Messing with Texas

One must marvel at the gusto with which Texas Governor Rick Perry attempts to pander to the fringe tea party activists he evidently think pack his state. From secessions threats, to his criminal negligence and collusion in covering up death penalty and legal issues, and his complete rejection and denunciation of Washington... except for all those times when he goes to them begging hat in hand for money. He's a real class act.

So that's why it's nice to see him double down on the crazy in an attempt to win the GOP nomination for Governor. What's he up to this time? Chuck Norris as a border guard and Secretary of Kicking Ass? Sovereign Texas money with Jesus on it? Cheap anti-science, pro-corporate stunts? Set another fire at the Governor's mansion? Decrying the stimulus while at an event touting money for and jobs saved by a stimulus project he's taking credit for? It was the science one. But it has a secessionist bent too. State's rights!

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is suing the Environmental Protection Agency in a bid to stop it from regulating global warming pollution. The centerpiece of his argument? Those leaked "Climate-Gate" emails.
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Flanked by his attorney general, Greg Abbott, Perry declared at a press conference that the lawsuit was intended to "defend Texas' environmental successes against federal overreach." And he slammed the Obama administration for "using sweeping mandates and draconian punishments to force a square peg of their vision into the round whole of reality."

Abbott cited the emails to charge that the EPA was using "tainted data" when it ruled in December that heat-trapping gases are a threat to human health and can be regulated by the federal government.

Now, we all know where this one is going. Of course the hacked e-mails don't say anything near what Perry and Abbot say they do. Or even if e-mails from two scientists about their own research proved that their numbers were wrong or faked, that it doesn't invalidate all the multitudinous data from thousands of scientists in hundreds of disparate fields, across various disciplines, stationed everywhere across the globe that show what everyone knows the planetary scientific consensus is: planet warming, bad for humans. Or that if your position about climate change being a hoax was so strong you wouldn't have to lie about leaked e-mails. But that's not going to stop Perry. No, he's got two strong primary challengers, needs to rally the base, and most of his money and support comes from energy interests. Priorities people, priorities.

So big ups to Perry and Texas (ooh, and Virginia too, who has an attorney general with lots of ties to energy interests as well). You aren't going to let a little thing like science stand in the way of political grandstanding, primary politics, corporate whoring, and placing short term electoral and economic goals over long term economic and environmental ones. But I guess you've got a big state and can afford to see some of it under water. Plus, who is going to notice a couple degree increase in temperature when it's already hot as hell? Well done. I hope they make you double governor.

Picture of the day

Via NASA comes this new release of photos from its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. It's the new high tech gizmo that NASA launched to use to survey the entire sky in infrared and reveal what was previously unseen. Yeah... so that might take a while. This is the first batch of photos they've released and they're pretty damn cool.

According to a professional nerd at Bad Astronomy, WISE makes Hubble look like a bitch. It's a little more technical than that, but it's essentially because WISE can grab bigger pictures of the sky and do it all over the infrared spectrum. Faster too.

Click to really embiggen.

Cut this

Much has been made over few weeks about Obama's budgetary spending freeze and the GOP counter plan to slash everything, gut Medicare, and privatize Social Security. All of this is with the idea that massive budget deficits will soon impregnate this country with it's devil baby, which will burst out of the womb through the skin, and devour us while we writhe in agony.

Of course the things that our elected betters want to cut and freeze are thing that are commonly referred to as things that benefit the American populace. The things they don't want to cut? We call those things that benefit the military industrial complex and our desire to explode brown people.

But what do the American people want cut? Well, nothing. Overwhelmingly nothing.

Spending Type	Federal Budget	Support for cuts
Social Security	19.6%	2%
Military	18.7%	18%
Unemployment	16.1%	15%
Medicare	12.8%	6%
Other health care*	10.4%	10%
Interest on Debt	4.6%	10%
State Department	1.5%	28%
Veterans	1.5%	2%
Anti-terrorism	1.2%	17%
Agriculture	0.7%	12%
Energy	0.7%	14%
Crime / Justice	0.7%	10%
Environment	0.3%	16%
Science	0.2%	14%

So aside from this country's inexplicable hate for the State Department and love of programs that benefit itself and veterans, this country would most like to see the Defense budget slashed. It's only about 1 out of 5 of us, on a good day, but that's practically a flood of support of biblical proportions.

