Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.30

Ron English on the Kellog's cereal drama. I know Apple Jacks usually gives you diarrhea, but it wasn't supposed to this time.

Matt Taibbi takes out his well worn indignation bat to beat Lara Logan, the establishment media, and the notion of today's media that it is their job to protect our political betters lest the peasants learn what they really think. It's over the Rolling Stone McChrystal piece. Taibbi nicely sums up everything that is wrong with most of our media, from their subservience to power to their galling contempt for people who aren't as cravenly sycophantic as they are. Glenn Greenwald also jumps in and throws a few elbows.

#374B in Things I Am Disappointed With the Obama Administration Over: An Ongoing Series. In this episode, the White House goes out of it's way to help banking sycophant Scott Brown insert loopholes into financial reform so that they could lighten the minuscule financial burden on large banks, remove it from hedge funds, and shift it onto small banks and the taxpayer. As one does. Funny, when it comes to something like a public option or, soon, cap-and-trade, the White House can never seem to muster the energy to make even the tiniest effort to push for it. But shift reform burdens from hedge funds to taxpayers? They'll work up a sweat for that. Bang up job.

The 4th of July is almost upon us and thus it is our duty as Americans to use cheaply made Chinese explosives to light up our skies, blow up frogs that couldn't get away fast enough, and remove fingers and/or hands. Except that due to the budget crisis that many communities are going through, firework celebrations are being cut. I hope you'll join us here at TB in celebrating the first annual Imagination Independence Day! It'll help us all work out the kinks so that Imagination Christmas will go off without a hitch.

With a hurricane bearing down on the Gulf oil spill, one asks God "Jesus fucking Christ, what else can you do to make this worse you bearded son of a bitch?" Would you be interested in a tsunami... caused by BP? That's right, the relief well that they're drilling that will totally fix everything for honests, may set of a "supersonic tsunami" by igniting all the trapped underground methane. Nice. After that, the BP Board will go door to door for face macing and groin kicks. It's the only way they know.

We've been a little hard on Barry recently, but we will commend him on one thing: before arresting a bunch of deep cover Russian spies, our President went out munching burgers with Russian President Medvedev as those commie spies were being rounded up. It takes a stone cold motherfucker to have burgers with the man whose spies you are about to have exposed and incarcerated in a massive international incident. More please.

In which we offer PR help to the Catholic Church

Pope Prada I meets Cardinal Pedobear

The Catholic Church is in a bit of hot water as of late, what with the whole 'raping kids and not doing anything about it' scandal. From revelations that the church refused to do anything to a man who molested 200 deaf kids, to revelations that the Pope himself resisted action against pedophile priests citing "the good of the universal church", accusations that you've "killed the church", inaction in other child rape cases, to threats of legal prosecution against the church, stripping of papal immunity in the UK, to the imminent buddy cop team-up and arrest of the Pope by rogue cops Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, it seems the Pope is in for a rough couple of months... followed by a rough eternity in one of nine circles.

So seeing as he's in a spot of trouble, we figured that The TB Public Relations Conglomerate are the obvious ones to give him advice on how to proceed and provide critiques of their recent media strategies and statements. First, my credentials: I was born on Good Friday and thus am probably the resurrected Messiah, I have been to or seen a church within the last decade, and can remember several instances and interactions with priests where I wasn't raped. Satisfied?

Onward with a critical review of current Vatican media strategies. Remember, this is for you own benefit, Benedict.

Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League.

"The Times continues to editorialize about the "pedophilia crisis,: when all along it's been a homosexual crisis."... “It’s not a pedophilia” because “most of the victims were post pubescent,” as old as 12 or 13 years of age. Anything older than that is the fault of gays."

Nicely deflected. Not only is it an overarching gay conspiracy, but it isn't pedophilia, because the priests were merely raping 12 and 13 year olds. It's practically not a crime then. Still, some might not be swayed by the logic of that argument, so you might want to emphasize how raping kids once they hit their teens is practically a commandment. Plus, you referred to the New York Times as "The Times" and not "The Jew York Times". It seems like you were attempting a full triple twisting back crazy and pulled out and only singled it. We're going to have to deduct points for mild sanity in between blaming gays, parents, and everyone but the priests or the church for it. Practice the full crazy and get back out on that horse.

Grosseto Bishop Giacomo Babini

A website quoted Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, as saying he believed a "Zionist attack" was behind the criticism, considering how "powerful and refined" the criticism is. ... Allegedly speaking to the Catholic website Pontifex, Babini, 81, was quoted as saying: "They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers."

Nicely played. The controversy so much isn't child rape, church negligence, and cover-ups, no. The controversy is how the Jewish run media is coordinating coverage of these legitimate claims of abuse and accusations of church inaction/malfeasance. This is the kind of advanced blame shifting and Jew baiting that one can only learn from a lifetime in the Church. Take notes, Mr. Donohue. Do be careful about trying to ascribe conspiracies, Jewish or otherwise, to this scandal. It has the danger of making people thing of other conspiracies. Like a conspiracy to cover up sexual abuse of children over a period of decades by a central religious authority.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, during an Easter Mass at the Vatican.

Sodano's praise for Benedict as well as the church's 400,000 priests worldwide cranked up a vigorous campaign by the Holy See to counter what it calls a "vile" smear operation orchestrated by anti-Vatican media aimed at weakening the papacy and its moral authority. ... "Holy Father, on your side are the people of God, who do not allow themselves to be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials which sometimes buffet the community of believers," Sodano said.

Again, nicely played by a high church muckity muck. Glibly reducing credible accusations and investigations, teary confessions, and tacit admission from the church that these accusations are true and that they saw no need to punish guilty priests further as "vile smears" and "petty gossip" is always the right track when discussing facts. Though I would not that your choice of venue, the Easter Mass at the Vatican, does smack a little of "preaching to the converted". It might be the textbook definition. Try to get a few feet outside of the Vatican next time. Also, embracing the Pope immediately afterward might not have been the best idea. If charges are brought that incident could make you an accessory to a crime.

Writer Matt Taibbi

The Catholic Church is a Criminal Enterprise.

This may be true but it is not helpful to the cause to point this out.

