Obama's new plot to infect the minds of our braindead, zombie youth

My confidence in the right wing outrage machine is fading. Sure they had a great week manipulating media anger and getting the Obama Administration to fire an innocent woman for made up reasons, but they're slipping on the little things.

I mean Rush or Glenn Beck should be on this, throwing a hissy fit as we speak. EA Sport put Obama into a video game! OH WON'T THESE SOCIALISTS STOP TRYING TO FORCE THEIR COMMUNISM DOWN OUR THROATS!!!! That's right, when you win the Super Bowl in the upcoming Madden 11, they have an expanded celebration sequence, complete with a digitally awkward Commissioner Goodell, a specialized speech by hyperactive scream machine Gus Johnson, and a team White House trip where digital players shake hands with a digital Obama and hand him a digital jersey, digitally warping the minds of the youth with 1's and 0's about upping the minimum wage, card check, and expanding the social safety net. WHY CAN'T THEY MEET REAGAN?

Virtual Obama greeting Madden 2011 Super Bowl winners @ Yahoo! Video

I'm not sure if this also will take into account the multi-season Franchise Mode. If I take my theoretical Steelers to the 2013 Super Bowl... who will be President then? Will it still be Obama, or has EA also put together a complex political matrix that analyzes candidates real time and slaps in a likely winner? Will digital Hines Ward be shaking hands with President Palin? I must know! Will the 2016 winners shake hands with Uncle Joe, replete with a fifth of whisky in his hand, or will they be shaking hands with a guerrilla leader amid gunfire and pile of tires on fire?

All I know is that a decent and respectably crazy Tea Party movement and Fox News establishment would have already declared this the end of civilization and deemed it a nefarious liberal plot to brainwash kids. Perhaps this is too cutting edge for them. Maybe they have to work their way from the Maypo kid saying something supportive about Woodrow Wilson on a Victrola recording to the Lone Ranger saying something vaguely supportive of the WPA on the radio, before making the jump to video games.

He's in our sporting video games.

Your new dissapointment

Chris Dodd's financial legislation is almost finished and a palpable sense of the crushing of the last vestiges of hope that it'll be useful is in the air. Last week he dramatically broke off talks with Republicans in his Senate Committee For Bank Sponsored Handjobs and Financial Industry Massages because he felt they weren't going anywhere. Apparently he didn't want the legislation to be really weak and gutless, only mostly weak and gutless.

We all remember the Fed, right? You know, the money gurus that completely failed to see the financial apocalypse or take steps to avert it, abdicated its regulation responsibilities, are handing out billions as we speak to corporations, and can't seem to find the time to follow the mandate that it enact policies to ensure full employment? Those guys? Their chairman has a beard. Well I hope you like them, because they're going to get even more power and regulatory responsibility that they won't use.

In a proposal set to be unveiled this afternoon, Sen. Chris Dodd (D - Conn.) anchors his latest financial reform bill around a relatively undiminished Federal Reserve.
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As Simon Johnson notes, critics will surely object to the fact that Dodd's bill will entrust the Federal Reserve to oversee the nation's largest and most systemically important financial firms. "Unfortunately, on the major issue - too big to fail financial institutions that caused the 2008-09 crisis and that will likely trigger the next meltdown - there is nothing meaningful in the proposed legislation," Johnson wrote of the bill.

Just last year, Reuters notes, Dodd said the Fed had been "an abysmal failure." Now, it appears the central bank has made "a remarkable recovery."

Not only does the Fed gain an nonindependent Consumer Financial Protection Agency, it keeps its authority over bank holding companies, gains new authority over financial firms, and supervises state-chartered banks. This is kind of a dramatic overhaul of Dodd's first proposed bill, which stripped all regulatory powers from the Fed. But hey, sometimes you've got to make compromises to get no Republican support.

And who is to blame? Well, Dodd, who despite retiring still wants to conduct himself as if he's going to need industry support to gain re-election. But, like with the health care bill, the troubling capitulation to industry interests and an overwhelming optimism in the ability of groups of people that simultaneous failed and fucked us to learn from their mistakes without any legal requirement or strong regulatory incentive to do so comes from.... the White House. *pumps fist*

So in case you were wondering whether the largest financial collapse since the Great Depression and the forced multi-trillion dollar bailout of nearly every large financial corporation and bank in order to keep things from getting worse was enough to teach our elected betters something, the answer is no. A resounding no. God bless that special, extra-hard cement the baby Jesus poured into their heads.

We are also not going to die by asteroid strike

Earlier I had to regretfully inform you all that were were not going to die in a flu pandemic. But then I was filled with hope: a new asteroid was discovered Monday and might smash into us today. But alas...

A small (10 meter wide) asteroid will pass by the Earth Wednesday, at 12:47 UT. This tiny rock, called 2010 AL30, will pass us at a safe distance of 130,000 km (80,000 miles). As cosmic encounters go, this is a hair’s breadth, but in human terms it’s a long way off
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And since I know someone would ask, if this were aimed at us, it would probably explode high up in the atmosphere and not hit the ground. It would be quite a show, but most likely wouldn’t do any damage on the ground (even if it were iron, at that size it’s unlikely it would make it to the ground, and instead would tear itself to pieces on the way in).