Will it ever make a difference? No. We'll keep putting together bullshit deficit commissions whose only objective are to put a polite, smiling, media pundit approved face on slashing things that benefit people, while never touching a red cent of defense appropriations.

Still, we seem to love all that spending, tea parties be damned. I'll bet there are numbers showing that we'd like spending on most of these programs increased. Also, much lower taxes. It's part of the cognitive dissonance that makes this country great.

Jesus map

Gallup has gone out and shown use a definitive map of why large swaths of the South and Midwest infects so many regressive policies, terrible politicians, and grinds the progress of this country to a halt who in this country loves Jesus the hardest.

The winner? Mississippi at 63% weekly church attendance, followed by Alabama at 58%, and South Carolina, Utah, and Louisiana at 56%. Who wishes they could re-crucify the Lord, if he was actually real and only if they could delude themselves into believing in such a fanciful myth? Vermont at 23%, followed by Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine all clocking in at under 30%.

On a whole the country got 0.7% more religious from 2008-2009, with much of the South getting anywhere from 2-5% more religious. And who can blame them, what with the financial collapse and that black guy who is about to steal all the stuff from white people in order to give it to black people?

I know you're asking, "Isn't this just a definitive map of where and why all the political problems in this country come from?" I'll just nod silently in agreement and we can share a knowing glance.

So congrats to Mississippi, you won the 2009 God Bowl! You're probably in church right now, so why don't you pray for victory in 2010. I'm sure you can crank it up to 70%.

I have seen the future

Glenn Beck mugging and barking (yes, barking) his way through a typically incoherent rant:


Glenn Beck, three weeks from now:


When he starts shooting people in the night, don't say I didn't warn you New York.

Broken in Brief: Terminally unfunny man won't stop making two man luge jokes

BOSTON—“Boy, does one of them have to buy the other one dinner after this event? HAW HAW HAW,” brayed interminable oaf Danny Wallen earlier today during NBC’s televised contesting of the two man luge at the Vancouver Olympics.

“Hey, how come the flag on their leotards isn’t a rainbow one? Bwah Ha Ha!” he continued, testing the mental limits of his surrounding friends and family as they tried to enjoy proceedings that only occur once every four years.

Indeed all morning he has subjected his alleged loved ones to an unrelenting barrage of terribly obvious and unfunny gay jokes towards a sport where, he was horrified to find out, two men have to touch to partake in the event.

As of yet, none of his so called family has yet had the guts to stand up and tell him that ragging on the supposed gayness of the two man luge is well worn territory that hundreds of thousands of people have already trodden in much more amusing and less hideously offensive ways.

In fact the only utterances that have been offered up in opposition was an under the breath, tersely muttered “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” by long suffering wife Phyllis Wallen after the quote unquote love of her life offered up his views on the various sports under contention at the Olympics; namely that men’s figure skating, bobsled, the Nordic combined, the Danish people, and NBC analyst Dick Button were “gay”, “super gay”, “for gays, by gays”, “a gay pastry”, and “a homo” respectively.

Neighbors believe that unless Mr. Wallen relents in testing out his sub-CBS sitcom grade material, that the situation will devolve into an awkward situation where friends angrily confront him and throw him out of his own house, followed by a teary, angry coming out by his son, Danny Jr.

As of press time, Wallen seemed unaware of the mood of the room and cracked off a zinger about how the groin of one luger is touching the back/hindquarter area of another to the sound of his own guffaws.

Art of the day

Jake Lewis. He did this piece on health care/terrorism.


Flickr here. Give him money here.

