Fun With L Words

david_french
ABOVE: David French

Shorter David French, America’s Shittiest Website™

Libertines, Leftists, and Libertarians

  • The gays are responsible for our national debt crisis.

A reader recently complained to the WaPo ombudsman that the WaPo was too nice to gays, that it even included stories about gay people (gasp!) dating. Instead, the reader whined, the WaPo should mention that Billy Graham and the Pope think that two gay men going out for pizza are both just one slice away from damnation and that dating gays eating pizza devalues pizza for normal straight people. When the ombudsman explained that it was only a matter of basic fairness and decency that the WaPo treated gay people like everyone else, well that prompted an outpouring of wingnut hysteria from the like of James Tarantoad at the White Street Journal and David French over at America’s Shittiest Website.™

Tarantoad merely huffs and puffs about the WaPo’s  leftist liberal pansy-pandering bias. French, however, takes it to a new level, particularly over the ombudsman saying reporters are merely being libertarian when they treat gays like normal human beings and not the diseased, family-wrecking, drug-addled immoral perverts and pariahs that they are.

It’s astounding how many times liberals say “libertarian” when they really mean “libertine.” In reality, when it comes to sexual politics, the mindset is far more libertine and left than libertarian. They’re libertine when it comes to certain forms of self-indulgence (don’t tell me what I can do with my body!), but they’re leftist when it comes to the consequences (don’t make me bear the costs of my choices! I thought government is that thing we do together!). By contrast, the true libertarian may or may not be personally libertine, but they also do not believe someone else should be compelled to pay the costs of their behavior.

Yes, that’s the problem with gays. If you let them go on dates, they expect you to pay for their pizza. If you let them get married, they demand that the federal government pay for their big gay wedding cake, and their reception and honeymoon, and their cute little townhouse in Gayville. I mean, honestly, what the fuck is this guy talking about? Oh wait, obviously when gay people get married, the taxpayer has to pay for the cost of the marriage license, unlike the marriage licenses issued to straights which are paid for by the, er, same taxpayer.  Nevermind.

Of course, the exorbitant demands of the gays that everyone else pay for their gayness, by picking up their their gay bar tabs and paying for their Lady Gaga music download is what is wrecking our economy

The sexually libertine leftist lays the groundwork for cultural and fiscal ruin.

No, really, he actually said that. Gays are to blame for the national debt, not the Congressional Republicans who fought two unnecessary wars on credit.

Subsidizing family destruction creates perverse incentives at the individual level, fosters ever-more destructive behavior, and consequently impairs our economic ability to continue the subsidy as we create a vast and growing pool of state dependents.

You see, when gays get married, they stop work so that they can stay home and fuck all day, then demand welfare benefits, and the next thing you know those millions of non-working, married gays on the dole have added another trillion dollars to the national debt.

Oh, and as the voting pool of dependents grows, reform is ever-more politically difficult.

The problem is not only that we let the gays marry but also, and even worse, we let them vote!

Well, that’s all for now. I’m off to the welfare office to pick up my gayfare check.

 

Comments: 217

 
 
 

Ha!!!

Also, too, the White Street Sheet Journal

FTFY

 
 

The conservative’s obsession with sex (kinky for me, not for thee) sexy time must be rooted in their complete lack of understanding of the concept of consent, co-mingled with a torrid disgust of a loss of privilege to leverage any power that they might possess to subjugate any party they see as being beneath them.

This is, of course a mindset that is much more likely if everything you look at is evaluated through the lens of “zero sum game.”

 
 

Maybe he means when gay people get sick because of their gayness, they shouldn’t expect Obamacare.

Or maybe it’s the cost of printing all those extra marriage licenses. Paper and ink don’t come cheap, you know. (Don’t laugh. I once heard a “libertarian”—sorry, I just cannot type that word without scare quotes—make that exact argument.)

 
 

Dear stupid bigot WATB assholes who were at the back of the line when the FSM handed out dicks or not laughable size,

You’re losing. And with each passing day your yowls of anger become less threatening and more hilarious. Now, in this country you have the right to say (almost) any fucked up thing that comes to your mind. Despite your deepest fantasies you won’t be thrown in a Gulag and whipped by ObamaThugs.

Just make sure you keep your damn hands to yourself or we will hurt you. K?

– The Rest of America

 
 

Maybe he means the cost of all the butt baby abortions after the gay sex orgies?

 
 

or = of

 
 

Paper and ink don’t come cheap, you know

Yes, if only we could make those getting married pay for their own wedding license. Like we do in every state I have ever heard of. In my county of WI, the fee is $120 plus $25 if you want it right away and don’t want to wait a week.

 
 

The Libertino particle has +1 spin and weakens nuclear bonds by pairing up with whichever particles it wants.