Vienna's Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn

Vienna's Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, speaking of Benedict's long years as head of a Vatican office that investigates abuse, said the future pope "had a very clear line of not covering up but clearing up." ... "I admit that I often feel a sense of injustice these days. Why is the church being excoriated? Isn't there also abuse elsewhere?

Ahh, nicely done. When in doubt, state the exact opposite of everything that the media is revealing about Pope Benedict's actions while in charge of disciplining priests. Acknowledging someone else's reality is the first step towards losing an argument. Which is why I'm more disappointed in the second statement. Sure, the "everyone else is raping kids and covering it up, we aren't the only ones" defense looks sound on paper and is a real winner in terms of public support, but you acknowledging the media narrative and also tacitly admitting that priests rape kids and the church covers it up. Which is bad. The admitting it, I mean.

Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

"I am not proud of America's newspaper of record, The New York Times, as a paragon of fairness."

Yes! Question the source. Just how reliable is one of the world's most reliable papers anyway? Though in the Times defense they are just passing on the accusation of 200 deaf boys, not making the accusations themselves. So the question is: do you want to question the credibility of 200 deaf children and wage a PR battle against them? The answer might seem like an obvious yes, but keep in mind there is a lot of sympathy on their side. After all, they were raped over a series of decades and nothing was done about it.

Anthony Fisher, bishop of Parramatta

''Last century we tried godlessness on a grand scale and the effects were devastating,'' he said. ''Nazism, Stalinism, Pol-Pottery, mass murder and broken relationships: all promoted by state-imposed atheism or culture-insinuated secularism.''

Nicely pointed out. Where would we be without the Catholic Church? What if we were all atheists? What would we be getting up to if we rejected the teaching of the church? Probably something awful like raping kids and covering it up. I can't bear to think of that reality.

An unsigned editorial from the Vatican

[it accused] the NY Times of willfully ignoring the "truth" of Ratzinger/Benedict's record and of attempting "to instrumentalize, without any foundation in fact, horrible episodes and sorrowful events uncovered in some cases from decades ago." The media, it continued, showed a "despicable intent of attacking, at whatever cost, Benedict XVI and his closest collaborators."

That's right, not only is this really only an issue that the Times is dragging up, this all happened decades ago. Who can remember what happened last week, let alone decades ago? The past isn't important or legally actionable. Though again, try to refrain from alleging a conspiracy or using words like collaborators. It tends to make people think a group of people within the church, including the Pope, might have "collaborated" on trying to cover up abuse cases. Best not mention that kind of thing at all. Bonus points for not signing the editorial. That takes bravery.

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist, Ross Douthat

In reality, the scandal implicates left and right alike. The permissive sexual culture that prevailed everywhere, seminaries included, during the silly season of the ’70s deserves a share of the blame, as does that era’s overemphasis on therapy.

Yes, blame the left. It works well in American politics, why won't it help shield the church from rape allegations? I mean weren't these crimes the hallmark or leftist hippies and their 60's and 70's culture? What was it they said at Woodstock "Watch out for the brown acid and if you see a kid grab him and do whatever you want"? Wasn't Purple Haze about covering up abuse allegations? Still, while these are useful additions to the defense, they should not be made from the pages of the New York Times. Haven't you seen the attempts to demonize the Times and blame it for the scandal. Or should I say "scandal". If op-ed columns blaming hippies and saying the Pope shouldn't resign are coming from the Times then how is it an effective demonization tool? It isn't. Shape up.

So there, I hope that helped out with the Catholic Church's efforts to blame everyone else. I hope that these tips and messaging strategies will provide useful when attempting to pretend that credible stories, abuse allegations, evidence, and paper trails leading to the Pope don't mean anything. But I want you to remember the keys to this strategy: don't ever admit you did anything wrong (infallibility), don't ever apologize, don't ever attempt to punish or give a stern talking to any accused priests, don't ever appear to have a shred of human compassion, ethics, morality, or empathy, above all think of yourselves, and protect the Pope at all costs to your credibility and religion.

You stick to that plan and soon you'll have completely eradicated Christianity from the earth. That is your goal, right? If it isn't I'm going to have to change my advice.

Goldman will be keeping that money, thanks for asking

The last year or so hasn't been a great one, PR wise, for Goldman-Sachs. They've been caught up in an orgy of public hate over their actions, populist rage over bonuses, spitefully insightful Matt Taibbi articles, damning news reports, shady dealings, tone deaf behavior, and a general sense they they would steal the internal organs of children if they could just find a way to leverage it in the financial markets. On the other hand, they've also been caught up in an orgy of money and probably an actual orgy or two. Which, considering the general looks and attractiveness of your average Goldman worker, could be considered a crime against decency and taste.

They are loathed and no one there seems to understand that or want to take any real action to stop a public hatred so palpable that I'm surprised Goldman execs don't have to hack through it with machetes just to get into the office in the morning. On the other hand, their shareholders do seem to get it. Unfortunately, the board seems to think the shareholders should shut the fuck up already.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc's (GS.N) board has rejected demands from shareholders that the firm investigate recent compensation awards, recoup excessive compensation and reform pay practices.

Wall Street's dominant bank, criticized for paying billions of dollars in bonuses soon after the taxpayer bailout of the banking industry, reported the board's decision in a regulatory filing on Monday.

Goldman reported the shareholder demands last year and said at the time that its board was considering them. The firm did not name the shareholders who made the demands.

Sure their dirty dealings, shady practices, and connections to the Treasury Department and Fed have basically given them a license to print money off the backs of taxpayers. On the other hand, they did cap bonuses at $16.2 billion instead of the $20 billion their employees "earned", practically dooming their brokers to a life of poverty... all in the name of the public good.

So shouldn't we shut up already about all the stuff they did and continue to do to leverage our pain, misery and money into more money for themselves? While we and their shareholders might say no, the GS board says yes. And really, shouldn't we listen to them? After all they are pretty damned rich. Let's shut up.

Things you should read

I have some demands. Why? Because I like the mental fiction of having a supposed willing audience with which I can makes orders and demands that are carried out with brutal efficiency. What are these commands? Well, I was going to ask that someone fly a plane into an IRS building, but since someone already did that, it's just going to be reading related.

Content and demands, on a Sunday. I'm too good to you. How is this different from the Cheap Blogging Crutch? Well, it's on a weekend and this comprises articles I couldn't find a way to tack cheap dick jokes onto. More serious stuff, I guess. Onward.