What an immense pussy

You may have heard that political legacy baby, corporatist idiot, and milquetoast centrist halfwit Evan Bayh is quitting the Senate because he doesn't love it or something. He's setting it free and if it returns, it was meant to be. He's not seeking reelection in Indiana, where he was expected to waltz to victory, because he's tired of the hyper-partisanship in Washington.

Ignoring the fact that it's people like him that contribute greatly to Washington's ills, he essentially sees the best way to cure the Senate of it's partisanship is to take his ball and go home, quit in a manner that makes it much easier for Republicans to take his seat and increase gridlock even more, and then go become a lobbyist. But this low grade hypocrisy is par for the Bayh course.

I'm not so much interested in losing a shitty Senator as I am in the reasons for his leaving that are leaking out. He sounds like an immense fucking baby.

In his two terms in the Senate, Bayh cut a centrist path and worked across party lines, which at times frustrated liberal Democrats.

"He hates the Senate, hates the left bloggers," a friend and longtime adviser to Bayh said. "They are getting their wish, pure Democrats in the minority."

Aww, he doesn't like the dirty hippies. What else?

Bayh is an anomaly of sorts; he really grew to dislike the influence of liberal activists on his Senate colleagues. To him, these activists increased the cost of doing business.
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When it became clear to Bayh that the White House wasn't going to play his game -- wasn't going to sell out liberals at every turn -- Bayh decided he had had enough.

What a pussy. He quit because the hippies didn't like him and because Obama wasn't going to sell them out hard enough. Need I point out to Bayh that the dirty liberals haven't gotten anything they wanted and that centrist corporate stooges like Evan Bayh have essentially dictated and watered down the congressional agenda? That wasn't good enough?

So let me be the 9 millionth human to make the "Buh-Bayh" joke and advise that you not let the door hit you in the ass too hard on your way out. Good luck reforming the country from a giant lobbying conglomerate while prepping your 2012 run or whatever it is you've deluded yourself into thinking will happen now.

These are the type of people that run our country. Does that explain everything yet?

Ringing endorsement

Reuters blogger and financial expert Felix Salmon gives what I'm sure will be the chosen highlighted blurb for any future release of the Philip Delves Broughton financial pulp thriller Dead Bankers:

If you’ve ever fantasized about what would happen if the people who helped create the global financial crisis started getting serially murdered, you should give this book a go.

That's practically all I think about. Perhaps this is the book for me.

Heresy

Sure the stimulus was too small. It wasn't focused enough on jobs. It wasted to much of it's girth on tax cuts that don't stimulate and economy. Tons of truly useful ideas were hacked out in the name of Ben Nelson and the Maine Senators looking like they were doing something. The bill still hasn't given us the free candy and blowjob we were explicitly promised.

Still, when it comes down to it, the bill that should have been better and our elected betters should have taken more seriously, largely did the job it was designed to do. Or should I say, did it's job as well as possible given the moronic confines the Senate placed on it. So sayeth economic experts.

Just look at the outside evaluations of the stimulus. Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative.
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For that, the stimulus package, flaws and all, deserves a big heaping of credit. “It prevented things from getting much worse than they otherwise would have been,” Nariman Behravesh, Global Insight’s chief economist, says. “I think everyone would have to acknowledge that’s a good thing.”

Acknowledging basic reality? Nariman my man, have you met this country or it's political leaders?

But there's a nice bit of news that while good, still doesn't make anyone feel better about the economy or it's prospects for the future. Somehow "When faced with the greatest economic crisis in our lifetimes, government struggled to enact a party line vote on a watered down measure that eventually ended up stemming the tide" doesn't engender Carnivale type celebrations. There's that.

And although our elected betters have seen the successes and learned from a rash of experts how the failure to make the bill big enough hindered making real headway into job and economic numbers, they're still going with small bore economic measures, cheap gamesmanship, obstruction, zero sum politics, lying, and minuscule bills in an attempt to address the jobs issue. Given a spot of good weather and large sections of the government growing a conscience, some of those bills might make it far enough to fall just short of getting the required votes to end a filibuster in the Senate. There's also that.

