Your Economy's Kung-Fu is Not Strong

disclaimer: I have a soft spot for Stabenow.

Anywho, teh Hoekstra ad. Hee hee. But teh really funneh part is teh doubling down where he claims that there is no racial tint at all to yellowgirl take your job.

I dunno if you've had teh chance to peruse debbiespenditnow.com, but it's no wonder he's standing by his racist ad. His entire campaign appears to be based on OOGA BOOGA TEH YELLOW MENACE!

No links because, woohoo - that's some racist shit right there.

Anyways let's run through teh checklist, shall we?
Soundtrack - gongs, taiko and quarter-tones from a chinese fiddle.
Rice paddies.
She's got a fucking straw hat on her back.
Broken Engrish.
We take your jobs.

I'm guessing that teh reason she bicycles up is that they couldn't bring themselves to pay a second asian actor to pull teh rickshaw.

It's bad enough that even Hot Air thinks teh ad comes off as racist. But teh comment threads and Hoekstra's official response is teh best part. That in teh face of such a blatantly offensive bit of racist China-baiting, they are standing around saying that there's nothing going on. Totally oblivious (or at least pretending to be). Like that's a big improvement over being straight-up racist simple and plain. Whole thing reminds me of a Simpsons episode.

Looking forward to teh point when Hoekstra finally concedes that teh ad is racist and tells teh world "me so solly!"

Owen Mediocre At Best

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Pr0n Objectivises Women

Last year Lara Croft returned in a different kind of puzzle-action game, Teh Guardian of Light. It was a big change for teh Tomb Raider series which had been doing pretty horribly at teh time. Fixed camera isometric multi-player - download only non-AAA title. Sort of an anti-Tomb Raider Tomb Raider game. And it was just what was needed - selling pretty well for a download only game, and racking up review scores that Lara hadn't seen in a decade. And now there's another game planned for teh series scheduled for next year. And it looks fucking amazing. Anyways, all of this to say that Lara Croft is going to survive being portrayed by Angelina Jolie in two movies to return to pop culture prominence. You know how I can tell? They're doing new pr0n parodies of it.

Why am I telling you this? Teh comments. They take a turn for teh amusing.

First comment is an Objectivist - oops sorry, Ethical Naturalist -with an Ayn Rand quote explaining why he lieks strong women. Ayn Rand. BwaaAHAHhAHHAHahahHAH.

Teh beat down is administered all round with a showing of teh Kung Fu Monkey quote most often attributed to Krugthulu (and is ongoing at teh time of blogging). But liek a good Objectivist, he smugs himself up on his high horse and sneers at all teh folks who are pointing out that his John Galt underoos are badly shitstained. It's stretching into a fair length post about how "objectivism" is objectively teh Awesome with a tangent on how bagging on Ayn Rand is all fine and dandy since she was so horribly bad, but calling her a slut is over teh line. Really, it's an amazing conversation.

In a thread about PORN.

You can tell which one is teh Objectivist at an orgy - they're teh one lecturing teh sweaty heaving bodies about how they lurve teh sex because they are so superior at it.

Que Sera Siri

Siri, why you gotta play us like that?

Siri, why am I so late getting to this story which was basically played out a week ago?

Mostly because it's gotten teh right and proper smackdowning it warrants. Even if it is totes unintentional, that is still some creepy-ass misogynistic bullshit*, and it's good that it got highlighted as much as it did.

Anywho, I'm going back to it for another reason. To point and laugh at all teh smug Apple fanbois with their shiny new toys. LOL. Srsly, this Siri thing has taken the wind out of a bunch of idiots and jackasses - and I applaud that. Not to say all Apple dorks are shitbags but - I was going to say something about collateral damage or something. You know what? It's not damage. If an otherwise decent person now no longer believes in his inherent superiority because of his consumer electronics choices, that's a good thing. Without a doubt, the hit to their fanboi-ism is not a minus. Speaking of, it's always teh betrayed that have teh most passionate responses and it's voyeuristically titillating to see teh damage.

Yeppers. Teh thing I'm glad about is that no one from teh Apple Army of Assholes even tried to claim that this was intentional on Apple's part - a component of their plan to raise awareness and prompt discussion about teh raw deal that women get with respect to sexual health, and heck - health care in general.

*Teh screenshots say it all.

Debates Are Not His Strong Suit

They really aren't.

I can see how he was confused - there is no US Commerce Agency or US Education Agency. Those are Cabinet level departments. The one entity he isn't going to make gone - teh EPA - that one's an agency (also Cabinet level!). It's what the A stands for.

Also too, eliminating the Department of Commerce kinda bones over the Census Bureau (an agency!). Teh census is constitutionally mandated. Why does Rick Perry hate teh Constitution?

UPDATE! Apparently there's a movie poster!