 
 

When do gays find the time to get anything done?

I would think that destroying society as we know it must keep them pretty busy.

 
 

OBS, I will definitely check that game out. We’re always looking for new additions. Sometimes we get bogged down with the calculating, tedious games (like Power Grid, ugh) and that’s why I found Cards Against Humanity so refreshing. I’m going to sign up for the Machine of Death KickStarter even though they’ve met their goal.

 
 

When do gays find the time to get anything done?

It’s time to dredge up that old Gay Agenda parody. My Gazoogle skills are not up to the task.

 
 

[Taranto:]That “libertarian” is quite a dodge. Most journalists are anything but libertarian in areas where that would mean siding against the left, such as guns, education, taxes, nonsexual health care and nonmedia corporate free speech.

[French:]I agree with Taranto — “libertarian” is the wrong word. And this raises a pet peeve. It’s astounding how many times liberals say “libertarian” when they really mean “libertine.”

Red herring, tu quoque, ad hominem, question-begging, do they make ANY arguments that aren’t fallacious?

 
Quaker in a Basement
 

Perverse incentives?

How much are they paying per verse? And do they have to rhyme?

 
 

I would think that destroying society as we know it must keep them pretty busy.

As I remember from my DFH days destroying society is exhausting and we didn’t even have to worry about being fabulous.

 
Illuminati Repton
 

This is the dumbest argument against gay marriage I’ve ever heard. And I’ve heard some doozies.

 
 

The conservative’s obsession with sex

To quote a very good and very liberal college friend of mine: “Nobody who’s getting any spends that much time worrying about other people’s sex lives.”

 
 

They’re libertine when it comes to certain forms of self-indulgence investment banking (don’t tell me what I can do with my body managing other people’s money!), but they’re leftist when it comes to the consequences (don’t make me bear the costs of my choices! I thought government is that thing we do together!).

There, fixed.

 
 

“Nobody who’s getting any spends that much time worrying about other people’s sex lives.” – Chris

I’m not sure I agree with that: there is a tendency, especially amongst the female members of my tribe, who as soon as they start getting some, start to spend much time worrying about other people’s sex lives. But mainly in terms of ensuring that various friends, family members, etc. are hooked up to proper life-partners so that they too get some.

I don’t know how to put that pithily though: “nobody who’s getting any spends that much time worrying about other people’s sex lives except to do whatever they can to make sure all of their single friends have the opportunity to hook up with / date / marry all of their partner’s single friends?” Which of course is a far cry about worrying that people are having unapproved sex …

 
 

<The sexually libertine leftist lays the groundwork for cultural and fiscal ruin.

Too gay to fail? SWEET.

 
 

[Taranto:]That “libertarian” is quite a dodge. Most journalists are anything but libertarian in areas where that would mean siding against the left, such as guns, education, taxes, nonsexual health care and nonmedia corporate free speech.

As if there is such a thing as a “libertarian” and that people that identify as such are not, as we all know, really just a bunch of whiny conservatives that happen to like to smoke pot.

Anyway, translation of the bolded items for those playing along at home, since in a sane world, the “left’s” opinion of those two items would align pretty well with “liberty” as sane people understand it:

By “nonmedia corporate speech” he means “the right of corporations to own the government” not “companies can buy billboards”.

And by “nonsexual health care” he means that horrible, awful “single payer, state funded health care, as practiced by the rest of the civilized world, but not here in the yoo ess fuckin’ ay” ’cause who the fuck needs any sort of freedom or liberty even from bankrupting yourself to pay for your kid’s broken leg, after you’ve shopped the glorious free market for the cheapest emergency room services available.

Gawd I hate glibertarians.

 
 

OBS, I will definitely check that game out. We’re always looking for new additions. Sometimes we get bogged down with the calculating, tedious games (like Power Grid, ugh) and that’s why I found Cards Against Humanity so refreshing. I’m going to sign up for the Machine of Death KickStarter even though they’ve met their goal.

Yeah, I play a bunch of the Settlers games, but they can be pretty long drawn out events. The new Machine of Death looks like it’ll be super fun and can be simpler/quicker.

Although my wife did look at me a bit funny when I told her all about this game where you know how somebody is going to die, and you’re an assassin and you have to try to figure out how to use a combination of your very limited, and amusing, resources to try to kill them. I mean what’s not to love about that premise?