But hey, an additional 2 million of you would be unemployed and the economic numbers would still be flailing if not for the stimulus. I guess that's something.

Completely Rational Exuberance

Ever since the whole subprime housing market pyramid scheme investment strategy went completely to shit, Wall Street has been hunting for the Next Big Fleece. According to Nick Baumann at Mother Jones, they seem to have found it.

If you thought the mortgage-backed securities and other complex financial instruments that crashed the economy were risky, you’ll love Wall Street’s latest brainwave: a new financial market in which players can gamble on whether upcoming Hollywood movies will be blockbusters or bombs.

Pure brilliance. We really are only a year or two away from Sam Waterston interrupting football games with overtures about how you should, "Just hand your money over to us, no questions asked. We'll never give it back, but somehow that will make you more money."

For my money, the best reaction to this plan comes here, from someone who seems genuinely pissed about even having to address it:

"This is such a bad idea on so many levels," says Lynn Stout, a law professor at UCLA and an expert in derivatives, the category of financial instruments that includes Cantor's proposed box office futures.

On the other hand, I heard that Jim Cramer is really high on the Daredevil reboot.

Why the UK is better than us: Example 1273b

Oh Brittania, how I envy thee. You have a right wing that fights to preserve and improve your universal, cheap, socialist health care. You are rife with charming top hatted street urchins who sing jaunty tunes and perform enjoyable dance numbers while they pickpocket and steal to get by. Your government seems to be able to function. Stephen Fry.

Here in the Colonies, we have a cottage industry of mouth breathing idiots who lie. slowly degrade our country, and dumb down the populace, all the while raking in hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves. We call them right wing talk radio pundits. Whereas here they thrive, prosper, multiply, and be nourished by our corporate culture, you seem to deal with them in a different, better way.

Today, Color of Change and StopBeck.com announced that the United Kingdom has forcefully rejected Fox News host Glenn Beck. In fact, the UK broadcast of his show “was forced to run without any advertisements” for five days in a row as of yesterday. Additionally, 103 companies have agreed to stop their ads from appearing on his program.

And since that report was made the count now stands at 116 dropped sponsors and six, verging on seven, days without UK advertisers. Oh, to live in a country that rejects Glenn Beck. No, I live in the one that nourishes, and rewards his deranged conspiracy theories, race baiting, semi-retarded (RAHM~!) camera mugging, sub-morning show DJ personality, and weepy chalkboard diatribes with millions of avid listeners and millions of dollars.

Now I realize that all of this is because Beck's special brand of hysterical crazy doesn't tap into whatever the British equivalent of decades of poor, white, southern rage is, his pedantic critiques and conspiracies ring hollow with distance, and his protestations of the socialist menace ring hollow to people who see real benefit and are noticeably better off than Americans thanks to the icy, black hand of socialism. I don't care.

You've done yourself a great service, UK. You've walled the loony into his own asylum and are not allowing him to infect your country with a plague of madness. Unfortunately for me the asylum you walled him in is the country I live in, but we were going down anyway. Save yourselves.

Your Morning Indignation: Tax Shelter Edition

While in college ("at university," to our British readership) I dated a psychology major. Whenever talk turned to her chosen discipline, most of our conversations ended with me saying something along the lines of, "So, this particular study essentially confirmed what we already intuitively knew about people?" Surprisingly, the relationship didn't last.

I mention this only because, largely due to this period of ceaseless exposure to contemporary psychology, I've come to read muckraking financial journalism in much the same way. The events of the past two years have done little to disabuse me of this notion.

Today's example comes from one of my favorite investigative journalists, Jessica Silver-Greenberg of (Bloomberg) BusinessWeek, who looked into what happens to US tax revenue when credit card receipts are shipped offshore. Much like my collegiate ladyfriend, Ms. Silver-Greenberg is working hard to confirm what most of us already suspect.