This Post Has 22 Sentences

TL,DR version: FUCK YOU MARK BOURRIE.

Local news from LEAFS SUCK, but first some context for teh non Canucks.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes used to feature Marg, Princess Warrior (played by the absolutely wonderful and hilarious Mary Walsh and starting some time in the late 90s when the character would have made sense). Marg does ambush interviews - and she is fantastic at it. Mary Walsh retired from the show back in 2004 - but a couple weeks ago she came back to reprise the role.

Anyways, after Mayor Ford retreated into his house, he called 911. Repeatedly. And colourfully as well. The Mayor of Toronto - ambushed by a woman pushing sixty wearing a ridiculous costume and a cameraman - and d00d calls 911 - at least twice.

Even if his defense that he never called any 911 dispatchers "bitches" is true, his actions are still pretty much made of FAIL.

Okay, with all that in mind, what I'd like to highlight is this post from the LEAFS SUCK affiliate of Gothamist.

Sweet IPU. Mark Bourrie, you are so full of fucking FAIL that you might have actually managed your actual goal of making Rob Ford not look so bad. There is so much wrong with post that I doubt I can smash it down with teh force it's earned - so I'm just going to focus on this one part:

So when the score is tallied, we have some downtown Toronto people enjoying seeing their mayor on the run in his own front yard.

OMFG. That sentence demonstrates exactly how dense teh FAIL is in that post.

Bourrie's "defense" of teh CBC includes a rant about how teh programming is designed to appeal to only a handful of snooty elites that live in downtown Toronto. Teh anti-CBC forces he's warning us about? That would be Bourrie.

Mary Walsh is from Newfoundland. The character of Marg Delahunty is from Newfoundland. The show is produced and taped in Halifax. Sure a lot of CBC stuff happens in downtown Toronto (mostly at the Glenn Gould Studio) but 22 Minutes takes up almost none of it.

And then there's teh fact that he is complaining about that at all - the catering to teh downtown Toronto hegemony. AT TEH FUCKING TORONTOIST WEBSITE. Teh folks who are doing shit in order to entertain people in downtown Toronto? That's supposed to be Bourrie. Who is incidentally a resident of Ottawa.

Plus also, ever since the Monorail thing and the KPMG Core Services Review, the neighbourhoods that are anti-Ford comprise moar than just downtown. Rob Ford's poll numbers have dropped like a stone since he failed to find the mythical gravy train he campaigned against. But that's kinda local information and it's unfair to expect everyone to know it. Certainly not A FUCKING WRITER FOR TEH TORONTOIST. Fuck.

I guess there's only one way to end this post. FUCK YOU MARK BOURRIE.

Ombuds Mani Padme Hum

So, last week we discovered that the Washington Post does still have an Ombudsman.  In a startlingly offensive column, Patrick B. Pexton brought out all teh standard tools of the Wash Post Ombudsman trade.  Namely, he blamed everything on offensive bloggers and angry emails.  This was in defense of Jennifer Rubin* who not only got the central fact of one of her posts incorrect, but when she corrected it - insisted that being factually wrong had no bearing on her argument.  And did so in a borderline racist way, to use Pexton's words**.

Anyways, I though I might check in to see if his latest column is going to offend me.  SPOILER: It does.

On first read it seems innocuous - he isn't circling the wagons to defend some Post writer who clearly stepped outside the bounds.  And shockingly, he seems to be saying that the opinions of readers of the Washington Post should count for something.  I know, imagine an ombudsman having that position.  It's quite surprising.

But then you remember he's talking about the Washington Post, and it falls apart.  I doubt if he could have written moar insincere words if he had tried.

He starts off by talking about the Post's competitors and how they have paywalls up.  Apparently this means that Politico and Bloomberg and teh Grey Lady are all publications doing journalism for two limited audiences: fat cats and power elites.  While teh Wash Post isn't.  BWAAhahHaHahhhaHAHAHHAhha.  Pull teh other one, it's got bells on.

The Wash Post isn't a Village rag written for Washington insiders.  What colour is the sky in Pexton's world?  Hey remember a couple years ago when Katharine Weymouth was pimping out her newsroom to fat cats and power elites?  But that was then and it's not like the Wash Post didn't do a thorough investigation into the situation and come up with some serious changes to the way they did things.  Wait, they did investigate and decide that everything's hunky dory.  Apparently the problem wasn't with the cash-for-access scheme but rather the advertising for it.  Katharine Weymouth?  Still publisher of the Washington Post.

Besides, what would it mean to "be a paper for the rest of us"?  I suppose that means cutting out all the gossipy meaningless tripe articles and only focus on the newsworthy.  To which I will point out Pexton's column from before the Rubin defense.  The one where he calls a story on Michelle Obama's lunch newsworthy.  A story they decided belonged under Politics and Policy.