For Scots, a Scourge Unleashed by a Bottle
A story of Scotland, “Wreck the Hoose Juice”, and a nation trying to come to grips with entrenched alcoholism and the specific beverage that they seem to want to blame for it: Buckfast. It may not have made me feel sympathy for Scotland, but I do want to buy a case of Buckfast.

The Substitute
Brad Plumer looks at the fading possibilities for climate change reform and how successful the EPA can be trying to regulate pollution and emissions now that it is likely to be the only entity capable of doing so, what with the Senate deciding to become irrelevant. Now you know what those lawsuits from Texas and Virginia are meant to do: pretty much make sure we don't do anything to avoid catching our death of heat and flooding.

Sticker Shock
John Cohn looks at the methods and madness of health insurance companies and why they jack rates. In addition he lays out why this means reform needs to be passed (as if you already didn't understand that) and further explains why piecemeal legislation will not work to reform the problem and stop the rate jacking.

After Summer Olympics, Empty Shells in Beijing
The New York Times looks at Beijing and the massive Olympic structures they built for the 2008 games. The verdict? They pretty much got used that week and haven't been touched since. Most striking is the status of the Bird's Nest stadium. It has no tenant, no real future events scheduled, and is right now a de facto gift shop and is packed with snow so children can sled down the aisles. The 2004 Athens games probably bankrupted Greece. I'm sure that bodes well for Vancouver, London, Sochi, and Rio.

How Christian Were the Founders?
The New York Times explores the radical, purely politically motivated attempts that the Texas education board is taking up in an attempt to rewrite textbooks to push Christianity and conservatism at the expense of science, known verifiable history, and common sense, and how they're decisions will likely affect the textbooks of around 40+ states. I bet you didn't know that Phyllis Schlafly, the Moral Majority, and the Contract With America were some of the most integral events in American history. Well now they are. Just one of the great ways in which this country is being destroyed from the inside in the name of cheap politics.

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man
Esquire magazine's story about the life of film critic Roger Ebert now that he has lost most of his jaw, the ability to eat, the ability to speak thanks to cancer, and how his outlook and life have changed since. One of the best profile pieces you're likely to read this year.

Roger Ebert's Last Words, con't.
Roger Ebert responds to the article on his own blog, musing on the tone, the shock of seeing the photo they used, how he doesn't want people to get the idea that he's dying, and what he wants people to take away from the article.

McDonald's Has a Chef?
TIME follows around McDonald's head chef, Daniel Coudreaut, and looks at just what exactly it is he does in a job that most people expect is an attempt at irony. It's an interesting portrait at just what a man who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and ran the kitchen at the Four Seasons does at McDonald's and the arduous, creatively crushing nature, and logistical nightmare coming up with food ideas for Mickey D's is when the sheer size and food production timetables, schedules, and production lines of an organization with as many restaurants as McDonald's has have to be taken into account.

Wall Street's Bailout Hustle
Matt Taibbi comes back for one more shot at Wall Street and the financial wizards who destroyed the economy. This time he focuses on all the various cons, grifts, scams, and outright thefts the financial and banking sector has engaged in since the global meltdown and how they haven't really learned anything.

Awwww

Senate Dems Not Sure They Can Get Enough Votes to Reconfirm Bernanke

Amidst the voter anger at Wall Street and Washington, D.C., ABC News has learned that the Senate Democratic leadership isn't sure there are enough votes to re-confirm Ben Bernanke for another term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Bernanke's term expires on Jan. 31.

What a shame. I just can't believe that in this day an age an ostensible agent of government who feels it is his duty to look out for financial and banking giants at the expense of people, completely neglects the bolded large print declaration that the central bank is supposed to be committed to enacting polices that promote full employment, tilts at windmills and the imaginary dragons of inflation, presided over a disaster, did nothing to stop it or foresee it, and is unpopular with the American people, isn't finding much support in Congress.

As an added bonus, it seems that Geithner is on the outs as well. Hey, I guess better late than never. Sad that it has to take months and months of deeply unpopular toadying to the people who ruined the economy before someone speaks up and says "Maybe... this is a... bad... idea?" while someone else tentatively nods in agreement. Or as Matt Taibbi puts it "the government only starts listening to its voters once the more corrupt option turns out to be untenable."

So soon we might have a new head of the FED and, if Obama seems to be moving away from his ideas, a new head of the Treasury. Hah! Just kidding. Did you see the confirmation rate in the Senate for Presidential appointees? Even if he dumps the both of them, it'll be years before both positions were filled. I'm not sure if those would be bad things at this point, but that's where we are. That is unless Senate Democrats are able to muster some sort of unified and bipartisan support for something supported by the President. LOLersaktes!

So sorry Ben. Bitches will eventually know about your rate cuts and we all appreciate your rocket cycle heroics, but we just can't let you run things anymore. I guess it's back to Princeton to boss around Krugman. That might be as fun as swimming in the Fed's money vault. Fare thee well.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 12.18

U.S. training plan: Read first, shoot later
From liberal rag Stars and Stripes, comes a look at how the US is using literacy training to get people into the Afghan army and police, while also using a desire to get into the Afghan military and police as a way to spread literacy. We still pay less than the Taliban does, but we are giving them job skills. Shame we can't do it for anything cheaper than an extra hundred billion.

The sports-entertainment crossover: it's sublimely funny. Just ask speedskating savior Stephen Colbert
Sports Illustrated takes a look at Stephen Colbert's successful quest to save the US speed skating team through sponsorship and what it might mean for the future of Olympic sponsorship. All part of the new issue of SI that features Colbert on the cover... in a speed skating spandex suit. This is going to be the best Olympic sponsorship by a comedy program since SCTV sponsored the Canadian men's two man luge team.

In 2010, The Civilian Space Industry Finally Takes Off
It's almost at that point in time where we're starting to get past that point all our favorite sci-fi TV, movies, and books described as "the future" and into that part they called "the distant future". What do we have to show for it? The ability to watch porn anywhere and HDTV. No moon bases and nothing that even remotely hovers in a car. But 2010 is the year which we can also pay billionaires for the right to rocket our asses up into low orbit, to feel a sensation that Buzz Aldrin and Alan Shepard got tired of describing three decades ago. The future is slowly creeping up, it's just a shame that it's more in the "carnival ride" aspects of the future and not the "to boldly go..." ones.