At a time when the Obama Administration is preparing for a bitter battle with big multinationals over closing arcane tax loopholes, legions of mostly small retailers and service providers are minimizing their U.S. tax bills by sending credit-card receipts to Panama, Nevis, Aruba, the Cayman Islands, and other business-friendly havens. The IRS estimates that $100 billion a year in revenue is escaping U.S. sales and income taxes in this manner.

Full article HERE.

Picture of the day

The handy work of a group of Wisconsin area businessmen. Sure, it might say "Impeach Obama", but they don't want you to get any crazy ideas about it. Like you thinking they want to impeach Obama.

“The company (that paid for the billboard) is supported by a number of area businessmen who are concerned about tax and spend politics. The billboard is not meant to allege any impeachable offense has been committed; It is simply an expression of frustration by my client that politics in Washington should change to better support small businesses,” Wroblewski said in a written statement.

They don't want to allege impeachable offenses, they just want him impeached. Somewhere Bill Clinton is eating a double bacon cheeseburger, nodding, and muttering "I've heard that before."

Still, the economy, socialism's effect on small business, and "tax and spend politics" can't be that bad if you can afford to run an "Impeach Obama" billboard for six months. C'mon, we all know what you really want to say. So just pony up the cash for the billboard that says "Our President is a blaaaaaaaaaaaaaack and we're afraid!!" and we'll let it slide. We'll be cool with it. It's much preferable to the multitude of rings and conspiracy theories we have to wade through to come to the same conclusion.

Maybe you should just give him a chance. Maybe he'll invent the candygram, pal around with Gene Wilder, and win you over with his comic antics as sheriff of this country. Otherwise, save your money. You'll need it when Obama swings around to finish off the rest of the small businesses he didn't get in the first go around.

Is our children learning?

For 49 out of 50 states, the answer to the question posed above is "Yes... at least by shoddy American standards." The soon to be exception to that rule? Utah. Maybe we were too harsh to call them out for their blinkered state legislature backed climate change denialism. It seems that education isn't their strong suit.

The sudden buzz over the relative value of senior year stems from a recent proposal by state Sen. Chris Buttars that Utah make a dent in its budget gap by eliminating the 12th grade. The notion quickly gained some traction among supporters who agreed with the Republican’s assessment that many seniors frittered away their final year of high school, but faced vehement opposition from other quarters, including in his hometown of West Jordan.
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During a hearing of the state’s Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee earlier this month, Buttars suggested that funding 12th grade amounts to “spending a whole lot of money for a whole bunch of kids who aren’t getting anything out of that grade.” The state senator also has also suggested ending “all busing for high school students,” which would disadvantage poor students and only save a paltry $15 million.

Something that dumbs down education tacked on with a semi-racist/classist measure to cut costs because your retrograde Republican policies can't function with raising taxes or scaling back the tax cuts to the rich you've handed out to cover a nearly billion dollar budget shortfall? You knew Utah, or possibly Texas, was going to blaze that trail first.

Frankly they're just responding to the realities of our financial apocalypse. Who needs education when there aren't any jobs? Furthermore nearly everyone in Utah derives an income from one of those "Isn't it precious how we have 14 kids" reality shows, so doesn't really need an education, skill set, or pliable trade.

I know what you're saying, "Matt, don't Mormons believe that if you record them for television, the camera steals their soul? How can they all have TV deals?" Well you can't steal their soul if they're wearing special underpants that deflect the heathen voodoo rays. Plus 14 kids is a lot, a man has to be willing to put his soul at hazard to care for the fruits of his loins.

So, apologies to Utah. We didn't mean to make fun. We didn't realize you were one of the "special' states. Enjoy your eleven grades. It's all going to be fire, spears, and animal skinned barbarians heaving rocks at each other pretty soon. Who needs AP Physics or English 7/8?

Headlines

Bomb goes off at JP Morgan offices in Athens

Don't worry your pretty little heads, there was just some damage to glass and some minor building damage. No injuries or casualties. Classic IRA work.