Nevermind that the justification (it's hypocritical of Michelle to binge while promoting healthy eating) is wrnog.  There is no hypocrisy because a healthy lifestyle, including diet does not preclude the occasional caloric splurge.  Because Michelle is fighting against childhood obesity, and the only standard by which Michelle Obama can be considered obese is the one that fashion magazine editors have where they photoshop size 0 models to make them look thinner (incidentally, also unhealthy).

Nevermind that the entire monster lunch story is single anonymously sourced.  One source that refuses to identify themselves.  Yeah, totes not gossip - completely a "within-the-bounds" news story.

Nevermind that you most of your column to address one line in a different article about Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush.  Holy crap.  A hit piece written solely to discredit the current First Lady which turns out to be totally groundless*** - you say is fine because of the hypocrisy - which isn't actually there.  A single throwaway line in a piece about someone else entirely - needs investigating, a talking to for the writer, and public admonishment in the paper.  SHE WAS FUCKING WRITING ABOUT BETTY FORD FOR FUCKS SAKE!

And I haven't even started in on the left-right bullshit (This means that The Post can’t be a liberal publication or a conservative one.) that apparently must be in every single Wash Post Ombudsman column.  Congratulations Patrick B. Pexton, you're certainly doing a great job at meeting the Ombudsman standard set by the late Deborah Howell.

* I went on at length about this in the comment threads at Teh Mothership and Crooked Timber. 
** That Pexton recognizes Rubin's "correction" as both a non-correction, "potentially" offensive and borderline racist might make you wonder why he went to such lengths to defend her writing.  Well the reason is because he is a douchebag.
*** And in violation of the Washington Post's policy about anonymous sorucing.  PROTIP for Patrick Pexton, not that he'll ever read this:  Also too - a fucking anonymous Washington Post journalist?!?! WTF! Your paper is not only using anonymous sources for catty, petty and substance-free attacks on public figures, it's also the anonymous source too!  Isn't that the sort of thing a fucking ombudsman should be fucking looking at you useless fucking piece of crap?  Fuck.

Tax Cuts Cut Both Ways - UPDATED and now ridiculously long

That whole stupid fucking insane bullshit about tax cuts paying for themselves?  About how teh only way to save teh Economies is by cutting taxes on teh rich and teh corporations?  Well, I suppose if you're reading this you probably are well aware that it's bullshit and there's decades of proof of it, but have you ever wondered why it's wrnog?  I mean other than the fact that teh argument is always made by smug sociopathic selfish jerkasses or brainless dolts that think they are smug sociopathic selfish jerkasses.

Caveat - I'm just pulling stuff outta my ass here, it's not like I'm an economist - heck I don't even have an mba.

Here's the argument, by cutting taxes to teh uber wealthy - they'll have moar disposable income to spend which thus stimulates teh economy!  Tax cuts mean that rich folks have moar resources that they can then invest!  Increasing all sorts of good things for teh peons!  Yayyys!

Only, of course teh richer you are, teh higher your savings rate.  Meaning that cutting a dollar of taxes for teh wealthy has a smaller effect than giving a dollar to teh less wealthy.  That if you really wanted to stimulate teh economy and boost consumer spending, tax cuts benefitting mostly teh rich is teh worst way to do it.  Let's gloss over all of that, like a good glibertarian.

Teh tax cut thing is still bullshit.  If you wanted to "incentivize" spending by teh wealthy - you can do that with tax credits.  Up teh top tax rate and give tax refunds to Moneybags McHazALot when he actually uses his obscene wealth right when it would help teh economy teh most.  That way you can ding teh miserly Hoardy McSkinflints without hurting teh productive überGaltmenschen who only want to help teh markets realize their full potentials.  It's not a crazy idea - 401(k)'s are a tax refund based method to get people to put away some retirement moneys.  Typically into investments.  Although maybe 401(k)'s is a bad example given market performance over teh past few years.  Still - the basic idea is there, and anything that has gotten capital investment from a mutual fund has tax refunds to thank.

So anyone trying to sell you on tax cuts to boost investment or spending or whatnot, they are lying or stupid.  If you wanted to boost investment or spending or wev, you can just do that much moar efficiently than by cutting taxes.  Teh fairytale is purely a justification for tax cuts.

Anyways, if it's so easy - why don't they do it more?  Well other than the fucktards that run the system being total fucktards - they actually do do this a lot (heh "do do").  All those various deductions and exemptions are all programs which cut taxes for specific individuals for doing specific things, such as spending money on their home business or having babbies.

Okay, that's a lot of background - hopefully my point is a good one.

So, there are also these types of programs for corporations and businesses too.  The one I'm going to talk about is the one I have some experience with - the Renewable Energy Tax Credits.  There are two (actually three, but that's complicating things unnecessarily) programs - the Investment Tax Credit and the Production Tax Credit.  One covers 30% of the capital costs of installing a renewable energy facility and the other is worth around a third to a half the average wholesale price of electricity last year - for ten years.  These programs can easily turn a marginal project into one with quite decent returns.