This graphic also explains how far away it will actually pass.

What's a planet gotta do to get flung into an apocalypse, huh God? Have we not offended you enough? Have we not invited your wrath? Have we not practically taunted you to rain fire down on us? All you can muster is some weak kneed pig shit and a piddling asteroid that won't even come in danger of hitting a satellite? I'm disappointed in you. Hang your head in shame, Lord. You're not the man this comic led me to believe you were.


Get it together Jehovah and start raining down the hellfire.

Too soon?

From FreshJive, the t-shirt entitled "Hope is Fading Fast", the first salvo from the hippies and hipsters who probably didn't vote, but would be regretting it right now if they did. 10 months? Is that our wait limit on hope related change? Alright. Sure you don't want to wait until he officially escalates the war in Afghanistan before turning on him? No? All this stuff is sufficient? I understand, Christmas pre-orders, printing lead times, and whatnot.

On the bright side, this is probably distorted enough and artistically different enough to ensure they don't get sued by the AP. Which puts them one up on Shepard Fairey. Here's a tip if you do get sued by a vengeful press or cash strapped Fairey: don't lie. Otherwise, I'll see you at the weekly meeting for people who didn't get what they wanted from a politician they supported. We're called everyone and we meet every day within the confines of the Untied States and its outlying territories.

The new disappointment

With the health care debate largely over and only the scope and size of the public option left to get to get blindingly angry about, the choice of whether to allow people access to it was successfully fobbed off onto states (states rights, bitches! eat it Lincoln!), and the spectacle of largely conservative, right wing states enacting a hilarious process of screwing their own citizens on health care with the tacit tea bagging approval of those citizens, Congress now moves on to a new debate for us all to get immensely worked up over inevitably leading to anger and disillusionment in government as intelligent plans based on science and research are diluted and made terrible by the dumbest and most politically craven members of the Democratic Senate caucus: the environmental debate! The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee starts public hearings on climate change bills! Whooo!

With a clearer picture on health care, the Obama administration and Congress today are pivoting toward climate change legislation.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee began hearings this hour on Chairman Barbara Boxer's bill, with President Obama's Green Cabinet expected to testify.
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With just over a month before climate change negotiations begin in Copenhagen, environmental advocacy groups have been pressuring the White House and Congress to take action so world leaders have a framework to build upon.

Administration officials have stressed for weeks they are comfortable with negotiators using the House-passed bill as a starting point, but the activists closest to the issue say that's not enough.

Sorry activists, hope you like getting less than what's in the House bill you think is inadequate. Hell, I hope you like getting less than what's in the Kerry/Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733) that the hearings are going to be about. Because the lesson around here, and we try to impart it on a daily basis, is that the Senate is a stupid place and legislation only goes there to be made worse. The climate bill has been ordered to pass through the land of wind and ghosts and we can only hope that it emerges from the other side in a manner that doesn't worsen climate change, only fails to inadequately and effectively address it and fails to help set up the American economy to grow and expand into green technologies.

It matters not that people support cap-and-trade measures by a 60% to 37% measure and that the numbers are even higher for people under the age of 50. They felt the same way about a robust public option and we all saw the bruised, battered, and dismembered body that is still trying to drag itself out of the US Senate's shame basement. No, the future of America is clearly coal, so coal state Democrats (and God there are more of them than the ones who opposed a strong public option) will make sure that climate change legislation reflects the wishes of the coal industry that will fuel our economy into the 22nd century. Get ready, we've found the next Country Polarizing Thing To Hate that everyone on both sides can get angry about: climate change legislation! Get your teabags and haikus about Mother Earth ready.

Disappointment of the day

As the world awakens it begins the important process of forgetting that silly Iran business they were so concerned about and starts to focus on what's important: Michael Jackson tributes. So far I am disappointed in them. I am especially disappointed in you NY Post. After 1001 snide, mocking Jackson headlines, you couldn't give us one more? No JACKO ON BACKO FOREVER? Putting the Peter Pan/Neverland references only on the online version?

Ugh. Out of everyone I at least expected you to not respect the man, Post. I'm disappointed.

Spared no expense

Dr. Alan Grant:

Try to imagine yourself in Carmel, Illinois. You get your first look at this "six foot turkey" as you enter the offramp near the construction on Exit 73. He moves like a bird, lightly, bobbing his head. And you keep still because you think that maybe his visual acuity is based on movement like T-Rex - he'll lose you if you don't move. But no, not Velociraptor. You stare at him, and he just stares right back. And that's when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the side near the road cones,

[makes 'whoshing' sound]

from the other two 'raptors you didn't even know were even hiding behind the road paver and macadam pile. Because Velociraptor's a pack hunter, you see, he uses coordinated attack patterns and he is out in force today. And he slashes at you with this... a six-inch retractable claw, like a razor, on the the middle toe. He doesn't bother to bite your jugular like a lion, say... no no. He slashes at you here... or here... or maybe across the belly, spilling your intestines. The point is... you are alive when they start to eat you. So you know... try to show a little respect.

