Questions

Civil Lawsuit Over Katrina Begins

A groundbreaking civil suit began in federal court here Monday to consider claims by property owners that the Army Corps of Engineers amplified the destructive effects of Hurricane Katrina by building a poorly designed navigation channel adjacent to the city.

The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a 76-mile-long channel known locally as MR-GO and pronounced “Mister Go,” was completed in 1968 and created a straight shot to the Gulf of Mexico from New Orleans. The suit claims that the channel was flawed in its design, construction and operation, and that those flaws intensified the flood damage to the eastern parts of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish.

One geological expert testified on behalf of the plaintiffs that the channel was “one of the greatest catastrophes in the history of the United States.”

Do you think that they're going to win all the money in existence, or just all the money that the banks haven't taken yet?

Are we going to have to invent new numbers for the financial award?

Jillion, bajillion, bazillion, kazillion? I'm a bazillion man.

Will we have to measure jury deliberation time in minutes or seconds?

Open up the coffers Geithner, the American taxpayer is going to have to take another gut shot.

We don't torture

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
We Don't Torture
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Oh Christ, not this shit again

Obama Tells His Cabinet to Look for Efficiency

When is $100 million small change?

When you are President Obama and you propose trimming that amount from your $3.6 trillion federal budget.

On the theory that every little bit helps, Mr. Obama convened the first cabinet meeting of his presidency on Monday and said that in an effort to make the government “as efficient as possible” and to ensure that “every taxpayer dollar is being spent wisely,” he was challenging department heads and agency chiefs to come up with ways to save $100 million over the next 90 days.

You know during the campaign when Crazy Uncle John and the Church Lady were droning on about how making government more efficient would account for all their budget holes and economic crises, it was funny. Because we knew these were the last desperate gasps of losers who, after they said it, would go back out behind the McCain Campaign Shed for a serious session of weeping.

But now Obama also thinks it's a good idea and wants everybody to pretend that a million dollar cut here on studying the migratory patterns of herons, a million dollar cut here to make those assholes at the Smithsonian use a cheaper brand of printer paper, and buying office supplies from Staples instead of Office Depot will fix everything, one efficiency at a time. Obama's mantra is "It all adds up", but no, it doesn't. As Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman points out, from his Econo-balloon floating 2 miles over Princeton, that if we cut $100 million from the budget every working day during Obama's first term, at the end of the term they'd have reduced the budget by $80 billion, or 2% of the budget for one year. "Chump change" I think is the proper economic term.

I'm all for making government more efficient, but can we do it in a manner that doesn't appear to be by picking a random number that you feel sounds good, holding the Defense Department to the same dollar amount cuts as the Department of Transportation, or pretending that this is all making some grand difference. How about just making the changes without the big empty gestures and focus group tested numbers?

No take backsies

Geithner: No new bailout money needed

The U.S. Treasury still has about $134.6 billion available in its coffers from last fall’s bank bailout package and that should be enough for it to avoid asking Congress for more money, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday.

“We have the resources to move forward implementing all aspects of our Financial Stability Plan,” Geithner said in a letter to the panel overseeing the bailout.

Geithner will face a slew of questions Tuesday morning about his plans to shore up banks. He is scheduled to testify before the Congressional Oversight Panel for the government’s $700 billion financial rescue program, while a watchdog agency warns that Obama administration initiatives could increasingly expose taxpayers to losses.

Promise? We all heard him, right? No new money needed. He can't take that back, we have witnesses. I don't care if his fingers were crossed, the banks will just have to make due with the trillions they've already gotten.

It is nice to know that Timmy thinks we won't need to pass another multi-billion bailout package for people who seem to get physically ill at the thought of having the government looking over their shoulder as it makes them fiscally solvent. On the other hand, there is a report from a independent watchdog group that says the way the bailouts are structured leaves the taxpayer vulnerable to losses. That is surprising, who would have ever guessed that attempting to remove any shred of risk to investors and companies in an attempt to get worthless assets off the books would end up exposing taxpayers to more risk? Everyone or just everyone who heard the plan?

