Compare/contrast

National Security Adviser General James Jones, on General McChrystal's plan to add 40,000+ troops in Afghanistan

"Generals always ask for more troops. Take it from me," Jones told SPIEGEL in an interview. ..."You can keep on putting troops in, and you could have 200,000 troops there and Afghanistan will swallow them up as it has done in the past."

Obama's Afghan Plan: About 40K More Troops

The president still has more meetings scheduled on Afghanistan, but informed sources tell CBS News he intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for.

McChrystal wanted 40,000 and the president has tentatively decided to send four combat brigades plus thousands more support troops. A senior officer says "that's close to what [McChrystal] asked for." All the president's military advisers have recommended sending more troops.

Whew, that was a close one. For a second there I was worried we weren't going to escalate the war, or if we were, we weren't going to escalate it to the satisfaction of our generals. Dodged that bullet. We did, not the troops. Ironically they'll have to be dodging bullets now. Now the Obama Administration says that the CBS report is false because no final final decisions have been made, but does anyone think there's a chance this isn't happening? I thought so. I guess the real victory is that he didn't put in 200,000 troops to get swallowed up in there. Jones must have been preparing us for a worst case scenario.

For comparisons sake, this increase of 40,000 combat soldiers (plus the requisite addition in tens of thousands of support forces) will cost somewhere in the range of $80 billion extra a year for Afghanistan. Doesn't that make you feel great? $80 billion a year is cheap when you want to use it to extend and escalate a war. But when you want to use that money to get people cheaper health care and do so in a way that decreases the deficit, then that same $80 billion a year is an onerous deficit burden on America that our children (someone think of the children) will have to pay off. I'm no budgetary expert, but I think it has something to do with a part in the preamble of the Constitution that says "War money don't count as real money." Who are we to argue with the founding fathers?

Video of the day

In honor of a goddamn bye week that went on too long (it should be illegal to schedule a Monday nighter following a bye) and freedom and the Berlin Wall coming down and Carl Sagan Day, we present an NFL Films tribute to one of the highlights of the Heinz Field gameday experience: Renegade.



Don't believe in the power of Renegade? Ask Tony Romo. Ask Brettfavreisjusthavingfunoutthere right after he fumbled for a TD. Ask Brettfavrejustlovesthegame after he threw a pick six. That's right, bitch got double Renegaded. No one can stand up to it. Sadly, we'll have to win on our own tonight, as I'm betting the Broncos aren't going to Renegade their own QB, Neckbeard. It'll be back in effect next week though.

Broken In Brief: Man to market puppies based on cute breed name, unholy science

GREEN BAY—Today area dog breeder Stephen Walden announced that he was about to undertake an extensive operation to breed hundreds of dogs for the mass consumer market, based entirely on the cleverness of the breed name he thought up.

“It has become apparent to me that Americans are no longer satisfied with mere Labradors and retrievers,” said Walden in his announcement in the local Penny Saver. “No, they must have some breed name that is so cute and frilly and so sugary sweet that in damn near rots your teeth out. I am of course referring to labradoodles, yorkiepoos, schnoodles, poochons, and various and sundry abominations against God. It is in this vein that I would like to announce my newest creation: the Bagel. Orders will be taken at $500 bucks a puppy.”

When contacted for further comment, Walden was quick to admit that the proposed combination, that of the Lord’s two cruel jokes on dog-loving mankind, the basset and the beagle, didn’t sound in the least bit like a good idea. But he noted that in these tough economic times and with some new cutesy named “-oodle” breed cutting into his golden retriever puppy business every week, that simple marketing warranted this new step, creating a horrible new breed be damned.

Walden hopes to have the new dogs ready for sale after the gestational process is completed, “whenever that is”, and anticipates families regretting their purchase and lamenting their trend-based animal buying within a month after taking the dogs home, when the animals begin to exhibit symptoms of a long, painful series of debilitating genetic shortcomings.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.09

Iranian student dares to criticise Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to his face
An Iranian student totally clowned an Ayatollah the other day, taking an opportunity he was given to ask Khamenei a question and turning into a 20 minute diatribe about all that stuff Khamenei has done. Of course the Ayatollah responded to this by saying "Nuh-uh" and leaving, making sure to give a press release saying they totally allowed him to ask that question because of freedom and stuff. Meanwhile, the student, Mahmoud Vahidnia, gets to dodge literal and figurative bullets because he chose to do it in such a public, televised place. Well done, sir. It's going to be such a shame when we find out you committed suicide by beating yourself to death with multiple police batons.

Hany Farid, Dartmouth Scientist, Says Controversial Oswald Rifle Photo Real
As if the past few days weren't weird enough, how does this strike you: that Oswald photo of him with the rifle that everyone says is fake...is real. So says an expert. Hmmm, so maybe Oswald did do it. It's all well and good, with so many conspiracies about things that are going on now and think it's time we put to bed some of the old classics. Unless Glenn Beck comes up with a way that Oswald shooting Kennedy ties into Barack Obama becoming President, perhaps through ACORN or Oswald himself planting fake birth announcements in Honolulu papers to legitimize our Kenyan sleeper agent President, then I think we might have to move on.