 
 

Old School:

6:00 am Gym
8:00 am Breakfast (oatmeal and egg whites)
9:00 am Hair appointment
10:00 am Shopping (preferably at Marshall Fields’s, Macy’s or Nordstom’s)
12:00 pm Brunch
2:00 pm
1) Assume complete control of the U.S. Federal, State, and Local Governments, as well as all other national governments,
2) destroy all healthy marriages,
3) replace all school counselors in grades K-12 with agents of Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels,
4) bulldoze all houses of worship,
5) secure total control of the Internet and all mass media, and
6) be fabulous
2:30 pm Get forty winks of beauty rest to prevent facial wrinkles from the stress of world conquest
4:00 pm Cocktails
6:00 pm Light Dinner (soup, salad [with arugula and balsamic vinegar dressing], Chardonnay)
8:00 pm Theater
10.30 pm Cocktails in the ‘hood
12:00 am Bed (du jour)

Here is a re-boot by Betty Bowers.

Same thing only longer and I think the suggestion that our New Gay Overlords would drive Beemer Z4s is an insult to our NGOs.

 
 

The conservative’s obsession with sex (kinky for me, not for thee) sexy time must be rooted in their complete lack of understanding of the concept of consent, co-mingled with a torrid disgust of a loss of privilege to leverage any power that they might possess to subjugate any party they see as being beneath them.

Because “IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION”, I think another factor is that conservatives have such unhealthy attitudes towards sex, mingled with authoritarian tendencies, they have fantasies of a society in which, as T.H. White put it, “Anything that isn’t mandatory is forbidden” and “Anything that isn’t forbidden is mandatory”.

 
 

The slight-Republican majority Arkansas legislature today overrode our sensible Democratic governor’s veto of a bill that would make it illegal to get an abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy. The governor vetoed it because in his (correct) opinion, it’s unconstitutional. The ACLU had already said before the veto override that they would bring suit if it passed.

So now, I and the other fine citizens of this benighted state will shell out some several millions of dollars in tax revenues so the state can mount a legal defense of an unconstitutional law that the legislature was warned was unconstitutional but passed anyway…and when that law is predictably ruled unconstitutional, this bit of government waste will be the fault of….the ACLU, no doubt. If those nosy liberals wouldn’t do things like challenge illegal laws passed by rightwingers, they wouldn’t have been forced, FORCED I TELL YOU, to piss away tax revenues fighting a losing legal battle just to prove how much they love Jesus, and that money might have instead have gone to some frivolous use of which government is guilty of indulging, like fixing the bridge on one of the main commuter routes into and out of downtown Little Rock. Though I suppose God doesn’t hand out gold stars for preventing bridge collapses like he does for fetishizing fetuses, what with the only action involved being that a bridge doesn’t cave in during morning rush hour, which is not interesting enough for the daily news cycle.

Hopefully the people who are on the bridge when it finally and inevitably gives way will be the ones who voted for those asshats who are about to piss away our money on legal battles with foregone conclusions.

 
 

OMFG you mean the sleezquester isn’t the fault of Usurper Obama but TEH GHEY?

And “libertine” sounds all EuroFrenchified, donchaknow. Therefore must be a bad and Communist thing Q.E.D.

 
 

horrible, awful “single payer, state funded health care, as practiced by the rest of the civilized world, but not here in the yoo ess fuckin’ ay”

Did you guys happen to see the article on health care costs by Steven Brill the other day, where he points out that one of the big reasons that it’s so goddamn expensive here is that, unlike other countries, we have no government regulation controlling charges for services? Which is how they get away with charging 1.50 per tablet for Tylenol. Nobody’s stopping them.

 
 

as T.H. White put it, “Anything that isn’t mandatory is forbidden” and “Anything that isn’t forbidden is mandatory”.

That was as Hassan I Sabbah X, interpreted it… embodying a principle from quantum physics as a fictional character.

White’s original was stated as “Everything not forbidden is compulsory,” which most people credit as having inspired the physicists.

 
 

Ubu – yes, that was in Time magazine.

The only thing scarier these days than getting sick is seeking a cure.

 
 

“Nobody who’s getting any spends that much time worrying about other people’s sex lives.”

Aside from Das’ mention of the Yenta factor, I would say that I would in general agree with this sentiment. and this coming from a dude who hasn’t gotten any in a seriously long time, and still could give a fuck what other people get up to in the privacy of a consensual bedding spot.

Jesus, run to the pawn shop to pick up a monitor and in my absensce you jackals (I mean that in the best sense of the word) descend upon this thread like locusts* Got a 15″ hp lcd that has a dead pixel I can’t resolve (woot) for ten bucks. Now the frankentop has at least one uncorrupted display, and I have money for some decent headphones.

*mixed metaphorical gumbo is delish.

 
 

“Anything that isn’t mandatory is forbidden” and “Anything that isn’t forbidden is mandatory”.

It is almost like they would clamor to check into a hotel that demanded that anyone checking in leave their brains at the desk.

 
 

10.30 pm Cocktails in the ‘hood

LIBERTINIS.

 
 

a hotel that demanded that anyone checking in leave their brains at the desk

I think CPAC is having their convention there, as they do every year.