But this is your early clubhouse leader for 2010 headline that starts the most conversations with the phrase "You know, normally I don't condone acts of terrorism and bombings. But, on the other hand..."

Because I hate your eyes

The opening title sequence to Gaspar Noe's film Enter the Void, a story about death and rebirth according to the principles of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It is either being hailed as a visionary masterpiece by a genius or as some sort of terrible endurance trial which ends after it gives your soul cancer.

In any event, the title sequence should give you an epileptic fit. Music by Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk.

Interesting facts

Did you know that there is no women's ski jumping at the Winter Olympics? I know what you're saying, "Yes, you clod, of course I know that. Every American lives and dies with the ups, downs, and revelations of the most popular sport in America: ski jumping."

I'm sorry for asking. But did you know that a women actually holds the ski jumping world record? Thankfully she's not allowed to compete because her lady parts would warp the ramp or something.

Lindsey Van holds the record - among both men and women - for the longest jump off of Whistler, B.C.'s normal ski jump, built for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The 25-year-old skier trains six days a week, 11 months a year and has been jumping for the past 19 years. But when games kick off on Feb. 12, the 2009 women's ski jumping world champion will be nowhere in sight. That's because women aren't allowed to ski jump in the Olympics.
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In 2005, Gian Franco Kasper, FIS president and a member of the IOC, said that he didn't think women should ski jump because the sport "seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view."

As a sport women's ski jumping meets all the required criteria for inclusion; participant numbers, history, world championships, international competitions, skis, jumping. But they aren't allowed in, so question naturally arise about discrimination and the ski jumping men being a little goosed about being shown up by girls.

Legally speaking, women are only allowed to be better at or paid more than men at sports we deem gay or at sports where we are allowed to take our focus off their athleticism and place it on their looking good in short skirts/swimsuits. In conjunction with the IOC and FIS, Mr. Kasper has also agreed that women are also allowed to be better than men at baby making and cooking within the confines of a home kitchen.

Now some fringe wags have passed on spurious rumors that this is somehow incongruous with Olympic ideals. But to them I say look at the Olympic motto. Now some erroneously believe the motto Citius, Altius, Fortius means Swifter, Higher, Stronger. That's just asinine and I don't know where they get their information. Most people know it to mean Swifter, Higher, No Fat Chicks, but that is also a mistranslation. It is actually Swifter, Higher, Know Your Place Ladies or We Will Knock You Out of This Competition Faster Than You Can Say "Socrates Wore a Skirt." Using the fourth declension genitive of Fortiuum means No Fat Chicks. Get your Latin straight.

But it's clear: no lady ski jumpers. Sorry. Van will just have to be content knowing that she's better than the men. I'm sure that'll pay for her training, right? Self-satisfied knowledge that you're the best is still legal tender, right?

Exciting economic news!

Just when you thought the economy was surging to new heights and you'd finally be able to place an order for the platinum monocle, top hat, and spats you'll need as part of your wardrobe now that everyone has ascended to the top of the gilded class what with all these great new jobs we all got... think again. You know the drill; unending horror, plague of locusts, fire from the sky.

But at least it's a different kind of fire. Sure, it's mortgage failures, but on commercial real estate! Oooh, total curveball. And yes, it will imperil society, destroy small businesses, and hinder the economic recovery. Excuse me, economic "recovery." Why do you know you should be afraid? Because the warning are coming from Elizabeth Warren's Congressional Oversight Panel.

A huge wave of mortgage failures on commercial real estate could hit next year, causing banks to lose as much as $300 billion, imperiling lending for small businesses and hindering the economic recovery, a Congressional panel is warning.

In a report to be released on Thursday, the Congressional Oversight Panel... said commercial loan losses could jeopardize the stability of many banks, particularly the nation’s midsize and smaller banks, contributing to prolonged weakness throughout the economy.