Gadgets and Ideas to Revolutionize Healthcare
Wired Science gives us a look and the TEDMED conference and some of the revolutionary ideas and gadgets that were shown, including wireless medical monitors, the chemical compound resveratol, and tissue engineering, that some see as the future of health care. Sadly no one at the conference had invented the one device that would revolutionize health care the most: a robotic whirling dervish or chainsaws, weedwhackers, and blowtorches that would be used against our elected betters in an attempt to make them pass single payer health care. Though one scientists from MIT did unveil a prototype device that would administer a 50,000 volt shock to Joe Lieberman's anus any time he got a "notion" about getting himself on the TV more.

A media orgy of rumors, speculation and falsehoods
Salon's Glenn Greenwald chronicles the latest failure of the TV media to provide accurate, relevant, and informed coverage on a breaking story, this time the Ft. Hood shootings. From numerous mistakes involving the number of shooters, to the fate of the shooter(s), to the background of Hasan, to the weapons used, to all sorts of other unverified miscellaneous claims, anyone actually watching the coverage would have struggled to even understand anything other than the fact that a shooting happened. Greenwald goes on to discuss how damaging this kind of thing is in creating false zombie narratives and dimwitted conventional wisdom that shpes public perceptions. But hey, who cares if it's all misinformation, it made for some damn fine TV. And isn't that the whole point of TV news?

Exclusive: I Was Kidnapped by the CIA
With the recent in absentia conviction of CIA agents in Italy for their rendition and torture program, perhaps it's best to actually take a closer look at what it was they were accused of. Mother Jones was prescient enough to have a full account of the case of the man, Abu Omar, that the CIA agents were convicted of rendering and torturing for their March/April 2008 issue. Congratulations America, this was done in your name! I hope you like it.

Actual history

Today marks the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. As such, there are many celebrations, weird puppet shows, and retrospectives celebrating this day when Ronald Reagan told the commies to "tear down the wall" and they we're all like "Yessir, Mr. Freedom, please don't hurt us", had the wall taken down about 15 minutes later, and no one from Europe or Russia or anywhere else had anything to do with it; just Ronnie. Or so I've heard.

But the celebrations have brought many world leaders to Berlin to help commemorate the anniversary. In fact Nicholas Sarkozy has already taken the time to make erroneous claims about his own involvement in the fall of the wall in an attempt to make himself look good. But instead of releasing trite statements about "freedom" and "the world uniting" after the re-unification and wanton wall destruction, some leaders have decided to take a different track on the anniversary. Like Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is kind of depressed and mad that the wall fell

Dmitry Medvedev is in less celebratory mood than most. He says Russia has often felt on the back foot since the Wall fell, despite assurances at the time that NATO would not expand eastward, as it since has.

“We were hoping the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact would be accompanied by a different degree of Russia’s integration into common European space,” he told Germany’s Spiegel magazine.

“What have we received as a result? NATO is still a bloc whose rockets are targeting the Russian territory."

...yeah...FREEDOM! Why are people so obsessed with celebrating the positives for Germany? Why can't they be more focused on the negatives for Russia? Some people and their priorities.

But for all the joy and remembrance and freedom, I do think we are forgetting something important. Maybe the most important thing that happened during that whole period. Of course I'm referring to David Hasslehoff's legendary performance on the Berlin Wall, where he wore a light up jacket and almost got hit by rockets. How important was it? According to David: it possibly was the reason Germany unified. He's still bitter Reagan is getting all his credit and there isn't a picture of him in the wall museum. So on this, the 20th anniversary, we leave you with the only historical moment worth remembering: HASSLEHOFF!

Chart of the day

In case you weren't sure that the whole "10.2 % unemployment" thing was a bad economic indicator, the blog EconomPic is here to tell you that things are worse than reported and create a graphical representation. Like, for instance, the fact that despite the fact that establishment jobs survey reported a loss of 190,000, the household survey reported a loss of 558,000 jobs. Or that the real unemployment rate is actually around 17.5%: That weekly hours are at an all time lowThat labor participation is nosediving
That the country now has the least amount of hours worked per citizen...since...ever
I guess the New York Times wasn't bullshitting when it said "At no time in post-World War II America has it been more difficult to find a job, to plan for the future, or — for tens of millions of Americans — to merely get by" and noted that we'd need to have years of robust growth (which isn't guaranteed) just to recover what was lost. I guess this is why Krugman is preparing his "I told you so" dance.

Still, it could be worse. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan Chase could have been forced to give out $29 billion in bonuses instead of $30 billion. So keep things in perspective.

All that history

It's Monday and freedom is still dead. I'm sure you felt it die, as I did, late Saturday night. That sharp stabbing pain in your Liberty Gland as you felt all your blood eagles dissipate and a steep drop in the patriotoxins that stimulate your brain. Yes, health care passed the House and we're all gonna fucking die.

At least that's what I think happened. Granted I'm basing that on all the GOP's floor speeches before the bill passed, so my information might not be 100% accurate, but I'm fairly sure that's the medical process we all went through as the Democrats made sure that freedom was garroted and robots were sent back in time to rape the founding fathers. Yes, the House of Representatives stood up and said "YES! We can barely support mild, minor health reforms by the slimmest of margins!" and then proceeded to rack up injuries patting their own backs and attempting to blow themselves.