BUT - and here's teh problem - teh incentives are tax refunds.  Meaning that to take advantage of these programs, you need to find investors who are taxable (called "tax equity investors").  And with a lot of big players paying little or no tax those investors are getting hard to find.   Although to be fair, these tax credit programs may be part of why those companies are paying so few taxes.

So here's the other edge of the tax cut - none of this stuff happens in a vacuum.  That currently there are big corporations that are sinking capital on a tax equity basis into wind farms and solar power projects.  And what happens when you cut their taxes?  They suddenly have less to gain from these investments.  IOW, that money that you're giving back to corporations so that they can invest in the economy?  They were going to invest that money in renewable energy anyways.  And now that you've cut their taxes - they aren't.  They're going to save it.

UPDATE: There's one of those genteel dust-ups brewing in teh left neo-liberal blogosphere.  Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber and Doug Henwood who I hadn't heard of earlier are taking teh piss out of BM Matt.  Generally, I'm okay with Matt (excepting that he passed on teh opportunity to spit in ME-gan's face when he had the chance.  In fact, he continues to do skip that opportunity regularly! ) but is he ever getting shat upon here, and justifiably too.  Why am I mentioning it as an Update to this post?  Just to point out that BM Matt is making very much teh same argument as teh tax-cut folks.  That his preferred sacred cow will start all these nebulous mechanisms which will automagically lead to his preferred outcomes because that's how it works since he is so smart and has such deep understanding of teh mechanisms and situation at all times.

Matt, when we're talking about near double digit unemployment for over a year and teh sum total of your argument amounts to repeating "At the margins" - you have lost.  You're going back to teh "marginal case" because that's what your argument is - a marginal case.  I mean srsly.  Ooooh, maybe a higher target inflation rate may have made moar rich persons spend some cash!  Right.  And maybe monkeys will fly out my ass, carrying giant bags with dollar signs on them.

One.  Teh margins are small.  That's why they are called margins.  I don't know why you folks don't understand that.  When you're trying to name teh single best thing we can do to spark job creation, a marginal change is teh wrnog answer.

Two.  Yeah, maybe the non-economist non-pundit non-wunderkid (without even an mba) has missed teh point about "at the margin".  No, I haven't.  You're trying to say that changing the marginal case is a fundamental change - that moving a threshold value captures teh entire population that was near the threshold.

Bullshit.  Where are all these people who would have spent like sailors if only the target inflation rate was one percent higher?  They don't exist.  No one thinks like that, not even technocratic dweebs like Yglesias.  Proof - when was the last time BM Matt thought to himself "I'm not going to splurge on anything until the Fed adjusts its target inflation numbers".  NEVAR.  His mom told me so.

One of his commenters put it very succintly:

This looks like:

1. Feds wants inflation.
2.
3. Inflation!

Three.  If you want people to spend money, why the hell don't you just encourage that.  What the fuck is it with technocratic neoliberals and their roundabout Rube Goldbergian schemes to get at their goals?  Changing the target inflation rate?  WTF?  You want corporations to expand operations?  Why the fuck don't you just target that?  New Hire Tax Credit - Gubmint pays x% (in tax credits) of salaries for everyone hired that had been unemployed for moar than y weeks.  It's not fucking rocket science.

Four.  So a jobs program won't just use idle resouces and therefore will cause inflation. BwaAAHAhhaHAHa.  WTF is teh complaint?  U wanted higher inflation anyways.  i.e.  Teh jobs program achieves what you wanted in teh furstest place!*

No srsly though - here he says that teh inflation means that teh Fed will tighten money supply and slow down teh economies again and poof - back to square one.  IOW, in teh long run you get zero benefit from a jobs program.

Begging teh question of teh All Powerful Monetary Policy Paradigm.  But, nevermind that part.

His problem is that there’s no way you could design a program of that kind that exclusively mobilizes idle resources.  Well sure, but you can design a jobs program to do the shit that you want to do.  Like employing people who have been out of work for a long time and are at risk of becoming unemployable.  Like repairing long neglected infrastructure.  And then, even in teh world of Magical Monetary Policy Trumps All, you are back to square one - only if you discount all teh shit that got done.

Shorter BM Matt:  Since you can't design a jobs program that exclusively uses idle resources, jobs programs must therefore exclusively use non-idle resources and therefore get you "nowhere".  Much simpler to increase the target inflation rate and hope that all teh marbles in teh margins line up and teh magic invisible hand gives us lower unemployment because shut up that's why.  So much moar direct and sensible.