The report from TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky, who just opened 20 criminal probes and six audits into how the money was spent, offered up a 250 page report on how things were going, ways things could be made better, and how he wishes the Treasury Department would listen. Among those suggestions: new "conflict of interest" rules, disclosure of private equity stakes in funds, "investor screening" programs to prevent money laundering, and exasperated cries for people to start listening to watchdogs and implementing their suggestions. In his defense, Mr. Barofsky only used three instances of the word "unfuckingbelievable", two exasperated cries of "Is anyone listening to me", and tried really hard to write the report in a tone that suggested that he thought Tim Geithner was actually going to read it and consider his smart ideas. Oh well Neil, maybe next bailout.

Broken News: China says “Fuck it", opens salmonella factory

BEIJING—After several embarrassing public health scares caused by salmonella laced foods, melamine laced baby formula, toys found laced with lead and the drug GHB, and a recent public opinion indictment involving the Uncle Chen and Lian How brands, China has decided to throw up its hands, say “fuck it”, and open a factory that produces nothing but salmonella.

“Honestly, it’s time,” announced David Han, a spokesman for the Mu Bai Group, which is funding this venture jointly with the Chinese government. “All we seem to be able to produce are goods that are too toxic for human contact or consumption. The country sees no further point in putting up pretenses about our industrial abilities. This stance frees us to begin manufacturing the shit wholesale, with what we predict will be 35-40% greater efficiency. Production should commence by the end of the 2nd quarter.”

The company's first product, a lead-lined bag full of GHB-spiked salmonella, will retail for $19.99 and should be available for the Christmas rush. MBG’s hope is that American consumers will be eager to stop playing games of “which product is tainted?” enabled by two decades of outsourced manufacturing capacity and just be relieved to buy a product they know for certain is extraordinarily dangerous.

Many within the Chinese communist government hierarchy are hoping that the new development of this burgeoning industry will be able to provide a much needed economic boost to China, which has seen its GDP output slow to the weakest levels on record during the global financial crisis.

“Sure, we’d love if this were some new growth industry; the next Silicon Valley,” observed Hong Tsai, a junior deputy at the Ministry of Commerce. “And we are acutely aware that there just might not be a market for bagged bacteria, mind erasing hallucinogens, and dangerous metals. Not outside of Africa, anyway. But if we flood the market with these products, then eventually the world will be forced to pay us to stop. So it’s really a win-win.”

While Tsai was reluctant to reveal more about the future of this new policy, he did indicate that China has many similar projects intended to provoke the ire and financial restitution from a threatened world on the horizon. They include turning Shandonga Province into a five square-mile pit of burning car tires, a factory that grinds dangerous and poisonous metals into microscopic dust and loads them into weather balloons, and inundating the toy market with products that are little more than crudely painted, lead laced daggers.

Sources close to the government say that this new initiative was launched after the Chinese saw the success that Somali pirates were having hijacking ships.

“If they can get millions for taking hostages and letting them go, surely we can get millions -- billions even -- for not shipping out dangerous materials and poisoning the world, right?” asked government spokesman Qi Zhaoxu. “Sure, US Navy SEAL snipers might have to shoot a couple of us in retaliation, but what are three people to China anyway? There’s a billion of us.”

Zhaoxu added, “It’s really just an extension of our plan to poison the athletes of the world with smog in pursuit of athletic glory for the Motherland. We just started thinking bigger and thinking about our economic glory. Or ‘non-collapse’ as it appears.”

The Chinese hopes to have either a large stack of cash in non-sequential numbers, preferably Euros, or American citizens feeling nauseous and vomiting, progressing to abdominal pains and diarrhea by early 2010. With any luck they think the public will be going through advanced stages of gastroenteritis, entric fever, and bacteremia by midyear.

Job of the day

Due to the economy collapsing and everyone losing their jobs, we find it is our duty to notify our almost assuredly destitute and jobless audience of impending job opportunities. Today's opportunity? Let me ask you this: do you like greasy chain pizza? Do you like talking about it on the internet in 140 characters or less?

JOB TITLE Summer Twintern

JOB TITLE, TRANSLATED A summer intern who uses Twitter.

JOB CATEGORY Hot pizza/social media

SALARY Competitive (with other Twitterers).

JOB PURPOSE To attend advertising shoots, product meetings and other corporate events. “They’ll be our social media journalist, chronicling in 140 characters or less what’s going on at Pizza Hut,” said Bob Kraut, the vice president for marketing communications at the company. The Twintern must also play social-media defense, monitoring Twitter for any mentions of the brand and alerting superiors whenever anything negative about the Hut is being said.