But it wasn't without complications and stories. 64 Democrats and the Republican caucus voted to strip abortion and reproductive rights out of the bill. Because, as always, a bunch of men following the moral compass of an organization that is fighting bankruptcy because of all the child rapes it covered up, know better than women about women's bodies. Isn't that always the way? 39 Democrats ended up voting against the bill, while only one Republican voted for it, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana. I guess that makes the bill "bipartisan" and we have to pretend he acted as a man of conscience, instead of what really happened: Cao coming down with an acute case of "District full of black people that Obama won by 75%" and knowing he wasn't going to have the luxury of Richard Jefferson being the most corrupt man on earth to sweep him back into power.

So history has happened: health care has passed the House. And for as disappointing as the bill was and for how even more disappointing the Senate bill will be, that's something that every Democratic or Republican President who vowed to "reform health care" wasn't able to do. Now we sit and wait for the Senate...and the conference committees....then back to each body for voting again......this is still going to be weeks and weeks and weeks an weeks until anything concrete happens. Ugh. I can imagine what the Senate deliberations are going to look like. Still....history,....mediocre, over-compromised history. That's...something.

Pull the plug

In honor of President Obama shockingly stepping forward to endorse the House health care bill and state that he will make the effort to see that it gets passed when they vote on it tomorrow (....or Sunday....or Monday...or whenever), we bring to you another great contribution to the health care debate. This time from America's foremost death metal band, Dethklok, comes their health care opus Deth Support. Lyrics included below.

Pull the plug (x8)

I drove my truck into a moving van
It was all filed up with jet fuel and
I crashed right in and explosion
Smash through the window and ripped off my hands

Medical team drove up and found me
Bleeding in pieces picked up off the street
Drove me into a filthy hospital
Horror experiences financially

Woke up in pain in a gown in bed
Internal hemorrhaging inside my head
I really think that I should be dead
I saw the bill and then I cry, bled

To keep me alive it was costing me
National deficit times three
There is no way to avoid this fee
Please pull the plug and kill me

It's costing too much

Pull the plug

It's costing too much

Pull the plug (x16)

Aneurysm. Botulism. Epilepsy. Narcolepsy. Pull the plug

Nearsighted. Breathe lighting. Cataracts. Heart attacks. Pull the plug

Hepatitis. Bronchitis. Appendicitis. Arthritis. Pull the plug

Encephalitis. Adenitus. Mastoiditus. Capsulitus.

Pull the plug now (x4)

Pay you my life instead of life support
Harvest my plasma because it's worth more
Take all my blood and my organs
Sell them to buyers over in third worlds

Burn my cadaver for some energy
Charge the patients in their misery
Such a strong quarter for the industry
Pharmaceutical fucking victory

Can't pay this price Pull the plug
Pay with my life Pull the plug
Say my farewell Pull the plug
See you in Hell I'll fucking pull the plug

Broken In Brief: Wall St. sent to bed without dinner

NEW YORK--As a reinforcement of the "increased regulation" of large financial firms that has been hotly debated by lawmakers in recent weeks, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-iscredited) announced that because of its naughty behavior, Wall Street would be sent straight to bed without dinner for the rest of the week.

In a morning press conference, Pelosi reiterated Congress' commitment to reforming and regulating a corrupt financial system that nearly caused a global economic collapse, noting that "It all starts with the fundamentals: three servings of vegetables, no TV before your homework is done, and respect for your elders."

Pelosi also cautioned that Congress was not afraid to cut down on XBox time and that, if the financial service and banking sectors don't straighten up and fly right, she might not drive them to the Jonas Brothers concert next month.

Asked to comment on Pelosi's statement, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank also threatened a spanking.

When Wall Street was asked how it felt to be on the receiving end of such harsh dinner-time punishment, the venerated financial sector paused from eating the truffles and fois gras it had couriered up to its room, shooed away the models it had ferreted through the back door after Pelosi went to bed, and spoke. "Yeah... I'm really learning my lesson here. Oooh, stop with all this undue regulation and sanctions," Wall Street said, before falling asleep on a pile of everyone's money.

Stay classy, Jerome

We aren't even 24 hours past the Ft. Hood shooting, but we do know it's time for one thing: EXPLOITING IT FOR POLITICAL GAIN!!!! MORE BODIES = MORE EXPLOITATION!!! Take it, Jerome Corsi, you souless fucking degenerate:

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter in yesterday's massacre at Fort Hood, played a homeland security advisory role in President Barack Obama's transition into the White House, according to a key university policy institute document.

Of course it isn't remotely true, but who has time for bodies to get cold when there is shit to sling at Obama! Whooo!!! The first decency line has been breached folks, it's only downhill from here.

Now personally, I would have prescribed a two day waiting period for crazed conspiracy theories that attempt to appropriate gross personal and public tragedies for a perceived leg up in some unending political dick measuring contest that has consumed politics in this country. Not because of any mourning period or sense of respect for the families of the dead, no because this baby is so rife with angles of cheap political exploitation, we want everyone to have their good material ready to go for the Sunday Morning news programs. I mean there's the Muslim angle, the military angle, the pro-war angle, the anti-war angle, the gun control angle, the terrorism angle, and the disgusting, Corsi-esque new lows in human decency that we've yet to explore. I mean anyone from the right or left will have a field day waving these corpses around to justify whatever it is they believed before the shooting happened. Awesome!

I think I'm going to go sit in my closet and drink for this entire weekend. Maybe when I emerge we'll be fully into the "He was in ACORN and taking the orders of Obama in order to kill freedom and pass socialist Obamacare" phase and this will all seem slightly less soul killing.