Collider Sets Record, and Europe Takes U.S.’s Lead
Well the Large Hadron Collider is up and running and while it isn't yet up to the task of killing God or crushing Europe into a singularity, it is up to the task of rubbing America's nose in shit. It has already set the record for accelerating protons (to 1.2 trillion volts), for number and speed of collisions, for the number of particle physicists in one room named Jens, for the slowest particle on record, the largest particle on record, most PhD's at a nude science kegger, and most appearances of the "particle physicists do it with momentum and position" bumper sticker. Here's congratulating them on their serious endeavors.

People finally realize Facebook intends to make money off of their data
Yeah, Facebook is starting to become mildly evil in regards to privacy, attempting to make money, and making everything on the site public. Turns out that you can't expect Facebook to exist forever without trying to make a buck of your info. Social media isn't private, especially free social media. Shocking, I know. However, this will help you stalk 15 year-olds and ex-girlfriends you are convinced still love you without a restraining order entering into it. So, that's a plus.

Obama's Big Sellout
Matt Taibbi's big Rolling Stone piece on the Obama Administration and that whole thing where we intended to bail out banks and financial institutions while providing increased scrutiny and oversight before turning our attention to the American people, before we promptly forgot the whole scrutiny, oversight, and American people parts. He's probably a little too focused on Obama and Bob Rubin and not the collection of money humpers in Congress, but it is another thorough indictment of the way this country works. Shame he used the title "Obama's Big Sellout", what's he going to use for his article detailing the health care debacle?

The goodness of their hearts

You know, when Matt Taibbi said that Obama's financial and economic policy had been "hijacked by sniveling, low-rent shitheads", it was hard to believe. I mean they all wear such nice suits and have such large bank accounts. Surely it was hijacked by high-rent shitheads. But to the degree we're squabbling over the level of shitheadedness, we are in agreement: they're shitheads. So that's why it was nice to see Senior White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers make that case so eloquently this weekend.

Summers defended Obama's attempts to persuade banks to increase lending.

"The country did incredible things for the banking industry. Those things had to be done to save the economy, but no major bank would be intact, in a position to pay bonuses, if that extraordinary support had not been provided. The bankers need to recognize that. They need to recognize that they've got obligations to the country after all that's been done for them, and there is a lot more they can do, and President Obama is going to be talking with them about what they can do to support enhanced lending to customers across the country. We were there for them."

Dear sweet fucking baby Jesus, that's the way we're going to get credit flowing, taxpayer funded bonuses curbed, and better regulations and oversight? Obama's going to go jawbone with them and they'll do it out of a sense of duty and obligation because "we were there for them"? A sense of duty wasn't enough for them not to set everyone's money of fire and gamble with the world's financial stability, why would it compel them to act rationally now, especially when "they got theirs..." and we're clearly in the "...so fuck everyone else" phase. "We" are going to be there for them the next time they do this, by which I mean "you" and all your Wall Street buddies in government.

So that's the big plan for trying to make sure that this doesn't happen again: hoping that Wall Street wants to change things out of the goodness of it's heart. Actually, now that I've seen the lengths that our elected betters will go to kill meaningful regulatory reform of Wall Street and the difficulty of getting good legislation through the House and Senate, perhaps wishing that banks and financial giants have a change of heart is the most viable course of action. I guess it's the season for miracles.

Stay classy, Feds

Quick question: how do you stop the fucking peasants who deign to catch a glimpse of the unelected betters who cart dump trucks full of money to our financial betters on Wall Street? By changing them exorbitant sums of money for their pissant Freedom Of Information Act requests.

The Treasury Department wants more than $500,000 to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, a fee an attorney on the case suggested Tuesday might be one of the largest bills of its kind.

“I have not seen one that has been larger,” said Noah Wood, a Missouri attorney suing the government to comply with his nearly four-year-old FOIA request.

The Treasury Department, Wood said, is “downright telling us where we can stick it.”
...
Still, the government wants Wood to pay $522,886 for the records. The original tab was more than $26,000, but after some revisions in what Wood was seeking, the government upped the ante — even though not all information sought would be forthcoming, according to the bill (.pdf).

How else is the Treasury going to recoup all that money it handed out to banks? By asking them to pay it back? You're fucking out of your mind.

Sadly this man wasn't trying to get information about the bank bailouts. No, that would have been almost too perfect. No, the man in question was simply trying to get info about some sort of deal with the Libyans and unpaid monies. I think it involved plutonium and a fake bomb made out of pinball machine parts. But hey, you gotta appreciate any attempt the Treasury Department takes to make itself even more lovable than it already is. Half a mil for making copies. Time Geithner can't keep the lights on charging 3 cents a page like Kinko's. Stay classy, Treasury Department.

And for God's sake if Matt Taibbi ever makes an FOIA request to you, please try to charge him half a million. The world needs another one of his articles on the financial industry and needs it to be completely filled to brim with utter disdain and bile.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.03

Palinoia
Matt Taibbi gets out his long knives for Sarah Palin in story he wrote over the summer but never published, during her whole resignation embarrassment. I don't know why he didn't publish it. It has great discussions on gems like the "campaign trail version of Mommie Dearest" she put the McCain camp through, the through line of "nutty-ass paranoid behavior" that permeates everything she does, as well as her political supporters to seem to rally behind her because it "validates [their] insane sense of fucked-overness". Worth a read, if only to remind yourself that she's never going to go away and there's still a large chunk of people who want to hand her power.

How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash
McClatchy news joins the "bludgeon everyone at Goldman-Sachs with a truncheon" bandwagon with Matt Taibbi as they start up an rather exhaustive series on how our economic betters at G/S have looted government, bet against the country, manipulated markets, and screwed everyone everywhere over for copious amounts of cash. Click on the sidebar for a full rundown. It misses Taibbi's outraged fury, but more than delivers in jaw dropping detail. McClatchy runs a pretty good news operation, shame he couldn't run a baseball team. Ah well Kev, this, and your reporting on Iraq and the war on terror more than make up for running the Buccos into the ground. All is forgiven. Ah, who am I kidding, I'm still fucking pissed off about the Pirates. Fuck you, McClatchy!

