Vintage Market Bullshit

Back when humans rode dinosaurs and God was busy stuffing fossils into geological strata as part of his elaborate plan to punk scientists, I took Western Civilization I from a Calvinist named Ken Meier. He started the course by handing us a quote and asking us to date it. It was one of those “damned kids these days” moans. I, being prone to reason and highly suspicious that this was a major set-up, plumped for the 1500s while most folks in class were guessing the 1950s and Professor Meier just smirked at us all.

I was off by 2,000 years: it was from an ancient Greek, and it sounded exactly like what every generation of adults has said about every generation of teens since time began.

One day, I may extract myself from the gravitational anomaly otherwise known as my chair and go look the quote up for you. Today is not that day. But it comes to my mind because I’m in the midst of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, and it’s a long treatise on “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Digby’s “Deep Insight” source has a stellar example:

The Fed has now become a merger and acquisitions specialist for investment banks. After the public has been put on the hook for $29 billion in highly questionable securities in the Bear Stearns debacle, there is an acknowledgement by the Treasury that there should be just a bit more regulation. Maybe start with minimum capital requirements in the investment banks and hedge funds. The political system has allowed this financial behavior to flourish, so now there are fig leaf reforms proposed by the Bush Administration. John Kenneth Galbraith once said that once the last of those who steered the country through the financial regulatory framework after the Depression were dead, the financial system would find a new way to implode. Capitalism, he explained, could not help itself.

The financial sector broadly defined is now over 20% of the economy. The addiction to risk and debt in the financial sector has dragged down the whole economy. Miracle returns at some private equity firms and hedge funds are built on cheap leverage. Meanwhile, the small investors saving for retirement are like lambs being led to slaughter. When measured in Euros since the peak in 2000, the Dow has lost nearly 40% of its value. Many of those baby boomers can forget about those extended European retirement trips.

This kind of insanity has been happening since markets came into existence. I refer you to Tulipmania, the South Sea Bubble, and this depressing list of notable stock market crashes. In America, a bubble sprang into being nearly simultaneously with the creation of the First Bank of the United States:

“When trading in shares commenced, prices promptly took off, buoyed by a money fever such as Americans had never witnessed…. So frenzied was the trading in scrip that many investors doubled their money within days, and the resulting madness was dubbed “scrippomania.” [Chernow, page 357]

Revolutionary war soldiers who had been paid in bonds sold those bonds to speculators for a pittance: one of the first American instances of “small investors” being “led to slaughter,” as Deep Insight so starkly puts it. Speculators made money. The country went apeshit. Thomas Jefferson, a dyed-in-the-wool misty-eyed agriculturalist, moaned. He frequently denounced the stock market as “gambling.” He complained to George Washington that paper money was “withdrawing our citizens from… useful industry to occupy themselves and their capitals in a species of gambling, destructive of morality, and which had introduced its poison into the government itself.” James Madison was beside himself with outrage. Invective and accusations flew, political parties were born, and North and South squared off as Alexander Hamilton played Federal Reserve with the economy and stablized the markets nearly by himself. Under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street, a group of gentlemen met to bring some sanity into the markets and created the New York Stock Exchange.

What’s happening in the markets now has happened before. It’s pure vintage bullshit.

What’s the history we’ve learned over and over? Markets crash. Perfect laissez faire leads to rich bastards and wanna-be-rich-like-now bastards creating chaos. The government has to step in to pick up the pieces. Reactionaries wish we’d all go back to milking cows. Small investors get dismembered and left wondering where all their fucking money went. Oh, and when you remove government regulation, people get incredibly stupid and think that things like rampant speculation and subprime mortgages are fantastic ideas. This time, the bubble won’t burst! Ohshit.

I imagine Ken Meier’s still wearing that smirk. It’s the history professor’s patented “nothing new” smirk, and it makes me wonder: when the fuck are we going to learn?

Vintage Market Bullshit
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And Now, A Note From Our Senior Teen Correspondent

Editor’s note: I met Kaden a few years ago in a writer’s forum, and he blew me away. It’s rare for an adult to actually meet a teenager who can think rings around the smartest people you know. So we became fast friends, and I’ve almost given up arguing with him because he’s too frequently right. It’s with great pleasure, then, that I extract the post he so cleverly tried to hide in the comments and emblazon it across the face of En Tequila Es Verdad for all the world to see.

I’m reasonably sure he was joking about being our Senior Teen Correspondent, but I’m making it official. At least until I have to give way to Chronos and appoint him as our Senior Young Adult Correspondent.