We are ruled by adults

Mother Jones' Kevin Drum looks at what it took to pass a simple extension of unemployment benefits for the 10.2% of Americans who consider canned beans a luxury.

Democrats only had to break three separate filibusters in the Senate to get this passed! The first filibuster was broken by a vote of 87-13, the second by a vote of 85-2, and the third by a vote of 97-1. The fourth and final vote, the one to actually pass the bill, was 98-0. Elapsed time: five weeks for a bill that everyone ended up voting for.

Why? Because even though Republicans were allowed to tack on a tax cut to the bill as the price of getting it passed, they decided to filibuster anyway unless they were also allowed to include an anti-ACORN amendment. Seriously. A bit of ACORN blustering to satisfy the Palin-Beck crowd is the reason they held up a bill designed to help people who are out of work in the deepest recession since World War II. Details here and here. That's called taking governing seriously, my friends.

So in order to extend a measure that everyone supported, Democrats had to add in a first-time homebuyer credit that basically adds to our problems in the housing market in an attempt to prop it up and enact a tax-cut shenanigan that allows small-businesses to engage in shadier accounting practices. All to pass a bill slightly faster so that hundreds of thousands of extra people wouldn't go broke while they dicked around.

...AND THE HOOOOOOOME OF THE BRAAAAAAVE! Makes you glad to be an American.

Picture of the day

Because we all need something nice to look at in these bleak times, in between our frantic searches of the want ads and brief, but increasingly logical sounding considerations of prostitution, Wired Science brings us...SPACE ISLANDS! Which is to say, pictures of islands shot from space. In case you were thinking this was a job you could do...you can't. We have astronauts on the International Space Station to take pictures for us, you just need to think up a funnier cardboard sign to hold while you panhandle on the street corner.

Alejandro Selkirk Island

Eleuthera Island

the Maldives

Atafu Atoll

Your morning reminder that the Senate is filled with barely functioning, brain dead idiots

Concern troll Ben Nelson (D-Go fuck yourself Nebraska) on how his lack of understanding about economics and deficits isn't going to get in the way of his notions about doing nothing.

Democrat Ben Nelson, a Senator from Nebraska, said the slumping economy and rising joblessness will be factors as Congress considers climate change and health care legislation. They are also driving concerns about the budget deficit, which widened to a record $1.42 trillion in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, he said.

“When the economy’s not strong there’s a lot of interest in controlling spending,” Nelson said.

Yes, because the thing you want to do when you see two massive issues that represent two gigantic chunks of the economy that needed fixing decades ago and will swell and affect spending, deficits, and the economy in dramatically negative ways if something is not done about them: you sit on your fucking ass and do nothing, citing your concern about spending, deficits, and the economy as reasons for not doing anything about spending, deficits, and the economy. Because the best time to worry about long term problems is never, especially not in the short term.

So there you are. The reason we can't do anything to fix the bad economy is because of the bad economy. It's a perfect little snake eating it's own tail, much like your brain is eating itself right now. I betcha Benny is going to be real surprised too when his brilliant plan of "do nothing" results in the economy getting worse and all his buddies not getting re-elected. Then again, he'll probably just take that as a sign that the Senate should have done nothing earlier.

10.2%

You're probably not going to hear this until sometime next week, what with a Muslim guy having shot up an army base shouting "Allahu ackbar" and all, but the jobless recovery is right on schedule. Your friendly reminder that despite all the hubbub about the stock market, Goldman-Sachs posting up $100 million if profits by the time I get to the next comma, various other businesses like Ford posting up profits, GDP growing, and the fact that a friend of yours found $5 bucks on the street last week (the 5th best economic news in the country), the economy is still pretty bad for the people that have to live in the economy. Ten point motherfucking two percent.

The United States economy shed 190,000 jobs in October, and the unemployment rate reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent, up from 9.8 percent in September, the Department of Labor said Friday in its monthly economic appraisal.
...
“There’s no doubt that the slashing and burning of jobs has abated quite a lot,” said Allen L. Sinai, the founder of Decision Economics, a research firm. “The economy is recovering, but it is a very soft recovery.”

The biggest losses came in the construction, manufacturing and retailing sectors. Health care companies added 29,000 jobs to their payrolls, and the number of temporary workers increased by 34,000 — a significant gain that could indicate employers are beginning to expand their businesses again.

The Labor Department also revised September’s losses to 219,000 from 263,000.

Sadly those health care sector job numbers are temporary, as those 29,000 jobs were all lobbyists who were hired to try and kill health care. Yet despite the fact that there are some horrifying records being set (like most months in a row shedding jobs and the highest number and percent of unemployed people who have been out of work for 6 months) economists are optimistic. Why? Because they have jobs. But also because there are several positive indicators, like the pace of jobs losses slowing, manufacturing stabilizing, and President Obama getting the larger part of the wishbone in an after dinner tugging match with Canadian PM Steven Harper. We can only hope he uses that wish on the economy.