Now there are conditions. You have to hate yourself, you have to subsume your own identity for one that worships at the altar of "the Hut", and you have to move to Dallas....because tweeting about the Meat Lover's Deluxe has to be done with the supervision of a manager within the corporate structure of an office. You can start mailing in applications today. Happy job hunting.

Quote of the day

Rahm Emanuel on why political cowardice wins the day.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Final quick question. The president has ruled out prosecutions for CIA officials who believed they were following the law. Does he believe that the officials who devised the policies should be immune from prosecution?

EMANUEL: What he believes is, look, as you saw in that statement he wrote, and I would just take a step back. He came up with this and he worked on this for about four weeks, wrote that statement Wednesday night, after he made his decision, and dictated what he wanted to see. And Thursday morning, I saw him in the office, he was still editing it.

He believes that people in good faith were operating with the guidance they were provided. They shouldn't be prosecuted.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What about those who devised policy?

EMANUEL: Yes, but those who devised policy, he believes that they were -- should not be prosecuted either, and that's not the place that we go -- as he said in that letter, and I would really recommend people look at the full statement -- not the letter, the statement -- in that second paragraph, "this is not a time for retribution." It's time for reflection. It's not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back and any sense of anger and retribution.

That's right, who wants to get into a little thing like 'who tortured who' or 'who authorized what unconstitutional action when' or 'what principle America was founded on was violated where', that stuff is 'retribution'. Not, you know, a prosecution based on open admittance of violation of some of the most point blank and basic laws and treaties this country has. Besides, everyone was operating in good faith. You know, except for all those Justice Department guys who were arguing in those same memos justifying torture, that none of the justifications would really hold up in court, so just keep torturing anyway.


Why would we want to punish guys like that? Because our laws and judicial system says so? Grow up, you're being childish again.

Underpants gnomes

Phase one: Collect a massive Government bailout
Phase two: ???????
Phase three: Never ending profit!!!

Bank of America Corp. posted strong first-quarter earnings Monday as higher revenue from the purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co. helped offset a surge in credit costs. Wall Street, concerned about banks' continuing loan problems, looked past Bank of America's profit and fell sharply.

Bank of America's results surpassed analysts' expectations. But like other banking companies, it is still stuggling with fallout from the recession, taking a hefty $13.4 billion provision for credit losses.

The bank's stock fell $1.32, or 12.5 percent, to $9.28 as the overall stock market slid. Although Wall Street was happy last week with better-than-expected results from JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc., banking companies generally benefited during the quarter from unusually strong bond trading, a trend not expected to continue while loan problems persist.

That's right, you can be a Wall Street financial genius as well. As long as you get enough government money to exceed your losses and combine it with methods that are unsustainable in the current economic climate, you too can pretend that you made a profit and are thus a CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY~! Spend a couple of mil redecorating the office, pretend all that hate towards you and your kind is just envy of your massive capitalist penis, and start up the credit default swaps on mortgages because surely this will never happen again.

At least all this bailing out and ten billion dollar loans/writedowns/shakedowns are providing their intended purpose: helping out the citizens affected by the recession fake balance sheet profits. At least now, what with them being so flush with cash and profitable, the banks have decided to increase lending like they were supposed to. They haven't? Well, who could have foreseen?

This is all working out so well for everyone who isn't a banker or derivatives trader.

Our horrible media

If you want to wonder why leaders in our country will torture and engage in Constitutionally criminal activities with seemingly little thought, then after Congress gets its fair share of blame for always being willing to grease the skids and then cover it up, you have to give our terrible media it's due as well.

Here we have our media betters clucking and wondering if we really need to talk about all this nasty torture business and try to prosecute all these lawbreakers. In fact this segment heaps more complaints on Obama for releasing the torture memos than it does for people who authorized and carried out torture. As did most media commentary since the memos were released. But that's what they do, always an excuse for their fellow elites, as long as the rule breaking is legally and Constitutional based in nature and not having to do with something really important like hookers or possibly gay hookers.

So give them all a round of applause, they've assured that no pressure or scrutiny will come from our nation's news establishment and thus no force will be brought to bear on those who tortured or those who just want to sweep it under the rug. It's better if we don't address these serious breaches of our legal structure. You know, for the good of the country.