Forewarned is forearmed.

When there is no more room left in Collinsville...

The Zombie Road Sign Movement, first chronicled here, seems to be gaining momentum.

Pranksters in at least three states are corrupting electronic road signs meant to warn drivers of road work. The latest breach came Tuesday during the morning rush hour near Collinsville, Ill., where hackers changed a sign along Interstate 255 to read, “Daily lane closures due to zombies.”

Not that we would ever condone such behavior but, well, here you go.

Broken News: Area Wedding Marred by Good Weather, Civility, Sobriety

TULSA, OK--Tragedy struck the Yablonski-Simon wedding yesterday, as both ceremony and reception were burdened by sunshine, interfamilial courtesy, and an unprecedented refusal to drink heavily.

Trouble began at the outdoor ceremony, conducted under a cloudless sky absent of any blood-sucking or stinging insects. The proceedings were frequently interrupted only by what guests later referred to as “a pleasant breeze.”

As the assembled crowd strolled roughly 100 yards across a fallow field to the reception, many were eager to curse the ideal conditions and, simultaneously, their own sad lives. “I was furious,” said one of the groom’s family members on the condition of anonymity. “When I got married I had to suffer through two fist fights within the bridal party, a vaguely anti-Semitic speech by the pastor, and an all-holy piss down of rain. Not to mention the cretin I had to vomit vows at. I gotta say, when I felt that breeze, I died a little inside.”

The despicable torrent of pleasantness continued on into the reception. Despite the presence of an open bar and four kegs of Miller Genuine Draft, guests conducted themselves in a manner that could only be described as unerringly civil and sober. This restraint was particularly surprising given the presence of at least eight military veterans, none of whom compared disfigurements, discussed the horrors of combat in front of children, or displayed casual racism towards enemies past. Even the inclusion of several active trade union members and former fraternity brothers failed to spark one drinking game, swearing contest, or ill-timed penis appearance.

As the event plowed on in an insultingly fulfilling manner, family insiders began to pin their derailment hopes on one Uncle Frank. Affectionately referred to as "That Fat Drunk Bastard Frank" by his family, Uncle Frank's record includes seven arrests (at five weddings), two mid-ceremony streakings, and a mouth that has provoked fistfights with ranking clergy of four separate faiths.

Hopes rose halfway through the reception when Uncle Frank wrested the mic from Jimmy "All Love Baby" McMichael, the event's MC. But all Frank would serve up was disillusionment. After launching into a moving speech about commitment, forgiveness, and the importance of family, Frank failed to even insult the bride, bring up inappropriate tales of sexual congress, engage in petty grudges, or reveal long held family secrets. Uncle Frank's moving tribute to the, sadly, happy couple ended when his words moved the newlyweds to kiss in what could only be described as a moment of true affection and love.

“It was just unbearable,” remarked guest Victor Lewis. “To just see two people up there and in love, getting married in the most harmonious of circumstances, surrounded by loved ones, everything going perfectly. It really makes you feel empty and alone, like a pathetic shell of a human acting out emotions and feelings he doesn’t have anymore just to pretend to be like everyone else while the great black void devours his soul remnants on the inside.”

As the day ended with a perfect sunset the guests reflected on the joviality of the entire day, their secret petty hatred of the happiness that they could no longer feel, and the love for their spouses that had withered and died over the years.

This morning even the groom seemed disappointed by the turn of events. “How will the story of this wedding hold the interest of the ultra-depraved children of the future? They’ll scarcely be able to look up from their gun sights and human flesh hunks to even listen to me tell about what a wedding was like before the dark times. I mean, after the World Rape, no one is going to give a damn about a story about awe-inspiring joy and love. Certainly not the Flesh Reavers or the Fascist League of Body Mutilators.”

When it was pointed out to the groom that disappointment over the lack of embarrassing shameful behavior at the wedding could in and of itself be a defining black mark on the wedding, the groom just sighed. “I’d like to hope so. I really would. But we both know that’s just not the way the world works. No one remembers the small internal failures of absence, only the soul-crushing breakdowns dug like a scar onto the face of time itself.”

The only hope now is for an eventful divorce. But with yesterday’s wedding fresh in everyone’s mind, those hopes are faded and distant.

Wikipedia succeeds where reality fails

From Wikipedia, after Jesse Helms died. It was removed after it was, disappointingly, found to be untrue.

Death

He died on July 4, 2008, slitting his wrists in a washtub out back beneath the pecan tree and writing "I've been a bad boy" in his own blood. The skins of several children were found drying in his attic, swarms of horseflies going in and out of the eaves. His wife was quoted on CNN as saying "I always wondered about Jesse's collection of little shoes."^[14]