But economists are also concerned that this increase in the jobless numbers might depress the economic recovery as consumer spending will stay flat. I'm no economic theorist, but I'd be more worried about the economy not doing well enough to benefit people without jobs than people without jobs not doing enough to benefit the economy. And they say unemployment is still going to go up, hitting 10.5% next year. So....uh...ooh...ouch, well...how..'bout..them Yankees? Yes, concentrate on baseball, focus on an upcoming weekend of football. Don't mind me, I'll just be getting a prime ass spot in the breadlines while you do that.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.05

Goldman One-Ups Gordon Gekko, Says Jesus Embraced Greed
God bless Goldman-Sachs. At the very least they're going around claiming that He does bless them. Yes, America's favorite pillagers and looters are sending spokesman to churches around the world to speak on how Jesus would have loved the latest round of massive bonuses that they handed out. Tell me about it. What was it Jesus said? "Sure it's easy for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, it's like trying to get a camel through the eye of a needle the size of the camel. It's fucking simple, now tell me how my stocks did." If there was any difficulty getting into Heaven it's probably because there'd be all these poor assholes standing at the gates (Jesus was a sucker for those destitute SOB's) asking the rich guy for spare change and he'd have a hard time knocking those peasant swine out of the way to get in.

Another View At Goldman's Trading Perfection And Statistical Improbabilities
It's Goldman-Sachs day on the Crutch, so we'll also point you to the Zero Hedge blog where a look at G-S figures finds they make $100 million in profit 3 out of every 5 days, their numbers challenge "not only all preconceptions of realistic trading, but also of statistical distributions", and those same figures are essentially comparable to a Ponzi scheme. I'm sure someone from the SEC will get right on it. Fuck it, why does God need to approve of Goldman-Sachs bonuses? God is obsolete. Goldman-Sachs is God; Money God. Let's worship them now.

The global climate change lobby: inside the battle to influence the most important environmental treaty of our lifetime
The Center for Public Integrity, crooked fuckers that they are, released a report today slandering innocent companies like Exxon Mobil, Peabody Coal and other energy and agriculture interests, for allegedly spreading fear and misinformation about the impact of emissions regulations in their attempts to neuter any proposed treaties that come out of the UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen. Just because they have numerous examples of energy companies in multiple countries using lies to drum up fear of any attempt to address climate change destroying everyone's job, doesn't mean it's true. They must be taking hundreds of events, the 5 lobbyists to every 1 member of Congress ratio, hundreds of millions of dollars spent fighting this, and a coordinated strategy out of context.

When antiscience kills: dowsing edition
The Bad Astronomy blog looks into dowsers, the completely bullshit practice of using Y-shaped sticks to divine water or gold, and how Iraq is spending millions, $85 million to be specific, on a "high-tech" version....as a way to detect bombs. To the point where they're phasing out bomb-sniffing dogs. Unsurprisingly the magic wands failed to detect two tons of explosives that ended up killing 155 people, yet the head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives refuses to switch to a different or more effective method citing his extensive knowledge of bombs. I.....you see.....uh.....WHAT THE FUCK? Good Lord, can we get the fuck out of Iraq already?

Broken News: Senate negotiations break down over bill to wish Americans a "good weekend"

WASHINGTON—With the weekend fast approaching and dinner plans and yachting excursions still left to plan, today the Senate suspended negotiations on a proposed non-binding resolution to wish Americans a good weekend.

The resolution, S.417 the Schumer/Wyden Have a Good One, America Act, was initially an attempt by the Senate to show the public that it was not out of touch with their feelings and that, despite decades of proof in legislative form, they did not harbor any ill will toward the citizens of this great nation.

All in all, the bill not only wished Americans “a good weekend”, but also asked them to “stay safe”, “have a fun time”, “try not to drink too much”, to “try to remember to obey the laws of this land”, to maybe get outdoors, go camping or visit a national park, and “have a little fun, you deserve it.” Sadly, all these banal expressions were meant for when this bill was initially introduced: Labor Day. 2008.

“It is my honest belief that these demands to stay safe and obey the laws of this country are a deliberate attempt by this Administration to order the good people of this country to do their bidding for some shadowy socialist purpose,” observed Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), the ranking minority member of the Senate’s Empty Platitudes and Glad-handing Committee.

He was joined in his opposition by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), himself a member of the Senate’s Committee for Meaningless Timewasting, who decried the legislation's suggestions of vacation destinations as “a chilling incursion into the personal choices and freedoms of all Americans” before vowing to filibuster the bill.

But not all the opposition and debate over the bill came from Republicans, as several Democrats took umbrage with many of the bill’s provisions. Having experienced numerous interactions with the public during health care town halls, West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller and Virginia Senator Jim Webb had proposed changing the main premise of the bill to “Go fuck yourselves this weekend, America.”

"I have looked into the dark, dark heart of America," a pale, white, and broken Webb intoned. "These people do not deserve a good weekend."

The Democratic portion of the opposition also attached several riders to the bill. The more noteworthy of these called for government to supply subsidies to help adults attain better reading comprehension skills; empowering citizens to beat with chains anyone suggesting a talk radio pundit or 24 hour news commentator has made a worthwhile point; that senators should be allowed to stomp to jelly the faces of anyone who invokes the phrase "death panels"; and a one-time stimulus aimed at printing several massive posters of a political cartoon in which a man, marked as “the American public”, was bent over a barrel and sodomized by a large cat dressed like the Monopoly guy with “health care industry” written on his top hat.

Sadly, their proposal was rejected on the premise that it was dangerous to point out the truth to the country as well as vocalize any displeasure over their interaction with society’s teabag waving dregs. Others within the caucus have now just grown to oppose the resolution on the basis that many of its suggestions and parameters are hopelessly outdated now that the debate had dragged on into November.