Quote of the day: Not putting 2 + 2 together

Palin Says She Considered Abortion

The governor's 30-minute speech was folksy and full of digressions, but also surprisingly confessional, and she went into some detail about initially panicking after learning, 13 weeks into her pregnancy, that her son would be born with Down syndrome: "That blew me away, it rocked my world… It was a time I asked myself, was I going to walk the walk?"

She was on a trip out of state at the time, she said, and "just for a fleeting moment I thought, 'No one knows me here; no one would ever know.' ... My amniocentesis came back and then I understood why some people would think they could change their circumstances, just take care of it. Todd didn't even know" the results of the prenatal testing yet, so "no one would know."

She later goes on to talk about how she chose life. Chose, choose, accept, adopt, appoint, call for, cast, co-opt, commit oneself, crave, cull, decide on, designate, desire, determine, discriminate between, draw lots, elect, embrace espouse, excerpt, extract, fancy, favor, feel disposed to, finger, fix on, glean, judge, love, make choice, make decision, make up one's mind, name, opt for, predestine, prefer, see fit, separate, set aside, settle upon, sift out, single out, slot, sort, tab, tag, take, take up, tap, want, weigh, will, winnow, wish, wish for.

You know, choice. That thing that's great for her but that she wants to get rid of for everyone else. I bet she didn't even make the connection. God I hate her.

On tyranny

John Oliver, whose Bugle podcast on the Times Online you should be listening to, on humiliating teabaggers, mocking their word usage, delivering another shot to the state of New Jersey, and good old fashioned British tyranny.

The force is strong with Strathclyde

Force is strong for Jedi police

Eight police officers serving with Scotland's largest force listed their official religion as Jedi in voluntary diversity forms, it has emerged.

Strathclyde Police said the officers and two of its civilian staff claimed to follow the faith, which features in the Star Wars movies.

The details were obtained in a Freedom of Information request by Jane's Police Review.

Strathclyde was the only force in the UK to admit it had Jedi officers.

This is after 390,000 people listed their religion as Jedi in the 2001 Census for England and Wales, and 14,000 in Scotland. I hope, for the sake of the what I assume are the good people of Strathclyde, that these men are not like most people willing to openly identify themselves as Jedi: dressing in brown bath robes, waving around broomsticks while making lightsaber noises, debating Obi-Wan v. Gandalf with the 6 police officers who identified as Hobbits, and awkwardly confronting Peter Mayhew with scripts for new movies.

Preliminary reports say there is no truth to the rumor that Hayden Christiansen was one of the officers, having taken up a new career after that whole acting thing didn't work out as well as he hoped. If you wish to join up with a religion that's only slightly more ridiculous and implausible than all the other ones, visit the Church of Jediism, the Jedi Church, or just set up all your Star Wars figures and start preaching to them from a bible of your own creation.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 4.17

Ex-McCain aide to call for gay marriage support
Seems former McCain aide Steve Schmidt thinks that Republicans being for gay marriage is a smart thing. He'll be denounced as a heretic, shunned, and possibly stoned by the rest of his party in 3...2...1. While it's good to see him make the argument, let's make sure he's not involved in selling it or getting it passed. I don't know how much McCain campaign type backbiting, mixed messages, infighting, confusion, incoherence, and mismanagement the issue can take.

Banks Rush to Repay U.S. Funds, but Cling To Other Lifelines
Well, well, well. Banks want to bitch about taking one set of government funds while lining up at the trough to take another. CEO's are complaining about the restrictions surrounding the use of TARP funds, using words like "scarlet letter", "asinine", and complain that they only took the money to show a united front. Now that some turned a 1st quarter profit, they want to yell about how they never needed the money in the first place, they're defaulting on checks to their butler, and the terms are "damaging the economy", neglecting to mention the fact that they'd be bankrupt if they didn't get the TARP money and are still hoovering up government billions from other areas. They really haven't learned anything, have they?

Injured War Zone Contractors Fight to Get Care From AIG and Other Insurers
Turns out those bastion of usefulness, AIG, were making quite a handsome profit off of the Iraq war. Not only did they insure civilian contractors, collecting premiums to the tune of $1.5 billion dollars, a sum an army audit called "unreasonably high", they went ahead and denied 44% of all claims for contractors suffering serious injuries and over half of all claims for psychological distress. They were able to net a cool $600 million profit, which given their track record, they probably used to fund the liquidation of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. God, I'm so glad they were too big to fail. What would we ever do without them? I mean besides have a solvent economy and treat people wounded in war with a shred of dignity.