Without further ado, then, I present you Kaden’s report on abstinence-only education and the general fuckwittery thereof.

Being something of the Senior Teen Correspondent, I thought I’d shed my view on things.

SOME parents – I repeat, some – know what teens are doing these days. Some of _those_ parents know how to address those topics and have a mature, constructive discussion; but its only a small percentage of that smaller group of parents who also can summon up the courage to initiate that kind of discussion with their teen.

Other parents are about as clueless as a color-blind bomb defusal team. Abstinence-only education has NEVER worked. Of course, even in-depth sexual education won’t stop a hormonal teenager from doing what they really want to be doing, but at least they have an idea of what could happen.

Clearly, though, the combination of sex ed, increased parent/child discussions, media coverage and a general increase in public knowledge, has had positive effects. Teen pregnancy rates across the U.S. have declined since about the 90s. Though, unfortunately, some statistics say that its started to level out and climb back up again in recent years.

In any case, the question at hand. Should abstinence-only education be taught in schools? No, and for a few reasons.

One, the saturation of media in our culture makes that level of sheltering nigh impossible, and even dangerous if it were actually achieved. Things like YouTube, the limitless number of pornographic websites, late-night HBO, and just about any music video with the images or words: bling, pimp, ho, playa/er, gangsta/er, rap.. well, you get the idea. It all educates us youngin’s, in the wrong ways, if we were never educated any other way.

Two, on a more positive note, the culture has started to shift its paradigm as well. Condom commercials, which are frequent in most European locales, are finally starting to make their way into our networks. The younger age brackets right now are starting to learn things that we, as parents, will be able to more effectively teach our kids than our abstinence-fed parents were, by and large, not able to do for us.

Three, if you learn only one thing about us, its that the more obviously you try to hide the christmas presents, the more we’ll start snooping around in closets.

Four, sex ed does actually help. I go to a high school five days a week. I see it every day. Between rock stars, sex idols, playboy and, of course, the internet, we are one horny bunch of people. However, programs like Planned Parenthood, where we can get free, confidential contraceptives, means that its all fun and no kids. At least, more often than before.

So look, the evidence that sexual education is a positive, if not wholly effective method, is irrefutable. To try to deny that is just..

Wait, who are we arguing with?

Republicans? Oh..

Fuck.

-Kaden, Senior Teen Correspondent, En Tequila Es Verdad

And Now, A Note From Our Senior Teen Correspondent

Happy Hour Discurso

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

The Carpetbagger Report has a quick overview of “red meat” issues for both parties:

So, for Dems, throwing red meat to the base is taking on wage discrimination and insurance companies denying coverage. For Republicans, it’s constitutional amendments on gays and the flag.

Someone’s priorities seem to be a little fucked up. Maybe I’m just sheltered, but I haven’t had anyone tell me that they put flag protection above a livable wage. Why do people vote Republicon, again?

In related news, Republicons not only have difficulties with priorities, they seem to have a congenital inability to understand science:

Programs teaching U.S. schoolchildren to abstain from sex have not cut teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases or delayed the age at which sex begins, health groups told Congress on Wednesday.

The Bush administration, however, voiced continuing support for such programs during a hearing before a House of Representatives panel even as many Democrats called for cutting off federal money for so-called abstinence-only instruction.

[snip]

Rep. John Duncan, a Tennessee Republican, said that it seems “rather elitist” that people with academic degrees in health think they know better than parents what type of sex education is appropriate. “I don’t think it’s something we should abandon,” he said of abstinence-only funding.


That’s the most entertaining definition of elitist I’ve heard so far. An “elitist” is someone who actually knows what the fuck they’re talking about compared to, oh, say, John or Jane Public. Lemme tell you something from experience: some parents don’t have the first fucking clue about what’s best for their kids. They have a completely pollyanna view of what their darling angels get up to, and no amount of reality changes their minds. Back in the day when my high school classmates were trying to get AIDS education on the agenda, their parents were saying, “But our kids don’t have sex.” This, mind you, is when an average of five girls were running around pregnant out of a student body of 500. Females are half a given population. You do the math and tell me nobody’s having sex.

But for Republicons, anyone with a better understanding of reality than them is “elitist.” Feels good to be an elitist, don’t it?