“I’m just worried that if we pass a bill full of references to summer activities, camping, and going outside, we’re going to appear to be out of touch,” observed majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who was wary of forcing a vote on this non-binding resolution. “I mean, you tell some poor bastard to visit Yellowstone now and he’ll freeze his ass off. Plus, some of these were clearly suggestions for a three-day weekend, of which there isn’t one for a very long time. We’re just going to look stupid.”

Instead Reid hoped that he would be able to push through the resolutions wishing Americans a “Happy Thanksgiving 1982” as well as a “Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah 1991”.

Some within the Senate felt that a resolution offering to wish Americans a good weekend was just too ambitious a process to undertake at this point in time. Hoping to instead to pass a bill that recognized the fact that there were Americans, but leaving the debate open for whether or not they should be wished a good weekend or even good morning, for another time, perhaps years down the road when more information becomes available.

When asked to comment on the fact that legislation wishing it a good weekend had stalled, America simply sighed, slowly walked over to the liquor cabinet, poured itself a stiff drink, and mournfully drank it while perusing Canadian apartment listings.

Your look at the blinding stupidity of the Super Bowl of Freedom

Image via Matthew Yglesias. Stay classy, tea baggers!

The horror.....the horror.

Jon Voight invoked Rev. Jeremiah Wright in his speech, saying “the lies and deception are blatant... Maybe it was the 20 years of sub-conscious programming by Rev Wright to damn America."
...
"Palin/Bachmann 2012," came a shout from the crowd
...
Another hero of the movement, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), has been autographing tea bags for the crowd and is wearing a jacket covered in pins and stickers reading “Yes! Freedom!”
...
Many are holding signs that echo their distrust of Obama and their belief that he is pursuing socialist policies.

One sign read: "Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds," a reference to theories of Jewish world dominance centered around the prominent Jewish family of Rothschilds.

• Eric Cantor: "Be assured not one Republican will vote for this bill," Cantor said, to big cheers and shouts of "Kill the bill."
• Paul Broun: Fellow patriots, go tell your Congressman, you're not going to eat this rotten stinking fish that is -- Pelosi health care! We are going to put a stop sign in front of her steamroller of socialism! Go to it, patriots!
• Virginia Foxx and Pete Hoekstra: Democrats "wanna take your freedoms away," Hoekstra said. Later, Foxx called the bill a "freedom-killer." "This Congress is on a collision course with the principles of freedom and liberty that our Founding Fathers bled and died for," she said.
• John Boehner: "This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I've seen in the 19 years I've been in Washington."

Can I even add anything to this...the SUPER BOWL OF FREEDOM? Holocaust photos, Jewish banking conspiracies, teabag signings by an idiot who thinks that health reform is a bigger threat than terrorism, Ultraamericanfreedolibertypatriots like Todd Aiken unable to remember the Pledge of Allegiance, people seriously wishing that Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin would challenge Obama/Biden in 2012 (I want it to happen too, but for the sake of comedy and schadenfreude), endless cries from actual elected leaders that an attempt to make health care more available and cheaper to people is the greatest threat in the history of freedom, and a litany of fear-mongering over imagined proposals and plans that are nowhere near this weak, third rate health care reform bill that, incidentally, was endorsed by the AARP and AMA.

Gaze into the madness, America. If your hair starts to turn white and insanity overwhelms you, then you stared too long. Good thing the GOP is going to go after their last remaining moderates in a desperate bid to appeal to these people, I was worried for a second that large scale Democratic incompetence was going to have some repercussions in 2010. Now the only alternative to socialism is a lunatic wearing a teabag wreath shouting about Kenyan infiltration. Thanks GOP, you looked at the big slice of crazy pie that Bachmann was eating and asked her to cut you a big slice. You're incapable of learning and I appreciate it.

Headline of the day

Conservatives on NY-23: We didn't lose

The last time there was a Democrat in that seat, white people could still own black people.

You lost.

Get fucked, Maine

The Daily Show response to Maine's rejection of the radical social agenda allowing same-sex couples to be happy. Choice quote: "If we can't slander gay people then all we have left are Blacks, Jews, Mexicans, Muslims, Greeks, Eskimos and... ... ... I'm gonna go with the Irish."

the Republican plan

The GOP released their own health care bill the other day. ....Stop laughing, this is serious. The basics? It costs $61 billion, would allow insurers to cut coverage for people who are ill, would allow insurance companies to deny coverage to those who are sick, allows insurers to base themselves in the state with the weakest regulation (like the credit card industry), and generally makes insurance less comprehensive and more filled with loopholes. But that's just the analysis of a douchy, left wing, liberal organization like the Wall Street Journal. What does the Congressional Budget Office say? Pretty much the same thing.

By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people without health insurance would be reduced by about 3 million relative to current law, leaving about 52 million nonelderly residents uninsured. The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage in 2019 would be about 83 percent, roughly in line with the current share.

Yeah but that's only $61 billion to cover 3 million more. The Democrats plan costs almost a trillion dollars and only covers....96%+ of Americans. So...uh....yeah. But hey, it might cut premium costs by 3%! You know every American opens their health care bill and says "Motherfuck! If only this goddamn bill was 3% lower, I could afford to feed my children." The GOP bill also shaves $68 billion off the deficit...while the Democratic bill knocks $104 billion.