Sondhi Limthongkul Survives 84 Gunshots
Mr. Limthongkul, aka King of the Badasses, organized protests that ended up deposing Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra last year. The New Rasputin, who led the 'yellow shirts', has been under fire (figuratively at first, now literally) from the 'red shirts' who backed the previous government and are trying to protest the new government out of power. When asked for comment, Mr. Limthongkul responded that "there is no spoon" and then kung fu fought his way through a bunch of men in black suits.

Torture day!!!!!

The Justice Department just released 4 memos that basically outlined that the "legal" basis for the program of torture that went on at CIA black sites. They are almost entirely unredacted and full of lots of decisions and justifications that put that wonderful vomit taste in your mouth. Enjoy.

http://72.3.233.244/pdfs/safefree/olc_08012002_bybee.pdf - memo from Jay Bybee to John Rizzo about torture techniques used on Abu Zubaydah

http://72.3.233.244/pdfs/safefree/olc_05102005_bradbury46pg.pdf -- memo from Steven Bradbury to Rizzo about waterboarding and other techniques

http://72.3.233.244/pdfs/safefree/olc_05102005_bradbury_20pg.pdf - memo from Bradbury describing the techniques that could be used in combination with each other.

http://72.3.233.244/pdfs/safefree/olc_05302005_bradbury.pdf - memo from Bradbury to Rizzo about techniques to be used on "high value" targets

Glen Greenwald went to the trouble of highlighting the best part of the memos, the one where they acknowledge their own massive hypocrisy and promptly decide it isn't relevant.


AND THE HOOOOOOOOOME OF THE BRAAAAAAAAAAVE!!! Good stuff. Good thing the guy who wrote most of these memos, Jay Bybee, has been rightfully shunned from decent society and doesn't hold a position of impor....oh, he's a federal judge on the 9th circuit? Wonderful.

Picture of the day

Hey Phil, I'm sure Barry loves "Be My Baby", but I'm not sure this is the kind of support he wants right now. Especially not after you were convicted and started looking like an ancient melting Clay Aiken.

Woulda coulda shoulda

Richard Armitage, I kind of like you. You seem reasonably smart, not completely ideologically bankrupt, you tried to fight against some of the more grossly offensive foreign policy decisions of the past 8 years, and, unlike most of your compatriots in the Bush regime, blessed with some measure of conscience, self awareness, and realization of the Bush legacy. I might go so far to say that I wouldn't reflexively spit on you out of principle. But do me a favor (and pass this note on to Colin Powell too) could you stop with the "in hindsight I would have quit" garbage?

ARMITAGE: We did know that we lost the terminology question in Geneva. We did know of course because the [International Committee of the Red Cross] would come to see me and Secretary Powell. We certainly knew that they had suspicions.

LEWIS: So when you knew that the administration of which you were a part was departing from the Geneva Conventions and sidelining them, why didn't you quit?

ARMITAGE: In hindsight maybe I should've. But in those positions you see how many more battles you have. You maybe fool yourself. You say how much worse would x, y, or z be if I weren't here trying to do it? So torture is a matter of principle as far as I'm concerned. I hope, had I known about it at the time I was serving, I would've had the courage to resign.

You knew you had lost the fight to abide by the Geneva Conventions, but you didn't know torture was going on? What did you think they were going to do out from under the auspices of the international laws governing interrogation and prisoner conditions in warfare? Well done on trying to fight for the GC, but come on. You had to know what was coming and you had the chance to quit. You didn't. Quit trying to take a stand after the fact and quit trying to grub for credit on something you didn't actually do.

So leave already

Gov. Rick Perry: Texas Could Secede, Leave Union

Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax "tea party" Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states' rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, "Secede!"
...
Perry called his supporters patriots. Later, answering news reporters' questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

So what are you waiting for: leave. I know that taxes and spending to fix the problems the retarded sons of Texas in the last administration caused are now the worst thing ever in the history of man, so stick to your principles, pack up your teabags and longhorns and go fuck off. You and Chuck Norris can battle it out for despot of the Enchanted Kingdom of Texas/New Freedonia, the rest of us can pretend to be rational adults living in the 21st century and not be besieged by the litany of rich meddling idiots, moronic politicians, and religious fundamentalists that your state cranks out by the barrel full to infect the country. You get your bullshit notion of Texas independence, we get all the money we pour into your state and new standing orders to shoot Jerry Jones if he puts one toe over the border.