Racial disparity: All active ethics probes focus on black lawmakers
Whoops! I'm sure that's just a coincidence. Nice to see that no matter how high up you get in this country, the justice system still works the same way. I'm sure that it's just that there aren't any white crooks that have been elected. As Rod Blagojevich, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Larry Craig, Tom Delay, Jim Traficant, and George Bush have taught us: it's the black politicians you have to watch out for.

Second Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Arar
Something you probably won't hear too much about today and tomorrow as our press decides whether Republicans winning in historically Republican states and districts means that Obama should resign immediately or take two weeks off and then resign: the fact that a US court said it's OK for the US to illegally detain, render to a foreign country, and brutally torture an obviously innocent man without evidence as long as a.) government swears their complete violation of the law was totally for national security purposes, b.) prosecuting the crimes would force a court to scrutinize the effectiveness and legality of government programs and the high level officials that made them and c.) the victim cannot complete the bizarre and completely impossible legal hurdles the court places in front of him. This is the country we live in, America. Be proud.

Omnibusted
On the anniversary of their admittance to the union, The Edge of the American West looks at how the Dakotas and other mountain territories became states. In case you were wondering how states with more sheep than people get two senators with which to fuck over states that actually have people in them, the simple answer is corruption, fear of polygamist Mormons, racism towards brown people, and a desire by Republicans to pack the Senate with more Republicans. So just in case anyone tries to tell you otherwise, the Senate was never a place of congenial good, there was never a "better time" in its history, it was always an awful, stupid and corrupt place. Happy birthday Dakotas!

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.30

As Subprime Lending Crisis Unfolded, Watchdog Fed Didn't Bother Barking
It's things like this that make you well up with pride over our regulatory structure in this country. I mean who can doubt the logic of Alan Greenspan, who looked at the regulatory requirements of the Fed and said "the best kind of oversight is no oversight, I'm sure everything will work out if the subprime market is allowed to police itself." I forget, how did that work out again? This illustrates one of the fundamental flaws in the regulatory system. Sure it's useful to have government agencies with oversight on important areas, but it's also important that they not be staffed with dipshits.

Landmark Decision: Massive Relief for Homeowners and Trouble for the Banks
You may have heard of the recent Kansas Supreme Court decision that gave millions of homeowners a legal wedge to avoid foreclosure. It essentially ruled that the clearing system used for mortgages is, to put it charitably, unreliable. That, and that whole mortgage backed securities thing wasn't entirely legal either. Or, to quote Matt Taibbi, means that "half of the mortgage market has been run as a criminal enterprise for years." The ruling basically invalidates foreclosure proceedings on 60 million mortgages. Good times.

Is the media exaggerating the Iranian nuke threat?
Yes. *claps hands, gets up, walks away* Oh, did you want more explanation and perhaps specific examples? OK then, go read Juan Cole's opening salvo at just some of the preliminary exaggerations and outright lies that are already starting to creep into the debate on America's next Middle Eastern fiasco. If you're wondering what the media learned from the run-up to the Iraq war, the answer is: absolutely nothing.

Nike Resigns From The U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Board Of Directors Over Global Warming Disagreements
So, for those of you keeping score at home: Nike employing defacto Asian child slave labor to make shoes that the "workers" could never even hope to afford? Nike's cool with that. Being affiliated with the US Chamber of Commerce and it's global warming denialist tendencies? Nike's not cool with that. That's...an ethos....of a sort.

Roman Polanski Reviews 'Hannah Montana'
Screen Junkies gives and outlet to detained director/rapist Roman Polanski so that he can apply the film knowledge he gained during his three decades as a fugitive from justice to films that catch his eye. Hopefully, in the future, he'll be able to contribute more reviews so that the world will not be denied his insights just because the US is hostile to fugitive rapists.

Boris

It's such an unassuming, boring headline: Secret interviews add insight to Clinton presidency. You look at it and go "meh" because you already know what's in it: Clinton talking about the sex scandals, impeachment, blow-ups with Gore over the 2000 election, health care this, financial regulation that, "I could have done more". But you really need to go through it, otherwise you miss a slice of fried gold like this:

[Clinton] relayed how Boris Yeltsin's late-night drinking during a visit to Washington in 1995 nearly created an international incident. The Russian president was staying at Blair House, the government guest quarters. Late at night, Clinton told Branch, Secret Service agents found Yeltsin clad only in his underwear, standing alone on Pennsylvania Avenue and trying to hail a cab. He wanted a pizza, he told them, his words slurring.

The next night, Yeltsin eluded security forces again when he climbed down back stairs to the Blair House basement. A building guard took Yeltsin for a drunken intruder until Russian and U.S. agents arrived on the scene and rescued him.

He just wanted a pizza! Sure there's that whole "die for the President thing", but after reading that, did you ever want to be in the Secret Service more? This does raise some serious questions, and not just "Was Matt Taibbi underselling the drunkenness in his Rolling Stone obituary of Yeltsin?" What do you think the booze protocol for Boris was? Did they fly around with an oversized steamer trunk full of booze for him, did some poor staffer have to make a run each time they hit a new city, or was there a staffer trailing the Presidential motorcade in a pickup truck with the cargo bed filled with Vladimir and Banker's Club?

Pull Murray Waas and Sy Hersh off of whatever they're doing and tell them to find this out. We don't need some new depressing story on who Cheney was ordering to have killed or what CIA agent was outed, we need to know the elaborate procedures for getting Boris Yeltsin properly soused and how the Russian authorities, and foreign authorities, had to wrangle him while he was completely lit up. There have to be a million stories like this. We need to hear them.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.16

Wall Street Gambles on Old People Dying
Via Matt Taibbi comes this look at how Wall Street continues to make people who pile kittens into burlap sacks in order to drown therm in a river look like decent humans. What have they done this time? They've bundled life insurance settlements together like mortgage back securities and essentially allowing investors to wager on when people will die. This sounds like it'll end well.

DIY Pics From the Edge of Space for Just $150
Ever wanted to take pictures of the curvature of the earth or perhaps make the family gerbil and unwilling traveler into the mesosphere? Thanks to two Asian guys from MIT (was there any ever doubt?) you can now recreate the feat for a mere Benjamin and Grant, which is much less money than it cost those rotten Spanish kids who did the same thing. It costs even less if you're willing to part with your beloved Styrofoam beer cooler and steal a camera.