The panel’s chairwoman, Elizabeth Warren, has been pressing the Treasury to compel thousands of banks to undergo stress tests like the ones that the Federal Reserve required of 19 of the country’s biggest financial institutions early last year. The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, has called that idea impractical.

The signs are there: Elizabeth Warren saying something bad is on the horizon and coming up with a solution to head it off, Tim Geithner shrugging off the advice and the warning, and industry spokeswhores and lobbyists from organizations such as the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association and the Independent Community Bankers Association calling the reports and warnings exaggerated while touting the overall health and rock solid stability of the nation's banks.

I think we all know what that means: further economic collapse followed by complete societal destabilization and cannibalism. I've learned not to go against Warren when flesh reaving is on the line. So there are two options here: get used to the taste of human jerky or wait for Congress and the rest of our elected betters to act. I think we know how that's going to go. I'll get the teriyaki marinade and you get the meat smoker, I smell further banking collapse on the horizon. And mesquite smoke.

Oh, the humanity

The other day Anthem, a subsidiary of health care evil corporation Wellpoint, announced that they were going to jack their rates 39%. Why? Well they only made $2.7 billion last quarter and are part of a group of health care giants that collectively only grossed a record $12.2 billion in profits last year while dropping coverage for 2.7 million Americans. Wellpoint's profit margin is only 7.3%. They're hurting.

Well this little bit of money grubbing hubris was too much for even Fox News, who looked at this state of events and harshly scolded Wellpoint and Anthem... for poor timing and possibly helping Democrats make the case that reform is urgently needed. Priorities, people.

PAYNE: But Brad this is like Jaws 2, just when you thought it was safe to get out of the healthcare debate, you brought everybody back into it. [...] Didn’t someone though, wasn’t there a committee that said listen, let’s take Wall Street’s lead, do the minimum we can, wait for this to blow over and maybe a year from now try to hike rates?

VARNEY: You handed the politicians red meat at a time when healthcare is being discussed. You gave it to them!

That's populism I can believe in. How dare an insurance company so openly show exactly what they're about and prove a point about the urgent need for reform. Don't they know what's at stake here? The health and coverage of people? Pssht. Whatever. This might embolden hippies and those who are sympathetic to their hippie goals! We were almost past this! Democrats had almost completely given up! Now a few of them might groggily scratch their heads, stumble to their feet and mutter "...oh yeah, now I remember". Don't you see what you've done while nobly trying to attain your goal of siphoning gobs of money off of people while giving them zero coverage? Think!

Thankfully they've heard the call, realized just how many liberals this might embolden, how they were taking steps to make sure "health insurance giant" replaced "Nazis" as the de facto movie villain, and have thankfully decided to scuttle the proposed rate hike... for a couple months. It seems that massively unpopular decisions effect a bottom line more than rate increases do.

So: bullet momentarily dodged. Jsut be a little more careful the next time you try to jacks rates. Take Fox News' concerns about emboldening Democrats to heart. I mean, after all, they're only looking out for you. Maybe next time, try a little better name marketing. Instead of an "egregious cash grab" try for a more friendly sounding "temporary rate cut adjustment". It'll do wonders for your PR.

Broken in Brief: No one hurt at tragic Torino bobsled course collapse

TORINO—Tragedy was averted today as there have seemingly been no injuries or casualties resulting from a calamitous early morning collapse of the Cesana Pariol bobsled venue, which hosted all of the ice track racing events during the 2006 Torino Winter Olympic Games.

“At this point, we are assuming that it collapsed early this morning,” announced the head of the Italian International Olympic Committee, Giancarlo Giuseppi, during an afternoon press conference.

“To be honest, it could have collapsed at any point in the last four years. We just found out today. I was watching the Vancouver Games, saw some of their ice track, and said to myself, ‘Didn’t we used to have one of those?’ Then I went to the location I vaguely remember building a bobsled course at, only to find it had collapsed. “

“Let me be clear: Our preliminary assessment that there were no casualties at the track is still subject to International Olympic Committee verification. There might have been a few hobos or drifters crushed in the debris, as well as any feral animals that had taken to using the structure as a breeding ground. We won’t know until later. All I can say is that no athletes, judges, bobsledders, builders, bystanders, or spectators were involved in the collapse. No one that would have been there for any bobsledding-related purpose.”