Speaking of the terminally reality-challenged, John McCain’s cunning plan to assist struggling families in our tanking economy is – wait for it – to offer “choices” on such things as education and health care, instead of providing what he likes to call “hand-outs.” He further shows his spectacular lack of common sense by making this little speech before people who wouldn’t be able to afford those choices should they be presented. Carpetbagger turns him over a knee for a well-deserved spanking:

So, on the one hand, McCain wants to cut taxes dramatically to benefit “corporations and upper-income families,” and on the other, McCain wants to cut federal spending. Since spending cuts for the military and national security are off the table — indeed, he’s vowed to
increase spending on both — it would necessarily mean McCain would make billions of dollars in cuts in spending that would benefit those who aren’t in “upper-income families.”

But if you’re in Appalachia and living in poverty, forget about a “handout.” In a McCain administration, they’re reserved for the same wealthy interests that have benefited throughout the Bush years.

What’s more, in about five months, Republicans will tell these same people in impoverished areas that they shouldn’t even consider voting for Barack Obama (or Hillary Clinton) because what really matters are flag pins. It’s like an arsonist telling a family whose home is on fire not to trust the man outside in the firetruck.

Indeed ’tis.

Happy Hour Discurso

(not)My God, Are People Really This Dim?

I dropped by Spam Central, otherwise known as the inbox to my actual website, and came across this:
As if I’m going to read that subject line and think, “Yes, me! Yes! Glen Danzig wrote to me, and he wants me to have a bigger penis! He knows all the secrets!”

According to my inbox, I could have the biggest dick in the universe to compliment my enormous tits and the beautiful fake Rolex on my wrist.

Are people really this fucking pathetic?

(not)My God, Are People Really This Dim?

Dear Media: Stop Sucking

There’s not a day goes by where my blood pressure isn’t raised by media asshattery of some description. They ignore issues that directly threaten our Constitution in favor of the latest celebrity crotch shot. They pass over Bush approving torture and obsess over the morning beverage choices of a certain presidential candidate. They yammer endlessly about ridiculous shit, and when someone calls bullshit, they snivel, “Bu-bu-but that’s what the American public wants.”

No, we fucking well do not want. That’s what you decided we wanted, and no matter how often we tell you otherwise, you choose not to listen, you ignorant, pompous fools.

Paul Waldman has your number:

Reporters will choose to write about flag pins. They will choose to write about whether some catastrophic, heretofore hidden character flaw has been revealed by a comment a candidate made, or by a comment somebody who knows the candidate made. They are not merely onduits for the campaign’s discourse, they create the campaign’s discourse, as much as the candidates themselves.


I think there are a lot of reasons for the breakdown in American intelligence and ability to handle pieces of information larger than a soundbite (Religious Right, I’m looking at you. Yes, that is my middle finger shoved up your left nostril). We’re busier, we’re more distracted, and we’re distracted by the newest shiny objects, but you know who’s habituated us to bullshit masquerading as news? The fucking media, and their far-right handlers.

Kids who grow up in abusive homes think the abuse is normal. They think that’s how everybody acts. People who are fed nothing but pap by the nation’s media think pap is all it’s about. They don’t know there’s an alternative. If the media stopped spoon feeding the lowest fucking common denominator, then the other denominators might smarten up a bit. And the denominators have discovered this wonderful thing called the Internet that’s given them a window into another life. They’re discovering the abuse isn’t normal. They’re discovering there’s things like substantive issues and world opinion. They’re hungry for steak. The media keeps feeding them pap.

Just because starving people eat what you give them doesn’t mean it’s what they actually want, you stupid fucking morons.

Steve Benen over at the Carpetbagger Report gets to the crux of the matter nicely:

To me, there are two key problems with the media’s emphasis on trivia, mini-controversies, and the buzz of the day. The first is emphasis — I know there’s going to be some interest and coverage of some minor flap or another, but on a daily basis, it’s wildly disproportionate. That was one of the jarring things about last week’s debate — not that there were some questions about the various distractions, but that there were 15 questions about the distractions that constituted the entire first half of the event.

The second is that, too often, the media takes trivia and decides it really isn’t trivia at all. Instead of mindless coverage of some inconsequential flap or gaffe, an outlet or media personality will insist that the flap or gaffe deserves to be elevated into a national controversy, worthy of serious and genuine analysis. So, when Obama bowls a 37, it’s not just a punch-line or the subject of good-natured ribbing, it becomes an excuse to scrutinize Obama’s manliness and his ability to connect with small-town voters. If he orders orange juice at a diner, it’s the same thing. Clinton’s laugh drew similar scrutiny, as did the price of Edwards’ haircuts.

It’s not enough to highlight the sideshow; the media wants people to believe the sideshow is a serious issue. That’s the problem.