Of course since Perry joined the chorus of idiot Republican governors using the stimulus bill to fuck over their citizens in an attempt to up their national profile, it comes as no surprise that he's also a massive hypocrite.

Governor Rick Perry, five days ago: Governor Perry Calls FEMA To Assist With Wildfires

Governor Rick Perry, last month: Governor Perry Calls For 1,000 Troops To Be Sent To Border

Governor Rick Perry, five months ago: Governor Perry Requests 18 Month Extension Of Federal Aid For Ike Debris Removal

So it's "Git offuh mah land" when talking to nitwits waving Lipton boxes, "give me money to stop the Mexicans from starting wildfires with hurricane debris" when Texas can't seem to hack it on its own problems. But hey, secede. After all, it worked so well last time.

Edit: Want to know how terrible Perry's idea is? Glen Beck just endorsed it.

Who could have foreseen?: Spying

Officials Say U.S. Wiretaps Exceeded Law

The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.

Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.
...
As part of that investigation, a senior F.B.I. agent recently came forward with what the inspector general’s office described as accusations of “significant misconduct” in the surveillance program, people with knowledge of the investigation said. Those accusations are said to involve whether the N.S.A. made Americans targets in eavesdropping operations based on insufficient evidence tying them to terrorism.

And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Hey Congress and Justice Department, give a shit yet? A member of Congress was getting spied on illegally, surely that's enough to make you stand up and take notice. It wasn't just one of the random faceless millions getting their Constitutional rights violated, it was our precious privileged elected betters suffering the indignity. Surely this will spur some action, enforcement of law, or at least a stern talking to, right? No? Fine, we'll just wait for Spain to get around to fixing it.

It's hard to even find the anger/disgust any more, since this was such an obvious, foreseeable, and predictable outcome. The whole purpose of that new FISA law all our buddies in Congress passed was to completely gut FISA and provide legal cover for everyone doing it, so who's really surprised that a lack of oversight and enforcement resulted in "overcollection." Which is just a fancy word for "extensive massive rights violations of the American public". But hey, I'm sure these abuses were just a few bad apples who didn't....oh, it says abuses were "significant and systemic".

But hey, I'm sure everything is all right now and just pointing out that these things happened and doing nothing to correct the total gutting of FISA that allowed this will mean that this sort of thing will never ever ever happen again. Hey, the Obama JD says everything is alright and they totally fixed things and there's no need to worry. Which is so relaxing, just like it was so relaxing to hear then Senator Obama tell us, back when it was up for vote, that the new FISA law would strengthen civil liberties protection and improve oversight. That worked out so well, I totally believe him this time.

Teabaggery

This seems like such a well adjusted movement. Gotta love people who just got their taxes cut complaining about tax raises, all the third rate conspiracy nuts, people bedecked in tea bags, misappropriated quotes from our founding fathers in an attempt to tie the Revolutionary War in with a bunch of right wingers bitching about liberals, JESUS~!!!!!, the thinly veiled racism, the people who think they're personally paying for every Negro mortgage north of the Mason-Dixon line, the people who didn't care one tiny bit about the violation of our rights over the past few years thinking that passing a spending bill that attempts to stem our slide into a great depression is a fascist violation of their constitutional rights, the people who didn't care about deficits and spending over the past eight years suddenly concerned when we have to deficit spend to fix the problems their hero George created, and the general level of bootheel licking towards the rich. What's that Mr. Taibbi? Yes, peasant mentality is a good description.

We barely have to do any work, they're already self-parodied.









pics via here, here, here, and here.

Important chart of the day

via Big. Crush.

It's important to note that while records are hard to come by it is almost assured that the Presidents of the late 1700's and early 1800's at had some pirates killed on behalf of this great nation. But since the advent of steam locomotion it's clear that one man and one man only holds the title of America's greatest pirate killing president: Barack Obama.

Eat it Taft.