So according to the non-partisan CBO, the Democrats cover 36 million more, cuts premium costs more, makes the deficit lower, allows people who are sick to get covered, doesn't allow companies to cut coverage on people who are sick, and doesn't make things like the credit card companies. Oh, and is actually a real bill and has a chance in hell of getting passed. In other words, the CBO stomped the GOP plan into a red mush and is driving out to the woods to dig a hole to bury it in.

But I would like to thank the GOP for taking this opportunity to pull out their dicks and step on them in public, committing a sad, tragic, and completely unforced error that they had to know was coming when they were putting together this "bill". I would also like to thank them for making me feel better. Because nothing makes a compromise filled, weakly incremental, and timid Democratic health care bill look like a slice of fried gold like its GOP alternative. Thanks, you made Harry Reid, Max Baucus, the Senate Finance Committee, the Blue Dogs, and even Joe Lieberman look good by comparison. OK, maybe not Lieberman, but making the rest look good is a stunning achievement. I can hardly await the muffled laughter and CBO shaming your climate change bill will elicit.

No, kill grandma

From Dick Armey's Freedom Works, the same conglomeration that brought you the Tea Parties, the Tea Baggers, and other such expressions of "grassroots protests", comes the latest inept salvo in the war against health care: Don't Kill Grandma.com. Their message? Don't kill grandma.....dot com. No, they would instead prefer to kill the health reform bill, which we all know will result in the violent murder of everyone's elderly relatives.

Ok, first off, what is with every right wing group using Monty Python clips now? First Chris Christie did it, now Freedom Works. What is it about left wing absurdist satire that so appeals to the right wing "grassroots" organizer? What I'm saying is: stop tainting the things I like or it's going to get violent in here.

Secondly: how come they're ignoring the wishes of the elderly who want the government to violently and brutally put them down without any remorse, pity, or mercy? What about those of us who would like to see grandma murdered in exchange for cheaper health care? As in every debate, we're cruelly pushed to the sidelines by the decency police.

Sadly, we here at TB Industries lack the means to start up our own fake grassroots protests and are much, much too lazy to try and start a real one. But for any left wing cranks with money (George Soros?) or billionaires with an abiding love for killing the elderly (George Soros?), we'd just like to point out that Kill Grandma.com , Off Gramps For the Greater Good.com, This Is the Way They'd Want to Die.com are all available, as well as their .org and .net equivalents. All I'm saying is post up a couple Python clips, add in a few testimonials of the elderly who want to be shotgunned by Barack Hussein Obama, stage a completely corporate backed protest mach on Washington, and we can finally swing this debate back to where we want it: murdering grandmothers. It's for the greater good.

Satire and reality violently smash into each other

The Onion: Obama's Declaration Of Swine Flu Emergency Prompts Pro-Swine-Flu Republican Response

Media Matters: Misinformation pandemic, Beck, Limbaugh fomenting fear about H1N1 vaccine

• Glenn Beck on H1N1 vaccine and fear mongering about the vaccine being mandatory:

Vaccine may turn out to be "deadly."
"I'd do the exact opposite of what the Homeland Security says."
"You don't know if this is gonna cause neurological damage like it did in the 1970s."
Beck suggests government will say "everybody" has to take the flu shot, may "line up" people to get mandatory flu shot.
"U.S. out of my bloodstream."
"If government says it's OK," why are health care workers protesting mandated vaccinations?
Massachusetts Senate bill "could be paving the way for forced vaccinations."
People rejecting vaccines because they don't trust the government.
Obama is "just declaring a national emergency so [they] can take power."


• Rush Limbaugh fear mongering over the H1N1 vaccine:

"You'll be healthier" if you don't listen to the government.
"Screw you, Ms. Sebelius! I am not going to take it, precisely because you're now telling me I must."
Government might be "hyping the number" of H1N1 cases to "create panic and chaos, sell health care."

Sorry Onion, looks like reality is just a little bit funnier than you. Although its funny in a "horrifyingly funny" way, as Beck and Limbaugh are trying to fear mongering and stoke panic in a way that could actually get people killed.

Now normally I'd hear the phrase "Beck and Limbaugh are actually trying to kill their audience", smile politely, and skip down the street whistling a jaunty tune. But, seeing as this might actually result in deaths, I figured not even an obsessive fan of those two deserves a flu death. Plus, I would like to spare these people the indignity of reaching the pearly gates, explaining that they died of the flu because they listened to right wing commentators, then having to endure the spectacle of St. Peter calling over the Holy Trinity and all the angles in heaven to laugh at them.

So let me just say this, even though I know it won't do any good: For the love of God, don't listen to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, or anyone on Fox News when it comes to science, health, common sense, or really anything. I know that's a large leap for most of you, but try just starting with the science and health parts; it'll probably keep you alive longer. Thank you.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.04

Italian court finds CIA agents guilty of kidnapping terrorism suspect
Well that makes one country that's actually serious about prosecuting torture, rendition, and kidnapping in the name of America's war on terror. Surprisingly it's Italy, who can't even convict its openly corrupt prime minister. That's a bit of a shocker. But Italy has tried and convicted 23 Americans in absentia for the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" that resulted in an Italian citizen being kidnapped and tortured. Sadly none of the convicted are named Bush, or Gonzales, or Cheney. Italian courts are also considering putting out international arrest warrants to capture the men. Someone want to roll up a copy of this news and hit the President and the Attorney General over the head with it?