Dorgan Supports Climate Legislation So Long As It Doesn’t Address Climate Change
Great news for climate change legislation. Senator Byron Dorgan is willing to sign on to any action that aggressively addresses climate change as long as it doesn't aggressively address climate change. Or weakly address climate change for that matter. With leadership like that we'll have effective environmental legislation sometime right after the sun fries our brains at the exact moment we're drowning in pure melted ice cap water.

One in three votes for President Karzai 'was faked', EU observers find
Look at the bright side: that mean 66% of his votes were real. That's over half! Sure it wouldn't have been enough to avoid a runoff, bu he still won....a plurality. Look, even though we condemned vote rigging in Iran (sort of), I think the UN needs to realize that sometimes fraudulent elections can be a good thing. Like when it marginally benefits US interests. Stop being such a stickler on the meaning of "democracy".

Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley's Last Dance
To some people, they will remember Patrick Swayze as the star of Dirty Dancing and Roadhouse. To many, he will always be the bank robbing surfer Bodhi who squared off with Keanu Reeve's Johnny Utah in Point Break. But to everyone that matters, he will be the buy that was dancing next to Chris Farley in the SNL Chippendale's sketch. They're both dead now, and that's kind of depressing.

Baucus Day

Well Max Baucus finally released his health care bill today, with it's official Chairman's Mark and everything. You remember the bill, don't you? It's the one that was crafted to specifically get Republican support and is notable for the fact that it got no Republican support and seems to have alienated several Democrats on Baucus' Financial Committee. It's the one that took several months to hammer out a bill that was remarkably similar to the compromise legislation Baucus originally introduced. The one with insufficient provisions. The one without a public option.

And how have people responded to this bill? Wendall Porter, a former health industry employee at Cigna and insurance whistleblower, decided in his Congressional testimony to dub the bill “an absolute gift to the industry”, that the co-ops the bill uses will be unable to effectively compete to reduce costs, and took time to rename the bill "The Insurance Industry Profit Protection And Enhancement Act”. That got Nancy Pelsoi to disagree, she wants to dub the bill the "Private Insurance Profit Perpetuation Act" and they both had a slapfight about who's renaming gave the biggest BURN~!/FACE~! to the insurance industry. Matt Taibbi might actually shit a ball of pure hate over what's going on. Everyone's in love with Max Baucus.

So there we are, our long national nightmare is over and our new long national nightmare begins: watching this thing get passed. And perhaps we shouldn't worry too much as Bacus' bill will have to be reconciled with other committee's bills, and then go through an amendment process, then actually be voted on, and then go through a House/Senate conference committees. So what we're seeing here won't likely be the final bill. I mean after all, everything that goes to the full Senate to be worked over always comes out better and smarter and more effective, right? *shudder* Yeah....this is the best bill we're going to see. Get ready to bite into the shit sandwich and tell everyone how great it is.

Read this and read it now

Even though Matthew mentioned Taibbi's Rolling Stone piece on health care in yesterday's Cheap Blogging Crutch, I wanted to dedicate an entire post to the thing because, well, it's that good and important of a read. Especially in light of last night's shenanigans.

From Sick and Wrong, RS, 9/3/09:

To recap, here's what ended up happening with health care. First, they gave away single-payer before a single gavel had fallen, apparently as a bargaining chip to the very insurers mostly responsible for creating the crisis in the first place. Then they watered down the public option so as to make it almost meaningless, while simultaneously beefing up the individual mandate, which would force millions of people now uninsured to buy a product that is no longer certain to be either cheaper or more likely to prevent them from going bankrupt. The bill won't make drugs cheaper, and it might make paperwork for doctors even more unwieldy and complex than it is now. In fact, the various reform measures suck so badly that PhRMA, the notorious mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry which last year spent more than $20 million lobbying against health care reform, is now gratefully spending more than seven times that much on a marketing campaign to help the president get what he wants.

When finished, you may go back to your Facebook yes-we-canning.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.09

Follow the money: the world's sharpest fraudbusters
Wired UK gives us the story of the world's elite team of financial fraudbusters: The Super Best Money Friends. Follow them as they investigate, expose, and prosecute thieving jackals from the finance and banking industry. It's a very interesting look at not only how people are duped by these schemes, but how they are uncovered, and how they are handled once discovered. With a little luck and a little higher profile, this group of men might be the very group of people we ignore about fraud and bubbles before we begin our next financial sector induced freefall off a cliff.

Dick Cheney 'put airline bomb plot case in jeopardy'
How much does Dick Cheney love illegally imprisoning terrorist suspects and flaunting the law? Well according to the Times, so much so that he'll willingly jeopardize actual legal efforts to imprison those same terrorist suspects in such a reckless manner as to almost let them go free while ensuring that their collaborators do go free or are never even discovered. God, it's such a shame we don't have his leadership on the war on terror anymore. Thanks, Dick.

Bending the Curve: Effective Steps to Address Long-Term Health Care Spending Growth
Look, look, I know, I know, I'm sorry. Yes this is a link to a Brookings Institute study on how to effectively reduce health care costs. It's full of numbers and figures and probably has a chart or two to go along with it's complete absence of curse words or dick jokes. But, if you are interested in a litany of smart things that aren't being considered in the health care debate, this is a great place to start working up some edumacated libary book smartifying anger.

Sick and Wrong
Finally. Rolling Stone has now put up Matt Taibbi's extensive look at the legislative and political effort to fuck you hard on health care. Now you can move from just vaguely knowing the shapeless mass that is trying, and succeeding, to stick it to you, to seeing the true form of the beast and what specific horrible curses and incantations they are hurling at you. Surprisingly it only took five steps to completely screw things up.