*IOW according to Matt, at teh margins people are moar concerned with teh Feds target inflation rate than they are with actual inflation. Because if all he wanted was moar inflation to stimulate marginal entities to spend - then he'd be advocating for a jobs program, which he says causes inflation.

Open Letter to Callista Newt Gingrich.

Dear Mrs. Newt Gingrich the third,


I understand that your current endeavours have hit a bit of a snag with personnel, but I am delighted to hear that your campaign will continue on. In fact, I am writing to you to offer my services as Campaign Manager Entire Staff Including Administrative Personnel. You can rest assured that I am the right Dragon-King for the jobs, as I understand that the goal of the campaign has nothing to do with merely winning the nomination and the Presidency. This campaign is about Winning the Future with American Solutions *wink wink*. Indeed, all of America knows how Newt behaves when he’s under the stress of an important job and it’s in our best interests the name of the sanctity of marriage that I’ll do my best to ensure that situation never arises. Look at my resumee – I have nevar been part of a winning campaign!

Call me and we can discuss some of the creative ways and ideas I have for official campaign mailers and the potential of doing market research and targetted advertising opinion polling with matching campaign funds.

Yours,

Dragon-King Wangchuck

In His Defense, He's Newt To This.

Money quote:
He has appeared on Meet The Press some 35 times alone,,,

Also, too, possibly for Callista-philes a waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop link of note.

Randian Super Productivity Part 1

So one of teh primary tenets of Objectivism, at least as I understand it, is something to do with Productivity. How being Productive is some sort of Virtue and is representative of one's worth as a human being - hence the disdain for moochers and idolatry of the super-productive entrpreneurial Galtian übermenschen.

Here's an observation - teh self-financed Atlas Shrugged Part 1 film came in at $20 million to make. Revenues might be as much as one quarter of that.

Also self-financed, Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog had a budget of $200,000, or 1% of what teh Galtian Ubermenschen burned through and at least as good revenues. Granted teh actors worked gratis, but by the time they had all been paid by DVD sales, total revenues were still way under $20 million. Atlas Shrugged Part 1 has so far raked in marginally higher box office reciepts than Clerks did, but Clerks was made for around $28,000. I'm not even going to mention Blair Witch.

First Through Five Millionth Read - What Does The Tea Party Think?

Y'all remember this latest bit on American stupidity? Well a Plum Line post has brought to my attention that the First Read folks at MSNBC have used the findings for a bit of introspection

Folks, the law HAS NOT been repealed. As we said when yet another poll showed a sizable portion of the American public thinking that -- incorrectly -- President Obama is a Muslim, everyone deserves blame here. The politicians. The citizenry. And especially the news media. We aren't doing our jobs when the populace is this misinformed. As a collective, look at how the court decisions striking down the health law get covered vs. the decisions to uphold it. And then look at the conservative media outlets and their coverage of this issue.

The conservative media outlets.

PROTIP for MSNBC - They are ALL conservative media outlets, MSNBC included. Proof? That bit of introspection comes in a long list of other observations, it's one of those "here's all the interesting stories" posts. What are the other intersting stories?
- Lead-off, the 2012 GOP battle - who will be the next Presidential Candidate (R)?
- Next most important story - What Does The Tea Party Think?
- Who is running.
- Who isn't running.
- What Does The Tea Party Think? SRSLY, not a typo - two of their first five points are about the Tea Party's reaction to the 2012 preznit nomination battle.
- Something about Wisconsin.

That's your lie-beral-est lefty news org there.

So yeah, tailor your news coverage to appeal to the moron idiots that make up the Tea Party people - and quelle surprise, they end up not getting informed at all! When all you talk about are people who despise Obamacare with all of their shrivelled and ignorant little hearts - it's no wonder most of America thinks Obamacare has already been repealed.

Freedom Bombs!

Thanks to ongoing hostilities between Thers and Tintin i have no discovered the rich pile of putrid horrendousness that is the Tea Party Music Video.  And like any good socialist, I am here to spread my suffering.



UPDATE:  It's Tea Party Tiiiiiiii-iiiiiiime!

Open Letter to Matthew Dowd

Matthew Dowd,

In your column from Monday you said

And conversely, I laugh when many progressives celebrate my column and WikiLeaks' release of information because government is some sort of cabal of corporate and authoritarian interests. Don't these same progressives want government more involved in our lives on health care and medical decisions?

I must admit to having had some confusion over this paragraph.  Why would you laugh?  The idea that progressives would like more government involvement (i.e. with health care) seems completely consistent with also wanting greater transparency on government itself.  Progressives wish for government to be more open and accountable.  Progressives want greater risk and threat of secret deliberations and back-room decisions being exposed.  Mistrust of authority as a characteristic of The Left?  That's always been the case.  And is totally in keeping with wanting more government action in general.