The most childish 2:41 in TV news history

Enough teabagging, mouth references, and innuendo to fuel a fetish website, a wonderful use of a black screen to illustrate something Fox News falsely said it covered, and a Dick Armey joke so childish that a group of third graders might have written it. Well done, Mr. Schuster, well done. You have no idea how proud I am that this was broadcasted. If this TV news thing doesn't work out I'm sure the Onion News Network has a spot waiting.

Broken In Brief: American Tea Party teabaggers unaware of the sexual implications of their moniker

WASHINGTON—As the right wing American Tea Party pursues media exposure for their April 15th tax day demonstrations, snickering liberals remain divided over whether to let them in on the testicle-related sexual slang associated with the term "tea bagging."

“This week thousands of Americans will participate in these Tea Party protests against reckless government overspending,” said Mike Perkins, a spokesman for FreedomWorks, the group organizing the event. During a press conference promoting the ostensibly grassroots movement, Perkins declared, “My fellow tea baggers and tea bagging aficionados, we will show everyone that you can’t push us around. We’ll show the liberals our tea bags and let them know we can’t be pushed around. Tea baggers unite!”

In the back of the press conference, a group of snarky college students were stifling laughter.

“He thinks he's [laughter] talking... about spending and... [laughter] the... Boston Tea... Party… but… he’s actually… talking… about… balls [laughter]… and... and… ballsacks,” said a doubled over Brandon Rousch, a Georgetown campus student organizer, between brief gasps for air.

After this initial rallying cry, Mr. Perkins announced another FreedomWorks plan to mail boxing gloves to Democratic leaders to show them that the Republican party was ready for a fight.

“Speaker Pelosi, we’re ready to do battle with you over the future of this country. That’s why we’re proud to announce the beginnings of what we hope will grow into another national movement: Operation Donkey Punch!” he said, apparently in reference to a pugilistic bout with the traditional mascot of the Democratic Party.

At this point Mr. Rousch and his colleagues were rolling around on the floor, unable to control their laughter. “Nobody tell them,” he said, a spot of urine beginning to appear on his pants. “Nobody tell them what that means!”

Dolphins v. Pirates

Thousands of dolphins block Somali pirates

Thousands of dolphins blocked the suspected Somali pirate ships when they were trying to attack Chinese merchant ships passing the Gulf of Aden, the China Radio International reported on Monday.

The Chinese merchant ships escorted by a China's fleet sailed on the Gulf of Aden when they met some suspected pirate ships. Thousands of dolphins suddenly leaped out of water between pirates and merchants when the pirate ships headed for the China's.

The suspected pirates ships stopped and then turned away. The pirates could only lament their littleness before the vast number of dolphins. The spectacular scene continued for a while.

That's right Somali pirates, you aren't just dealing with the various navies of the world.......you've gone and pissed off Aquaman. Not content to join our navy, fight terrorism, star in our prime time adventure shows, and to flip for our amusements at Sea World and other marine establishments, the dolphins have decided to take on our piracy problem.

Not only have the dolphins successfully prevented a pirate raid, the dolphins also caused a philosophical conundrum within the minds of the pirates, making them question the order of the universe, the nature of existence, their place in the universe, as well as their place in the vastness of nature. Let's see a Navy SEAL sniper do that.

Just be warned pirates, we have the animal kingdom on our side. You've seen our naval forces, wait till you see our ground forces. I don't want to give away too much, but let's just say....gorillas riding tigers. It's gorillas riding tigers. God help you.

Broken News: Nate Silver predicts lottery numbers, promptly vanishes

NEW YORK--Statistician and journalist Nate Silver, who created the popular poll analysis website fivethirtyeight.com, disappeared almost immediately after successfully forecasting the winning numbers for the New York Mega Millions lottery. The jackpot was worth just over $294 million at the time of Silver's win.

Lottery officials are still trying to determine whether a complex algorithm capable of predicting both the proper date and numerical sequence upon which to wager constitutes a violation of state law.

"Frankly, we're at a loss" said New York State Lottery Commissioner Eliot Glassberg. "If he had tampered with the equipment or the staff, we'd already be arranging a bail hearing. But a remarkable instance of logical conjecture based on extrapolations from a battery of data going back decades? Kind of a gray area. In any event, he'll have to share the jackpot with a mechanic from Albany who won by picking numbers comprised of his Uncle Sully's birthday and the opening day lineup numbers of the Mets infield."

