't get greedy.
Introductions
What was once a dynamic duo is now a mighty troika. TS and Blue Texan have asked me to join the Instaputz crew. Let me introduce myself.
I am the person responsible for ginandtacos.com, quite possibly the internet's most complete synthesis of political commentary and dick jokes. I'm wrapping up a Ph.D. in Political Science and starting a gig as a real professor this fall...just like my idol, Glenn Reynolds. In fact I am exactly like Glenn Reynolds except I read books, I have shame, I can construct a basic logical argument using "facts" to support my conclusions, and I do not look like a cross between an extra from a IRS-themed porno and one of the jug players from the house band on Hee-Haw. Other than that, we are virtually the same person.
Like TS and Blue Texan, I simply love tearing right-wing media jackasses a new and entirely superfluous asshole. My favorite targets are, but are not limited to, Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, and pretty much anyone whose columns are syndicated on the intellectual Chernobyl that is TownHall.com. I'm thrilled to be here and I hope I add to your enjoyment of this site. Like a trip to a shady massage parlor, I want this chapter in Instaputz history to have a happy ending.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Burn in Hell, Rod Dreher.
From my point of view, both [murder and bisexuality] are violations of the moral order. Murder is unspeakably worse, but...
[via]
Saturday, March 07, 2009
It's a Boy!
Please welcome our newest addition to the blogroll, Fire Mickey Kaus.
I have a deep respect for anonymity -- "no shit!" he says -- but I really wanna know who's behind FMK. Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease let it be Bob Wright.
[via Kaus. To his credit.]
How Jim Glassman Got Skull-fucked By Angry Bear: A Tragiocomedy In 2 Parts.
2.
All right, let's treat it as a serious question.From ca. 1967 to ca. 1984, the Dow "appreciates" from around 874 to around 875. (Op. cit. Warren Buffett.)
Let's treat that as the equivalent of the Swiss Franc ca. 1971--an undervalued asset.
We move to floating FX rates under Nixon, and by 1974 Galbraith's daughter (iirc) is saying she wants to be paid in SFR/CHF {pick your abbreviation of choice).
From 1998 to 1999 alone, the DJIA appreciates about 18% (using the monthly numbers), while the lowest investment-grade (BAA) Corporate Bonds are yielding ca. 7.25-7.50%, and 10-year Treasuries are running 5.5% at the beginning of the year and close to 4.5% at the end.
So even if we're assuming a ca. 4% standard Equity Premium--ignoring transaction costs, as well as some regulatory restrictions on USTs that may distort a lot of the data, as per Mehra and Prescott, Epstein and Zin, et seq.--we're looking at a situation in the late 1990s that is closer to the 1971 USD than the 1971 CHF.
Not, in short, a situation where "three to five years" is likely to produce a near-trebling of the Dow. (By your own Equity Premium, that would require Treasury rates running ca. 50% in the longest case [5-year] scenario.)
If the 4% EP holds--not the way I would bet, but your mileage clearly varies--and the U.S. grows at 3% with no inflation, we would see 36,000 from the current levels around March of 2034.
Those of us who describe the Equity Premium Puzzle as the Phillips Curve of Neoclassical Economists will take the Over, thank you, recalling Robert Heinlein's old dictum: TANSTAAFL.
Subscribe to:
Comment Feed (RSS)
1.