Then I realized that you are a fucking idiot.  I had forgotten that moronic shitheads like you think that responsibility should be inveresely proportional to power, despite Peter Parker's Uncle Ben being an old white guy.

Let me try to explain this.  Nobody is Superman, not even the President.  As much as the goal of having a "Government of Laws, Not Men" is a noble aim, that Government of Laws is still staffed by men.  Shit Happens - for example sometimes a bloodthirsty warmongering psychopath manages to get an incurious narcisstic moron elected President and then he goes of to shoot an old man in the face.  Sometimes too, political types try and stuff goverment agencies with ideologues and sycophantic hacks or with the agents of the Big Money that fuels their election campaigns.  Just because a person is elected, that doesn't make them some sort of paragon of virtue.  The President is not a super-hero, he's a politician.  And for Progressives, this is even true of Democratic Presidents.

So, yes.  Progressives understand quite well that things can go wrong.  Sometimes even intentionally wrong.  Where people in authority consciously and actively decide not to follow the rules.  In these cases, us crazy lefties are actually comforted by the idea that there may be a chance that these actions would be revealed.  In fact, the further left you go, the more likely you'll find progressives holding that position regardless of TERRORISM or ISLAMOFASCISTS or COMMIES or BUGABOO OF THE MOMENT!  And, the more that government actors are bound by the threat of the public finding out what is being done in its name - the more Progressives want them to be doing.  Or conversely, dirty fucking hippies want more government programs and support for the environment and arts and the poor and health care and people in all sorts of distress - a position that matches exactly with having a sceptical view of authority.  We want them to do more AND we don't want them to do it wrong.

Although I understand if not doing things wrong is a tough concept for you to grasp, Matthew.

Sincerely,
Dragon-King Wangchuck

The Dickson Medal for Best Oral Advocacy

Congrats to Paul Alexander - today's King of FAIL.

This story deals involves the death of a two-year old girl - so if you're not up to being depressed by the sorry state of the human condition, here's a link to the proper way to play the PENIS game.

It was exactly seven years ago when a two-year old girl died from the brain injuries she sustained during her beating.  There was a lengthy investigation including wiretapped phone coversations which produced the Crown's killer evidence - vaguely ambiguous confessions of guilt by a distraught woman who recently lost her two year old daughter.  They laid charges and went to trial.  Paul Alexander was on the Prosecution team.

Then they got an unambiguous confession.  From the boyfriend.  Ooops.  The same boyfriend who, in the wiretap recordings, asked the mother if she suspected him of doing anything to the girl.

But apparently in Prosecution Land, you aren't allowed to change your mind or ever admit mistakes - so the show went on.  The boyfriend's confession was declared phony and made-up.  Besides, the confession couldn't be used because of some legal stuff about self-incrimination which I don't understand.  Perhaps it was the system's self-awareness kicking in - I mean considering the quality of the investigation they had, any subsequent work focusing on a new suspect would probably be a waste of resources.

Don't get me wrong - the mother's no saint.  There's even a possibility that she's actually guilty and not merely Prosecution Land guilty.

One year ago, the jury came back deadlocked.  The Prosecution had the option of having the judge determine the verdict, but opted not to.  Probably because of the difference between how judges and juries understand "reasonable doubt" when looking into the murder of an infant.

So the Crown got a do-over, which was in the process of winding up when the jury sent a note to the judge.  The note asked if the annoyingly distracting man in the gallery could be removed.  Apparently there was this guy sitting immediately in the front row, who was making faces and rolling his eyes and acting like a total Dickson Medal winner.  Paul Alexander.  In civvies.  Sitting in the audience, as in not part of the Prosecution team.  Still trying to influence the trial by acting like an idiot and suceeding to the point where he managed, on his very own, to get another mistrial declared.

It's been half a decade since charges were laid and now we've had two mistrials.  Prosecution wants another do-over, which is pretty fucking rich considering they literally have no one to blame for this except for someone employed by the Crown.

In another case involving jury issues, Gillian Guess was convicted of obstructing justice for boinking the accused in a trial where she was on the jury.  In her conviction, the definition and meaning of obstruction of justice was discussed:

The offence of attempting to pervert the course of justice has been authoritatively defined, in this court and elsewhere, as "the doing of some act which has a tendency and is intended to pervert the administration of public justice".

There's certainly a whole lot less reasonable doubt about Paul Alexander's guilt of obstructing justice than there is in the case he's so desperate for a conviction on - but only one of these cases is ever going to trial.  Which is a shame because then we could expect some guidelines on proper behaviour for Crown attorneys in a court of law.

With regard to Mr. Alexander, I guess he should probably stick to fluffing what he's good at.  His oral skills may be exceptional, but his acting is so over-the-top and unbelievable that it distracts from the action.

UPDATED (bonus actually added - (update 2 and deleted from where it shouldn't have been)) BONUS for SMcG: Paul Alexander's VANOC blog.