Democrats’ healthcare bill would pay for ‘prayer’ treatment
Ahh Democrats, you could fuck up a one car funeral. Sure, you can't get a good health care bill passed and something simple like a woman have rights over her own body is going to prove to be a challenge, but you can make sure that the bill lets charlatans get money from the government by making "prayer treatments" actual medical expenses. Didn't you get the memo: prayer is basically most people's health care system of choice right now, and it's not because they want it that way. Do you think, maybe, we could just take that money and spend it on, I don't know, something that will actually improve the health of people or drive down medical costs? Or, we could just flush the money down the toilet in deference to the alligator god, who will in turn reward us with a healthy harvest. Doesn't that sound good?

Russia Leads Nuclear Space Race After U.S. Drops Out
Russia is seeking to take the lead in awesome when it has a $600 million nuclear spaceship flying into obit by 2012. Meanwhile the US is still dicking around with rocket fuel. This should allow the Russians to make their rockets twice as efficient and allow them to do longer and more elaborate deep space exploration and missions. We, on the other hand, will fart around in low orbit while Richard Branson and his Virgin: Galactic space tourists get within "flipping the bird" distance at us. The article also has an interesting history of nukes and space, if you wish to sigh at the path not traveled.

Flu fears help Clorox sales
Well at least this pandemic is making someone money, you know, other than the vaccine companies and the conspiratorial conglomerate of Nancy Pelosi/Barack Obama/the Bilderburg Group/the Secret Society of Jewish Bankers/the Yankees/Freemasons who created the disease for their own socialist political ends. Yes, bleach sales are driving a stock spike for Clorox as worried and paranoid parents buy it by the pallet to marinate their pork in it, make their kids drink it, and obsessively and compulsively wash their countertops with it in order to protect themselves from Porcine AIDS. It won't work, they'll all be dead while the last remnants of us fight it out in Boulder and Vegas, but it's nice that Clorox, as well as the makers of Glaad bags and Brita filters have profited in this time of irrational flu panic.

A Material Based on Sharkskin Stops Bacterial Breakouts
How badass are sharks? Even their skin pattern kicks the living fuck out of weak ass bacteria. That's right, using a sharkskin pattern on a protective film cuts the rate of disease and bacteria spreading because those rotten little microbes can't attach themselves to the sharkskin pattern. How slick is sharkskin? Scientifically speaking: slicker than greased goose shit. A man with a PhD said that, honest.

Democracy in action

New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, America's benevolent rich political overlord, is setting records. The kind of records that make you glad that only billionaires can afford to run for any elected office of substance in this country.

Bloomberg, a former Republican who ran this time as an Independent, spent more than $85 million of his personal fortune on the race – dwarfing the amount Thompson raised – the most cash dispensed for a self-financed campaign ever. This brings the total amount he's spent for three terms to a quarter of a billion dollars.

For those of you scoring at home, he outspent his closest opponent, Generic Democrat, by almost 20-1. And he still had to squeak out a win. That isn't even counting all the money he had to spend to get the city to repeal the term limit laws so that he could run again.

Add this to the $22.6 million from his Goldman-Sachs golden parachute ($125 million total for all his political campaigns put together) that repellent loser Jon Corzine spent making sure he lost to fat, repellent loser Chris Christie in the New Jersey governor's race. Don't worry, the ultra rich former McCain adviser who tried to run Hewlett-Packard into the ground, Carly Fiorina, is going to show the people of California that they need not be ruled by mere multi-millionaires like Barbara Boxer.

Ahh, doesn't it make you feel proud to be an American? Right now, even as we speak, children are looking at this and dreaming of a future where they to make hundreds of millions in various business fields and thus are deemed by our media elite as "serious" enough and "expert" enough to run for higher office, or are, at the very least, able to fund their own primary campaign against the other billionaires that are running for the chance to run for the seat. *sniff* Makes you glad to be alive right now, where being rich makes you qualified to make laws instead of just merely having them not apply to you. It's a grand time.

Broken In Brief: Levi Johnston missing, presumed shot from helicopter

WASILLA, AK--Local police and Alaska State Troopers have promised to think about conducting a half-assed search for national pistachio spokesman Levi Johnston, who has been missing late last week when he conducted a two-part interview with CBS News. At several points in the interview, Johnston asserted that he knows "things that... would get [Mrs Palin] in trouble and could hurt her, will hurt her."

Johnston, who a year ago was slated to be the victim of modern society's most shameless public shotgun wedding, is the father to former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's grandchild, Tripp. Johnston and Bristol Palin ended their engagement three months after the child's birth.

"Yeah, it's, um, tragic." Said Alaska State Trooper Mitch Conrad, clearing his throat. "We, ah, are marshaling our, um, best investigative team. Combing the tundra and such. With any luck we'll find his body sometime in the spring. Most of the polar bears have drowned and all the wolves have been taken care of much in the same manner we're assuming Levi was, so I'm betting the corpse will be relatively intact."

Asked why he assumed Johnston was, in fact, dead, Conrad explained, "If you knew how accurate that chipper bitch was with a .50 cal, even hanging out the side of a helicopter, you wouldn't be asking that question."