When asked how an Olympic venue came to be so disused that it would collapse, Giuseppi took note to stress that it was a 7,130 seat bobsled venue, that cost $50 million Euros, was built only for bobsledding, and was built for use in Italy.

“There was no use for that thing the second after the Olympics ended,” he added.

When it was asked if Vancouver, which copied some of the Italian designs in construction of its bobsled venue, had any structural problems to worry about, Giuseppi laughed. “It’ll last throughout the end of next week. After that, who cares?”

When it was noted that Vancouver had hopes of using it after the games, the Italian perplexingly asked, “Of what use is a multi-million dollar bobsled course after an Olympics?” before snorting out a terse “Good luck with all that.”

Things you should read

IFC has put up the entire script for In The Loop, one of the best movies of last year, which was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. This is how all comedies should be written/sound/be. In addition it has notes from writer Armando Iannucci.

If that is not enough for you, here are deleted scenes from the movie, which you should have seen by now.

Ratchet it back a few notches, PETA

Olympic time. The time for the heights of athletic competition to be scaled and for sporting excellence broadcast nationwide. Oh, and bizarre animal rights protests. Because.... are skis made out of whale bone or something?

Ahh PETA. You have such a good message: treat animals better. But you always ruin it with your cheap, exploitative stunts, the mind shattering insanity of some of the comparisons and arguments you make, and the general insanity of your campaigns and fervent followers.

Thankfully this go around, they have neglected to strip women down naked to parade around in public or make any comparisons to concentration camps or the holocaust. SO we must congratulate them for possibly learning. Still though, they aren't exactly winning friends with salad. First up is their new Olympic pin:

Because... did they replace the silver medal with 40 pounds of free seal meat? Oh, seal clubbing. Yeah, kind of terrible. Still, not sure that's under the purview on the Vancouver Olympic Committee. But again, well done. No Hitler references and the objectification of women was kept down to a bare minimum. I'd say this rates as a passable campaign. You're learni... what's that?

American figure skater Johnny Weir will stay in the Olympic Village because he's concerned about "very serious threats" from anti-fur activists.
...
At last month's U.S. Nationals, Weir earned the scorn of anti-fur protesters when he wore a white tuft of fox fur on his shoulder. He was defiant in the face of the criticism at first but later relented.

Oh no you don't PETA. No one goes after America's figure skating pride. The only man willing to look at Elton John and decide that his manner of dress is too restrained. The man wore a swan leotard for Christ's sake. A SWAN! He can do whatever he wants. I swear to God PETA, if you deny this country Johnny Weir dressing like a fox or a neon peacock, or Lady Gaga, or a mirror ball when he goes out to nail quadruple lutzes, all the while making Scott Hamilton swoon, there will be hell to pay. You hear me? Hell to pay.

A swan. He's the only guy in male figure skating who gets male figure skating. I will not have that sullied by a vindictive PETA anti-fur campaign. Stick to weirdly violent pins.

Picture of the day

Via the Guardian comes this look at some of the winners in the World Press Photo Awards 2010.

World press photo of the year: by Italian photographer Pietro Masturzo, showing women shouting on a rooftop in protest at the presidential election results in Tehran

Spot news: third prize stories AFP photographer Palestinian Mohammed Abed came third in this category with his pictures of the shelling in Gaza

Spot news: second prize stories AFP photographer Olivier Laban-Mattei took a second place with his images of post-election protests in Tehran

Nature: first prize stories Canadian photographer Paul Nicklen, National Geographic, won first prize in this category for South Georgia, Antarctica

People in the news: second prize singles The runner-up in this category was American photographer David Guttenfelder for Associated Press, who showed US soldiers responding to Taliban fire outside their bunker in Korengal valley

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