The Little Paper Tht Grew Like a Cancer

FailBlog reminds me that we have shitty newspapers up here in LEAFS SUCK too.

Bonus: I didn't know that FailBlog had a spinoff for Win. So as a palate cleanser for the potential serial rapist joke, here's something we all like putting in our mouths - PENIS.

I'm Sorry.

As a resident of LEAFS SUCK, please allow me to say that I am very sorry.

UPDATE: For teh Malignant and others who missed out and the wonderous awesomeness that is Lake Shore.

No Thanks Ebert, I'm Too Busy Playing on Your Mom's Lawn

And by that I mean I'm totally doing your mother.

A few months ago, Roger Ebert made the following sweeping statement:
Video games can never be art.

This is actually a re-iteration of a previous sweeping statement he made regarding video games and their not-ever-being-art status, but this last round was pretty notable in the bit of a ruckus, a to-do, a veritable hooferaw it provoked on teh intarweebles. All sorts of shit from "G4M35 R 2 ART" to long detailed intelligent essays on why Ebert was wrong.

My personal reaction was "meh, d00d's talking out his ass. I give it as much credence as if he was saying that he had definitive proof of observing the Higgs Boson." Guy has no clue.

But apparently, he's now apologized, and man I am livid. What a fucking asshole.

Point #1 - He admits that he has no fucking clue what he's talking about. He admits to not playing video games - and also to not ever wanting to play video games.
Point #2 - His "apology" was that he now believes he was wrong to have said anything, but most definitely not wrong for holding that opinion - which as mentioned in Point #1 he acknowledges as being based on conjecture and fairy dust and by gum that's good enough for him.

FUCK.

Worse than the asshole media shitbags that were wrong about WMDs for the right reasons (although on a far far lesser scale of importance). Ebert is saying that he is right and fuck you if you have incontrovertible proof otherwise. He's basically put into words the fundamental basis for fringe thought and behaviour. His stance on video games is now, by his own admission, on par with Young Earth Creationism. Actually, less than that because at least some Young Earthers make pathetic attempts to address criticism.

He's revelling in his ignorance. He's using it as the foundation of his argument. And he insists on refusing to learn. In the words of another great assmunch fuckface, he has neither the time nor the background to figure out if games are art, let alone whether or not they can ever aspire to that title. Therefore they aren't. Period. Although he's sorry if you took offense - because you're a gamer and therefore are deserving of pity- but he's still right because shut up that's why.

And consider his excuse for not even giving games a chance -

Besides, arguing with a You Tube video was pointless if I had never played a game. They had me there. And I didn't want to play a video game. If I should dislike it, I already had a preview of the response awaiting me: I was too old, I was over the hill, I was too aged it "get it.".

He goes on, but at no point does he ever concede the remotest possibility that maybe - just maybe, the 4200 odd commenters might possibly have a point and that there is artistic merit enough in some specific video games that even a pompous blowhard like himself might concede that it could be considered Art.

This fucking jackwad got 4500 responses - on the fucking internets - where only as many as a dozen were offensive trollery. On the intarweebs. A 99.7% plus valid response rate. On the web. Not counting folks who replied outside of the thread with their mountains of posts. Like finding a Coupe de Ville at the bottom of a Crackerjack box.

And despite a 90% plus rate of folks who disagreed and rationally pointed out that games are Art - well, wevs. He's Ebert, his opinion based on nothing but some vague something or other and general idea of this or that is way more important than getting 4000+ intelligent responses in a comment thread appended to an incendiary post that HAD LESS THAN A DOZEN "FUCK YOU EBERT"'es in it.

For balance - FUCK YOU EBERT. FUCK. YOU. EBERT. Hey Ebert, Fuck You. (x1000)

You know, a lot of people are going to give Ebert credit for admitting he was wrong. Before you do that - remember that he's still firmly on the side that games are not only "not Art" right now, but that they never can be. He says so right at the beginning of the article. Also that he's too busy to give games a chance.

I didn't have a problem with his original piece. He had an opinion, one that was pretty easily debunked as it had no basis in reality - something that he admits. That's fine, we're all wrong on something every now and then. We all have blind spots and we all make mistakes.

But now, he not only reasserts that opinion - but doubles down on it by insisting on never testing it. Despite the overwhelming weight of evidence that he's just plain wrong.

Moreover, his position now is that even though he still believes that he's right, he's sorry for speaking out. Fuck. Hey assclown shitbag, if you really believe in something why would you be sorry for stating it? If there's something you believe to be true, but saying so would be unpopular - you should... well according to Ebert, you should shut the hell up (which I will note that he didn't).