Sideshows were never meant to be the centerpiece of the circus. That’s why they’re sideshows, you see. It’s time our media realize that. To help them along, I have a not-so-friendly message:

You have a choice in the matter: you can choose to continue your decline from watchdogs of democracy to Fifi the Performing Poodle, or you can consult a good proctologist to have your heads extracted from the right wing’s colon. Seems to me the choice should be easy.

Dear Media: Stop Sucking

The 28-Percenters

Tristero over at Digby’s explains why we shouldn’t be heartened that Bush has the lowest approval rating of any president ever:

Bush At 69% Disapproval. That’s the highest ever disapproval for a president. And 28% approve.

You may think that sounds like very low approval but it’s not. Actually, it’s disturbingly high. Let me explain by way of an example.

You’re driving down a highway, minding your own business. However approximately 28 of every 100 drivers hurtling towards you at 55 to 65 mph plus are so utterly unhinged from reality they actually think Bush is doing a good job. Your life is in their hands..

When you put it that way, yeah, 28% is awfully damned high. And they’re probably the reason Seattle’s smelled a little strange lately. Today’s Seattle Times explains why:

A couple of months ago, the U.S. Border Patrol began occasional “spot checks” of every vehicle and passenger arriving in Anacortes off state ferries, the lifeline between these islands and the mainland.

[snip]

San Juan Islanders are used to customs inspections in Anacortes if they take the ferry that comes from Sidney, B.C. Before now, though, they were never subjected to checks on domestic ferry runs.

That changed in February, when federal agents started corralling everyone off domestic ferries into a fenced-off area in Anacortes and questioning them about their citizenship. It now happens once, maybe twice a week; no one has any way to know if they will be stopped.


No wonder the islanders are bandying about terms like “police state.” No wonder something stinks to high heaven. Let me not put too fine a point on this, my darlings: The United States Border Patrol is now doing border checks on domestic fucking ferries.

Oh, they have sweet things to say, like how they’re protecting us all from the mean nasty terrorists who might sneak in through the San Juans, but you know and I know they’ve dropped a steaming pile of bullshit on us and are now claiming it’s a rose. Let us pause for a moment and remember just how many other Constitutional principles have been eviscerated in the name of “protecting us from terrorists.” Now let us reflect on how totalitarian states are created.

That’s right. Freedoms and rights are gradually eroded in the name of security, and then one day you wake up with a dictator in power and no power to fight back.

In my own fucking city, this happens. Only the 28-percenters would think this is a great idea and a sound use of government power.

At least the ACLU was invited in and is now diligently sniffing. Methinks it’s time to get myself that membership card.

Speaking of totalitarian states, what do the folks at the top got that the folks on the bottom have not? That’s right. Bags and bags of money:

But McCain’s still in touch with the common muck, right? Wrongo:

Standing before a nearly shuttered factory pocked with broken windows, John McCain on Tuesday urged Americans to reject the “siren song of protectionism” and embrace a future of free trade.

He used his own recent political fortunes — a dramatic fade followed by an unexpected comeback to secure the Republican presidential nomination — to illustrate that depressed Rust Belt cities such as Youngstown can have bright futures.

“A person learns along the way that if you hold on — if you don’t quit no matter what the odds — sometimes life will surprise you,” McCain said.

Did the campaign not appreciate how jarring the juxtaposition would be? He’s talking about the benefits of existing trade policy in front of a
factory that’s closing after the implementation of existing trade policy. He’s a multi-millionaire telling factory workers to “hold on” and wait for “surprises,” apparently not aware of the fact that those are the last five employees of a factory that had more than 100 employees a few years ago.


No, CB, the campaign did not appreciate the sheer magnitude of fuckwittery choosing that location displayed, because they are the cream of the 28-percenters, and they share the same deep connection to the common folk that Marie Antoinette did when she said of starving peasants, “Let them eat cake.” She said this not out of petty spite, as is so widely believed, but because in her world, if you ran out of bread, there was always cake available. She could not conceive of a world without cake.

Neither can the 28-percenters.

The 28-Percenters

Happy Hour Discurso

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

He can write memos about torturing people, and he can talk to the media about it, but when Congress cordially invited John Yoo to testify about torture in front of the House Judiciary Committee, he’s suddenly mute (h/t to Carpetbagger):

In a letter, Yoo’s lawyer told Conyers he was “not authorized” by DOJ to discuss internal deliberations.

