Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.20

Roman Polanski birthday cards. $5 or give 'em some champagne and quaaludes and see if you can get it for free.

Matt Taibbi pauses from pointing out financial reform vote buying and various Senate charades surrounding credit card reform to point out a new study from Maplight.org on contributions to our elected betters from our corporate masters during the financial reform process. The final tally: 38 Senators who opposed the bill received an average of $103,266 in campaign contributions from commercial banks, the 60 Senators who were yea votes took an average of $76,759. The amount of people surprised by this revelation: near zero.

In case you were wondering what exactly it was the Republicans planned to do if they got back in power this November, they held a meeting with corporate businesses, trade groups, lobbyists, and other black robed figures to hash it all out. Let me blow your mind here: they want more deregulation, strip out everything that was done over the past few years, lower taxes for rich people and corporations, cut capital gains taxes, no inheritance taxes, and they probably want to name something after Reagan. Whew, I was worried they might want to pause from repeating the same list of shit they've wanted for the last 5 decades to actually look at the state of the country and start addressing that. No? Same shit you always say no matter what the state of the country? OK.

What is the driving force behind our electoral process? I mean besides rage, bullshit stagecraft replacing any discussion of meaningful issues, and the misguided notion that we have two functioning political parties. Sports sports sports sports SPOOOOOOOOOOORTS! According to the National Academy of Science, Division I College Football wins within a week of an election can swing incumbents extra support. Other interesting facts reveal that windmill dunks are likely to increase support for more strict zoning and land use permits and Dan Marino refused to win a championship because he was afraid that it would lead to Floridians supporting development of endangered marshlands. The man did love himself some swamp fan-boating.

While you were out getting melted by the sun, science rendered a verdict on that whole Climategate thing. You know, when a bunch of right wing blowhards and oil shills accused a guy of fabricating climate data, thus proving climate change wrong once and for all? Turns out the guy didn't do anything wrong, it was a bullshit story pushed by dishonest brokers, and was a giant nothing story. Except for the part where it helped anti-science fruitcakes and industry bagmen push a fraudulent meme which the media ate up, helped misinformed people, and helped damage climate legislation. Surprisingly they don't seem to be eating up this "it was all bullshit" thing. Ah, who cares? I'm sure everyone will come around about a decade after it's too late to do anything.

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