The mainstreaming of crazy
Phil Plait of Discover Magazine's Bad Astronomy blog, himself no stranger to fighting bad science and lies about everything from climate change to moon landings, finally cracks and unleashes hell on the poisoned state of debate, intellectualism, and intelligence in this country. What finally caused him to crack? The GOP outrage over Obama telling schoolkids to study hard and stay in school. Yeah, that was crazy, but I'd only rate it about a 4 out of 10 on the Beck Scale.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.02

The "Intolerance" Party? GOP Strategists Worry Ideologues Are Bad For The Party's Future
Some within the GOP are waking up to the idea that maybe, just maybe, having Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck as the main faces of your party is...well let's be charitable and say...not good. They want to grab the party back from the ideologues. One thing, no...two things. First, don't you actually have to have ideas to be an ideologue? Secondly, if 58% of your party has problems believing that Barry was born in the US, can you really save the the party from the overwhelming majority of itself?

Health Care Reform: Sick and Wrong
If you're like me, a cheap fucker who can't be bothered to pay actual money for printed material, Rolling Stones has put up this handy little series of video clips whereupon Matt Taibbi explains the reasoning and arguments behind his new "Democrats are rotten fuckers" health care article, currently in the "Why the Beatles Broke Up" issue. This should hold you over until they put the full article up for free and you can spend your precious money on something worthwhile, like cheap gin.

Tort Reform Unlikely to Cut Health Care Costs
Among the smaller arguments made by Republicans arguing against health care reform, is that they'd like to talk about serious reforms but the Democrats have taken the most important issue off the table (tort reform of medical malpractice lawsuits) because they're run by trial lawyers. It's not an argument you hear often because, let's face it, is has none of the zip of "They're gonna kill granny." But now someone has bothered to look at the issue and has come to the conclusion that...it wouldn't reduce costs at all. Oh well, back to the grandma killing well.

Stephen Fry: In search of the planet's most endangered species
The great Stephen Fry has just finished his newest project: searching out and documenting some of the world's rarest and endangered species. A mission he carries out in honor of his friend, the late author Douglas Adams. He has a book coming out about the journey called Last Chance to See, and the first installment on the journey is up on the Guardian website on the search to find the Giant Jumping Rat of Madagascar and New Zealand's Man-Eating Parrot, which, sadly, isn't 6 feet tall.

iPhone App Finds Disease Outbreaks Near You
Oh iPhone, is there anything you can't do? Now, with the help of your fellow citizens, you can be alerted to when any assholes start plaguing your area with their pig-related AIDS, zombie infections, and Entitilitus. When someone sees evidence of a plague outbreak red pin points appear on a Google map along with links to the news story, nearby medical supply depots that sell flu masks in bulk are identified, and links to guns stores where you can buy shotguns powerful enough to take the head off of one of the shambling undead are highlighted.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.28

Tenacious G
New York Magazine asks the question: Is Goldman Sachs evil or just too good? The conclusion they come up with is that they're good at being evil. But new information abounds, as it turns out that Goldman was close to collapse there for a while. I think I just heard Matt Taibbi sigh sadly.

Obama administration reveals evidence of global warming kept secret under Bush
That's right, under the Bush Administration they classified satellite photographs showing that arctic ice was rapidly melting. That's right, ice and US Geological Survey topographical studies were deemed sensitive information. But now that the photos have been released surely this new scientific information will convince guys like James Inhofe of the reality of the situation.

MANSON COURTS SPECTOR BEHIND BARS
Yes, Charles Manson is trying to set up a prison recording session with Phil Spector. Charlie still has those delusions of musical superstardom, good to see he's keeping the dream alive. Hopefully this ends better than Charlie's attempts to get Brian and Dennis Wilson to produce his music. What was it Dennis said? "Chuckles, I'd rather see Sharon Tate and all her friends murdered by your minions than have to listen to your fucking demo of 'Cease to Exist' one more goddamn time"? Hopefully Phil lets him down easier.

Gates, Crowley To Join Obama For Beers On Thursday
Our long national nightmare ends as President Obama finally sits down to drink a beer with the loudmouth professor and the blowhard cop who have transfixed the nation with their childish actions. Though given the interaction between Gates and Crowley when they were sober, should we really be introducing booze into the equation?

Why markets can’t cure healthcare
Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman gets all economical up in this bitch as he explains how because of costs and the very nature of medical care that the free market can't properly regulate health care. This marks the 1000th straight time Paul Krugman will make a trenchant and valid point immediately relevant to the current issues debate that will be promptly ignored by the elected betters he allegedly shares the same side of the ideological spectrum with.

House passes resolution that states Obama was born in Hawaii, 378-0
Childish political gamesmanship is taken to new levels as Obama birthers were forced to vote on a bill commemorating Hawaii's 50th anniversary as a state that had been augmented to include a reference to the state being the birthplace of one Barack Hussein "Born in Mombassa" Obama. The potential for crazy 'birther' speeches seemed to be ready for blastoff as Michelle Bachmann blocked a simple voice vote on the uncontroversial measure and made it go to a floor vote. But, shockingly, sense prevailed within the GOP caucus as the conspiracy freaks either held their nose and voted for a lie or bravely skipped the vote. In case you're wondering why health care can't get passed it's because our elected betters spend most of their time dicking around with this kind of petty bullshit.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.23

Make no little plans
The epic tale of NYU President John Sexton and his multi-billion dollar quest to make New York University the premier academic institution in the world....by building a branch campus to teach western style education in the heart of a repressive regime not known for intellectual freedom, respect for individual rights, and a religious based Islamic education foundation. I'm sure there will be no problems with all that. Still, the NYU-Abu Dhabi campus is not as illustrious as the branch campuses my alma mater, Pitt, has in Greensburg or Titusville, but it'll do. I think ole Johnny Sexton is going to be blown away by our multi-thousand dollar facility that's under discussion for Kittaning.

Ignoring Watchdog Report, Treasury Gives Three Major Banks Sweetheart Deals
SO it turns out that Tim Geithner might just be a total financial industry suck-up and goon? My faith in the best and brightest of Wall Street is shaken once again. Sweetheart deals for banks? Taxpayers only getting 2/3rd's of the value of its assets? Nude old white man orgies on piles of greasy money? Funnily enough the one bank that did pay fair market price for the warrants was Goldmann-Sachs, probably out of fear. Score one for Matt Taibbi. See, sometimes when you yell at a company looting the American taxpayer, you can startle them so badly that they drop a few nickels.

Leader Of GOP Health Care “Solutions Group” Says GOP Won’t Offer Health Care Bill
What? You're telling me the GOP doesn't have a health care solution beyond "vaguely endorse things being cheaper" and then stamping their feet, holding their breath and yelling "Socialism!" at anything that attempts to make things cheaper? Shocking.