“We have been expressly advised by the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice that Professor Yoo is not authorized to discuss before your Committee any specific deliberative communications, including the substance of comments on opinions or policy questions, or the confidential predecisional advice, recommendations or other positions taken by individuals or entities of the Executive Branch,” Yoo’s lawyer, John C. Millian, wrote in a letter to Conyers.

Millian also noted that Yoo was involved in a lawsuit over the legal memos and that it would “not be appropriate” for him to testify while the litigation was pending.

Funny how shy they get when they realize that there might be legal consequences for breaking the law, innit?

And speaking of folks in our federal government who are a little chary about telling the truth, the Veteran’s Administration may have, you know, kinda forgotten to mention just a few suicides among vets:

WASHINGTON — The Veterans Administration has lied about the number of veterans who’ve attempted suicide, a senator charged Wednesday, citing internal e-mails that put the number at 12,000 a year when the department was publicly saying it was fewer than 800.

“The suicide rate is a red-alarm bell to all of us,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. Murray also said that the VA’s mental health programs are being overwhelmed by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, even as the department tries to downplay the situation.

“We are not your enemy, we are your support team, and unless we get accurate information we can’t be there to do our jobs,” Murray told Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Gordon Mansfield during the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing.


How the fuck can they downplay this? By my calculation, there’s an 11,200 difference between their public and private figures, and my senator’s a lot better at math than I am. Note to the VA: if you’re going to fudge figures, you might want to make it a little less fucking obvious.

Speaking of people who haven’t mastered the art of the plausible lie, let’s see how CNN’s new anchor, former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, handles the truth:

April 2008: Snow told Dennis Miller that Barack Obama voted “present” upwards of 160 times in the U.S. Senate. But, OH NOES! It turns out he never did, ever, not even once!

December 2007: Snow goes before the graduation ceremony at Oklahoma Christian University and tells them that there is a “War on God” going on the United States, and that “The average Iranian is more Pro-American than virtually any college faculty in this country.”

And maybe CNN should have vetted Snow a little better, because in the same month, Bill O’Reilly told Snow, “But you can’t go over to CNN. I mean, that’s the devil over there. You can’t. You know. You’re a religious guy. You can’t go into the pagan throne over there.”

July 2007: Snow assesses the surge thusly: “I think what you’ve seen is a declining level in the overall pace of attacks.” All true, so long as by “declining” you mean to say, “Why won’t they stop attacking us? Didn’t we tell them that the Surge was working?”


Ooo, not too good. And The Huffington Post has much, much more! Somehow, I don’t think his historic challenges with understanding reality are going to get any better now, do you?

And people wonder why I don’t watch CNN anymore. It’s become the Conservative No-news Network.

Happy Hour Discurso

Expelled Brings the Kooks A-Runnin'

Over at Pharyngula, PZ’s thrown some creationist chum in the water. It’s really not pretty: theists don’t hold up well against science advocates, rational thinkers, and atheists who can quote the Bible chapter and verse.

But before you feel sympathy, remember that the dumbfucks brought it on themselves:

A fair number of creationists must be leaving a certain propaganda movie and getting on to the internet to find targets of their ire, because I’m getting a little surge in hate mail — mostly short, petty whines and
accusations.


[snip]

Creationists, much as I’d love to smack down every one of your silly arguments, I can’t possibly do it one by one. Hang around, ask questions in the comments, and take your turn: we’ll eventually get around to dismantling your ludicrous claims.


The fools took him up on that offer. They found out there’s no “eventually” when it comes to Pharyngula readers: the dismemberment is immediate, vicious and complete.

Some other deluded fuckwit sent Michael Shermer a love note that showed just how wide he’d opened his mouth when the Expelled crew ejaculated into it:

Now I truly understand who you atheists and darwinists really are! You people believe that it was okay for my great-grandparents to die in the Holocaust! How disgusting. Your past article about the Holocaust was just window dressing. We Jews will fight to keep people like you out of the United States!

Richard Dawkins was kindly enough to post an open letter to him and to all others who might have swallowed such excretions:

Dear Mr J

Michael Shermer forwarded me a letter from you which suggests that you have unfortunately been taken in by Ben Stein’s mendacious and/or ignorant suggestion that Darwin is somehow to blame for Hitler. I hope you will not mind if I write to you and try to undo this grievous error.

It’s worth reading in full. Unless, of course, you’re one of those who can’t stand any sign of sympathy and human kindness in an atheist.

These people have a definite victim complex, and I think I’m beginning to see where it comes from. They truly are victims: they’re victimized every day by their rabid pastors, by rapacious propaganda pushers, and by their own desperate need to believe they’re special. They’re lied to constantly, and expected to be stupid enough never to question the lie. It must be horrible for them to be faced with any evidence that they’ve been played for suckers.