Incidentally, the real reason he won't test it isn't because he has "books to read and movies to see." It's because, somewhere in that shrivelled up pea brain of his, he knows he's wrong (and that's why he's actually sorry for saying something he professes to believe - because he doesn't really believe it, although he also doesn't have the guts to realize that either). He's played two video games ever - one he didn't get at all (Myst, no wonder - that's a POS game) and one he "enormously enjoyed". So if he based things on experience instead of some touchy-feely totally arbitrary and never explained way of seeing things - he's got a 50% chance of finding something he'd really get a kick out of. If he can claim a 50% chance of enjoying the next book or movie he consumes than he's lying.

I guess that's the bright side of this thing - jackass is so fucked up, so obsessed with being right and ascared of being wrong, even after admitting that he has no idea what he's talking about - that he's willing to forgo experiences he knows he'll enjoy. And after that display of wallowing in ignorance, the idea of Ebert missing out on the fun makes me smile.

Oh, and for good measure - FUCK YOU ROGER EBERT.

Explaining the Rand Paul Disaster

h/t Talking Pants Marshall.

Joshua Green, senior editor at that place that thinks ME-gan is worth publishing offers this explanation as to why Rand Paul's first moments in the national spotlight went all pear shaped.

1. Rand Paul isn't a crazy lunatic. Honest. Joshua Green has been covering him throughout the campaign and he seems totes normal. "The Tea Party is not about extremism" because Rand said so. The very idea that he's a crazy asshole is just lie-beral media bias and ebil lefty bloggerators.

2. Local media in Kentucky has been so gutted by teh noozpaper crisis that Rand wasn't properly vetted by the fourth estate until too late.

SRSLY. This is his "explanation". These are his two pertinent points. Well reading them brought to mind two impertinent points that I'd like to make:

1. WTF?!? As has been made obvious to anyone not wearing a tri-corner hat with the Confederate flag sewn in it - Rand Paul is exactly the angry unlikeable nut he's been portrayed as. Only now we're also seeing how sleazy he can get when trying to squirm out of the p00py mess he put himself in. I think this Dan Savage headline sums it up best.

2. IOW, U WERE RONG. Joshua Green, Mr. Sr. Editor, Mr. Young Writer On The Rise - U were ther on the spot and U WERE RNOG. FAIL 4 U, buddy. Look back at this flaming wreckage of a national debut and know that you had the ground-floor inside-track spot and blew it. The jerkwad that is Rand Paul, who couldn't make it through one interview without coming off as a racist prick was someone you thought was emminently likeable. Hell, reading your first pertinent point again, it seems that you still think that's true.

Ooops, I was rnog too, I have a third impertinent point.

...the local Kentucky media--in particular the newspapers, and especially the flagship Louisville Courier-Journal--has been decimated by job cuts, as has happened across the country...

BTW, you smarmy assclown - that thing you got totally wrong? About Rand Paul and his extremist views? Louisville C-J nailed it:

The trouble with Dr. Paul is that despite his independent thinking, much of what he stands for is repulsive to people in the mainstream. For instance, he holds an unacceptable view of civil rights, saying that while the federal government can enforce integration of government jobs and facilities, private business people should be able to decide whether they want to serve black people, or gays, or any other minority group.

If there's a media failing here - and there most definitely is - it's not on the part of the small local guys. It's you. Even now you are framing the thing in the best light possible for the racist guy who wants to enable racists¹. To wit:

Thus, when Rand Paul appeared on "Maddow" and the other shows, I expect he was prepared to offer the same sermon I heard on the trail. Problem is, he was encountering an aggressive, experienced press corps that appropriately had its own agenda and was eager to challenge Paul to elaborate on his views.

Maddow had her "own agenda"? Nice way to phrase it there buddy. I believe that "agenda" - of getting a candidate to "elaborate on his views" - well it sounds an awful lot like journalism. Maybe you should try it sometime.

¹ Editted for maximum benefit of the doubt. See even ebil lefsists can be unreasonably accomodating to that asshole.

UPDATE: Just me being petty and getting some more kicks in.
Speaking of Talking Pants Marshall, nailed it in one and then nailed it again. Not to mention that the folks over at TPM took a peek at Rand's history and found a whole mess of crazy.

UPDATE 2: PENIS. Also.

UPDATE 3: As a Jane Hamsher sympathizer, and therefore a "firebagger" - John Cole is my natural worst enemy. Still, props have to be given. AWESOME. Rand cancelled his first shot at a totes syncophantic knob slobbering, just the thing he needed to get over this week from Proof That There is an IPU. Either that or the fucktard is so awful that even David Gregory is seen as a threat.... bwahahahhaahahaahhahaa111111wheresmyshiftkeYOHTHEREITIS!!!!!

Wy kann Wii Speel So Goud?

First foray into multi-media bloggerating.

Nothing particularly insightful to add - just astounded by the irony at the concept that Internetertrons access could lead to better spelenigs.