New York Times Reports $39.1 Million 2Q Profit
Somehow, possibly through witchcraft or some other dark art, a newspaper made money. I can only assume that this is because the Times was able to reclassify itself as a bank and get bailed out. I think that's how they were able to negotiate the selling off of a bad asset like Bill Kristol back to the conservative movement.

Obama, Farm Industry Clash Over Antibiotics
It seems that President Obama and the FDA have decided that maybe the food industry pumping every animal full of antibiotics, us eating those drugged up animals, and resulting creation of super-drug resistant bacteria, isn't such a great idea. They've proposed a bill to make it illegal to give new antibiotics to farm animals unless they're actually sick and restrict the use of older form of the drugs. Because this makes sense and is supported by scientific research, it will have trouble getting passed in the Senate. For a greater understanding of why this is all bad, go see Food Inc., and then be driven to never eat anything again.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.17

US gun debate fires up as states allow weapons in bars
Want to know what you can't do in most bars? Smoke. But some states are coming up with a compromise: if you want to kill yourself or be killed in a secondhand manner, they are willing to allow handguns to be carried in bars to increase that possibility. Liquor and firearms, I thought those two wouldn't go together. Apparently in Arizona and Tennessee they do. So order a Jack & Coke and bring your Smith & Wesson, that confrontation over at the jukebox just got interesting. Sam Peckinpah interesting.

When Do They Need a Fig Leaf?
Summer is here and the New York Times is here to expose the new menace plaguing the countryside: armies of nude toddlers running free. Yes, there's a miniature streaking epidemic. From sunburn concerns to neighbors who catch a glimpse of a nude toddler in the yard and then spend the day wondering if their door isn't about to be kicked in by Chris Hansen,their apparent perversion shown on NBC, and jail time followed by registry on a sex offenders list. When will these nude 3 year old freaks learn: this is a Puritan country. Go off and commit unspeakable acts of violence like a normal child.

Economy in China Regains Robust Pace of Growth
What's that? The communofascisocialist Red Chinese understand more about economics than the free market, flag eating, $$$ loving people for New Freemerica? You mean focusing your efforts on appropriate levels government spending and loans and not loading up bills with ineffective tax cuts to appease Republicans is the way to go about an economic stimulus? Who would have thought? Except all those economist assholes. Of course they may be lying, but that's also a good plan. In any event, as long as their recovery isn't tied to the brutal suppression of dissident activity by Chinese Uighurs, we can copy it. Because we unfortunately sent all our Uighurs to tropical islands.

Chuck Todd's arguments against investigations
Want to know one of the main reasons you should actively despise the media in this country? People like Chuck Todd are a start. But it's more of their general kowtowing to power and their blinkered insistence that we shouldn't prosecute those pesky people who illegally tortured and spied and broke all those laws because it would be "distracting" and "looking back" and "partisan." Check out Glenn Greenwald's blogging destruction of Chuck Todd, then listen to his podcast, where he has Chuck on and then destroys him in audio form.

Who Will Succeed Kim Jong Il?
I'm guessing it's going to be someone with the words "Kim Jong" in their name. And I'm right, with Kimbo's #3 three son Kim Jong Un, slated to take up the family business. What's known about him? Almost nothing except he went to a Swiss school and loves NBA basketball. This should be read just for the stories his classmates give of finding out he's a dictator's son, theirs thoughts on the possibility he'll be the new dictator, and their descriptions of his b-ball prowess. The bad news if Un succeeds Il: not only another brutal dictator who's probably crazy, but one who could challenge Barry in a 1-on-1 match. The good news: if we make Michael Jordan a North Korean ambassador, we might be able to get Un to do what ever we want.

As Goldman Sachs Posts Record Profits, Matt Taibbi Probes Role of Investment Giant in US Financial Meltdown
Democracy Now has Matt Taibbi on to not only discuss his Rolling Stone article, now up in full on RS.com, but to also discuss the recent news that Goldman Sachs posted up its biggest quarterly profit ever. Needless to say he's not exactly surprised. Check out his blog for further discussion on the issue, rebuttals to criticism he's received, and people who he thinks can help explain the issue better than him.

Farewell and adieu you bastard

Hey, if any of you are around when I die, can you please make sure that whoever at McClatchy newspapers does write up my obituary (Blog God Dies During Pitched Orgy/Gunfight on Moon) that they don't let Joseph Galloway write it. He wrote one for Robert McNamara and it really brings to mind Matt Taibbi's "obituaries" for Boris Yeltsin and the Pope or Hunter S. Thompson's for Nixon. He begins by quoting Clarence Darrow on enjoying reading certain obituaries and goes from there.

Well, the aptly named Robert Strange McNamara has finally shuffled off to join LBJ and Dick Nixon in the 7th level of Hell.

McNamara was the original bean-counter — a man who knew the cost of everything but the worth of nothing.

Back in 1990 I had a series of strange phone conversations with McMamara while doing research for my book We Were Soldiers Once And Young. McNamara prefaced every conversation with this: "I do not want to comment on the record for fear that I might distort history in the process." Then he would proceed to talk for an hour, doing precisely that with answers that were disingenuous in the extreme — when they were not bald-faced lies.

He then proceeds to measure his hate for the man against that of David Halberstam, before finally ending on a happy note, retelling a story where an angry artists almost succeeded in drowning McNamara. I thought you had to wait until a man was buried before you pissed on his grave, but there we are.

But it does bring to mind the disease we have as a society to completely gloss over the sleazy, morally bankrupt, criminal actions, etc... of people who die when writing their obituaries. Everyone was generally a good person who loved their kids and worked hard, and any reference to scandal will be prefaced with the phrase "some disagreed..." or by use of the word "conflict." Only serial killers get described in apt terms. Meanwhile Michael Jackson gets the whole child rape and two decades of extreme bizarreness thing gets glossed over and Robert McNamara turns into some unimportant, uncontroversial, peripheral figure in the Vietnam war. Excuse me: Vietnam dispute. Just wait until Dick Cheney dies. You won't believe the glowing obituaries he gets when he finally shuffles off in 2075, or whenever that pact with Satan comes due.