Instead of confronting that sad reality, they strike out at Dawkins and PZ as the enemy. I’m just vastly amused by the fact that some of them, in trying to destroy those they see as enemies, are going to get exposed to the truth. Some of them will even be strong enough to get royally pissed off at being duped.

The terminally deluded will just get their asses handed to them in a baggie. Fun times.

Expelled Brings the Kooks A-Runnin'

The Short, Sharp Retort: Expelled Edition

In this installment, we once again take up the complexity of the evolution vs. IDiot debate, and reduce it to simple terms for the simple-minded:

Retort to teach the controversy! Absolutely. You can teach Intelligent Design in science classrooms as soon as atheists can teach their views in Bible Study.

Retort to atheists and scientists are terrified of Expelled! Look at their response! Yes, we fear insane, lying pieces of shit and the stupid people who believe them. Who wouldn’t?

Retort to Expelled is a success! By your standards, yes. By a normal person’s, not so much.

Retort to Expelled proves Intelligent Design advocates are persecuted! Yep, being denied tenure because you’re a lazy fucker is right up there with being fed to lions.

Retort to why are you atheists and scientists so angry about Intelligent Design? We were perfectly happy before you took a shit in our sandbox and called it science.

Alternates: It kind of upsets me when someone wants to replace modern medicine with bullshit.

Kinda want future medical scientists taught science so they can develop actual cures.

Tell you what. I’ll make a movie about how Christianity led to Hitler and see how cheerful you feel afterward.

A further retort to science makes people atheists! Science doesn’t make people atheists. Pat Robertson does. (Courtesy of Nicole)

On that last, you can of course now insert the name of any leading light of the Expelled debacle. I have a feeling that we’re going to see an influx of disillusioned folks quite soon. For those already having doubts about their faith, seeing those fools frothing all over the big screen will likely be the final straw.

As always, feel free to leave your own contributions to the Retort in comments. You, too, could have your rapier wit prominently highlighted.

The Short, Sharp Retort: Expelled Edition

Happy Hour Discurso

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Looks like Hillary Clinton may get her hollow victory:

MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News are all reporting that Hillary Clinton will win the Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary.

The margin of victory, however, will likely make all the difference. A narrow win for Clinton may end up looking like a moral victory for Barack Obama. Indeed, there are some reports this evening that the Obama campaign’s strategy of late was to force Clinton to spend heavily for a single-digit victory, which would leave her with limited resources for the remaining contests.

I agree with Carpetbagger: I think anything at this point is a moral victory for Barak, but then, I’m partial. I like the idea of a president with a brain who’s new enough to Washington to have a few fresh ideas. I guess that means I’m fucking insane.

Speaking of Barak Obama, somebody needs to explain to the boy what science means:

It’s pretty unusual for John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama to agree on a controversial subject. It’s even more unusual for them to agree and to contradict the available evidence, but apparently that’s the case today on the subject of vaccines and autism.

[snip]

Here’s Obama on the subject yesterday:

“We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it.”


Been there, done that. Debunked. I’d bash the other two, but Carpetbagger did a fine job and, not to put too fine a point on it, Obama has excellent brains and should know better.

In other news, our media continues its perfect trend of being absolute fucking losers:

I was hoping to write about the fallout from the NYT’s Saturday story regarding the media’s use of Pentagon-controlled “independent” military analysts, but there hasn’t really been any fallout at all. Despite being accused by the NYT in a very lengthy, well-documented expose of misleadingly feeding government propaganda to their viewers and readers, virtually all media outlets continue their steadfast refusal to address or even acknowledge the story. How can “news” organizations refuse to address — just completely ignore — accusations which fundamentally indict their behavior as “journalists”?

Easy. They clap their hands over their ears and sing, “I’m not listening, la la LA la la. Holy crap, did Obama just order orange juice? The nerve!”

Aren’t you guys a little bit sick of Glenn Greenwald, not to mention the entire rest of the country, finding you such easy targets?

Our fourth estate is bankrupt, my darlings. Perhaps it’s time to take our seats in the heckler’s chair. Once I’m finished ripping apart the “atheists should sit quietly in a corner” crowd, I’ll whip us up a letter to our vaunted press with niggling little questions like, “So why are you all such complete fucking failures? How does Bush’s butt taste? Do you kiss it with or without tongue?”

Any questions you’d like to add?

Happy Hour Discurso