According to friends and family, the 31 year-old Silver, whose near-perfect electoral forecasts brought him national attention in 2008 after six years as a Managing Partner at Baseball Prospectus, gave no indication that he had concocted a method of winning hundreds of millions of dollars.

"These last couple of months, Nate had been spending a lot of time on something he called the 'CM Initiative'," said Silver's writing partner, poker player and political analyst Sean Quinn, who began writing for fivethirtyeight during the 2008 presidential race. "He played that pretty close to the vest, although Nate did eventually tell me that 'CM' stood for 'Cashey Money'."

Added Quinn, "He called me the other night and said he'd be taking some time off. Now that I think about it, he sounded a little drunk. I distinctly remember him saying something about sitting at a Vegas poker table until he was 'too drunk or too dead' to continue. Then maybe something about an island, and maybe a tangible universe of numbers and calculations which he presided over as if he were God? I can't be sure -- it was too hard to understand him through all of that maniacal laughter."

Another frequent contributor to fivethirtyeight, Andrew Gelman, professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University, did not seem the least bit surprised by Silver's sudden disappearance.

"Look, in this city, brains like Nate's will probably have you pulling steady 7.5-8 caliber tail. But brains and nine-figure money? Let's just say that if you're looking for Nate, I would start the search in Tensville."

A search of Silver's apartment turned up little. Apart from an extensive library, several custom-built computers, a 216-digit number that contained the true name of God, and likely the largest collection of newspaper box scores ever assembled, investigators found only a hand-written note stating the following:

"I have calculated the odds of a complete and irrevocable collapse of the global economy, and of civilization as we know it, at 3:2. Good luck."

In a haunting coda, the note then asked that the detective reading it to "...please fix your striped blue tie, get those size 10 Rockford boots off the front right corner of my coffee table, stop thinking about the ass of that girl behind the counter at the corner store, and call your wife Shelia about dinner with the Califaros tonight, because there's been a problem. I know all."

As of this writing, said detective is being counseled for mental anguish resulting from the brutal shattering of his notions of causality and fate, as well as the violation of what he had considered private thoughts.

Lottery officials confirmed that Silver had accepted his half of the one-time payout option, worth approximately $76 million after taxes, in the form of a cashier's check.

Robo-suit of the day

Real-Life Iron Man: A Robotic Suit That Magnifies Human Strength

CYBERDYNE was launched in June 2004 to commercialize the cybernetic work of a group of researchers headed by Yoshiyuki Sankai a professor of system and information engineering at Japan's University of Tsukuba. Its newest product: the Robot Suit Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) exoskeleton, which the company created to help train doctors and physical therapists, assist disabled people, allow laborers to carry heavier loads, and aid in emergency rescues. A prototype of the exoskeleton suit is designed for the small in stature, standing five feet, three inches (1.6 meters) tall. The suit weighs 50.7 pounds (23 kilograms) and is powered by a 100-volt AC battery (that lasts up to five hours, depending upon how much energy the suit exerts).

CYBERDYNE designed the HAL exoskeleton primarily to enhance the wearer's existing physical capabilities 10-fold. The exoskeleton detects—via a sensor attached to the wearer's skin—brain signals sent to muscles to get them moving. The exoskeleton's computer analyzes these signals to determine how it must move (and with how much force) to assist the wearer. The company claims on its Web site that the device can also operate autonomously (based on data stored in its computer), which is key when used by people suffering spinal cord injuries or physical disabilities resulting from strokes or other disorders.

And you thought we would have no weapons against the oncoming robot onslaught. Robo power suits that increase our strength and cyborg killing power 10 fold. Japan may be pushing us inexorably towards a war with the metal ones, but let it be said they are also giving us the tools to fight and look cool while doing so. Even if they did name their company after an evil corporation that enslaves humanity and their suit after an evil robot that attempts to murder Keir Dullea.

This is just the first of the robo-suits as our own US military, in conjunction with Sarcos/ Raytheon, is building one for the troops and the lovable scampss at M.I.T. Biomechatronics are building one to help them win a drinking contest against those damned jocks from State. Sure, these are all allegedly to help people with medical problems, but that's what they have to say to get funding. We know what we'll have to use them for: To fight....and win against the robo-hordes.