 
 

LIBERTINIS.

That’s it, I’m adding a cocktail shaker, vermouth and olives to the shopping list.

 
 

I think CPAC is having their convention there, as they do every year.

How else can they keep all of those zombie lies alive.

 
 

Subsidizing family destruction creates perverse incentives at the individual level

I never thought I would be gay but the lube write-offs are AWESOME!

 
 

Check your brains at the door – so the zombie lies CAN FEED!

 
 

[Taranto:]That “libertarian” is quite a dodge. Most journalists are anything but libertarian in areas where that would mean siding against the left, such as guns, education, taxes, nonsexual health care and nonmedia corporate free speech.

When you get past the routine sense of grievance and argument-by-assertion here (“the media are biassed against us!”), and the idea that first-amendment rights are kinda trivial and less important than the rest (basically a charter for perverts, amirite?), you come down to a definition of “Libertarian” as “Believing in freedoms as long as they aren’t used”.

If you want to *use* your individual freedom in ways of which Taranto disapproves, that makes you a libertine rather than a libertarian.

 
 

I never thought I would be gay but the lube write-offs are AWESOME!

It’d give “getting audited” a whole new meaning, for sure.

 
 

The media has a passing acquaintance with reality.

OF COURSE it’s out of touch, as far as wingnuts are concerned.

 
 

nonmedia corporate free speech.

Oooo that’s fucking beautiful. George Orwell is looking down and smiling. Or spinning in his grave. Maybe both.

 
 

10:00 am Shopping (preferably at Marshall Fields’s,

That IS Old School!

 
 

There’s just one teensy-weensy fly in French’s ointment: there are a bunch of places that’ve already legislated all the scary “libertine” stuff he’s filling his adult-diapers about – in some cases quite a few years ago – & I should know, because I’m living in one of them right NOW.

Same-sex marriage? HERE COME THE BRIDES.
Abortion? COME & GET IT.
Sex Ed? DO IT FOR THE KIDS.

Oddly, the results are exactly the opposite of what French predicts: my country’s economy is doing a hell of a lot better than his is, & we always seem to have conspicuously fewer bodies in the street, too. Not to mention fewer STDs & (oh bless you, sweet Fist Of Irony) fewer abortions.

RUH ROH.

one of the big reasons that it’s so goddamn expensive here is that, unlike other countries, we have no government regulation controlling charges for services? Which is how they get away with charging 1.50 per tablet for Tylenol. Nobody’s stopping them.

Yeah, gotta put that one where it belongs: in the Batshit File. Legal price-gouging is a hell of a drug.

 
 

When do gays find the time to get anything done?

I would think that destroying society as we know it must keep them pretty busy.

I’ll take “why doesn’t Pupienus comment more often” for 800, Alex.

 
 

The sexually libertine leftist lays the groundwork for cultural and fiscal ruin.
Indeed.

 
 

I guess I’m a little surprised (though I guess I shouldn’t be) that the National Review is banging this anti-gay drum. They have to know how it makes them look. I know, I know…you’d say “They’re doing it because they know EXACTLY how it makes them look”, but they’re also people who have to be able to see the writing on the wall.

I think part of this might come from a recent article that pointed out that there are almost certainly more LGBT people in the US than Jews, and that since Jews can’t be depended on to vote against their best interests, and blacks and hispanics can’t be relied upon to vote against their best interests, then the number of people who are left who will reliably vote against their best interests is shrinking by percentage.

That doesn’t explain it either. I suppose I shouldn’t try to get into the heads of the NRO staff. With all the spiders and snakes and gay panic, there’s just not enough room in there for me.

 
 

“and when that law is predictably ruled unconstitutional, this bit of government waste will be the fault of….the ACLU, no doubt.”

When will teh feminazis stop ramming the Constitution down our throats?

 
 

The sexually libertine leftist lays the groundwork for cultural and fiscal ruin.

There’s nothing we won’t lay.

 
 

Are there signs that they’re losing their audience? Any winnowing down that you can see? All they do is bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch. Why would anyone hang out with them? They’re fucking energy vampires. Their “arguments” are stupid. They’ve got about three burrs up their asses, that they keep picking at in public. This is unseemly behavior. It’s embarrassing.

Shouldn’t the majority of working class and middle class conservatives be realizing that this continuous bitchery has somewhere around absolutely no relevance to the real problems they have to deal with day to day?

Ai, ai, ai. Who is eating up this dolt-shit? I feel sorry for them.

 
 

I think CPAC is having their convention there, as they do every year.

Oh yes! They will be at a different locale this year. The hotel is in an area that is not at all like Woodley Park. Me thinks cost was an issue. I expect a LOT of Rheil Moments this year.

Also, it is right on the Anacostia. Oh dear, I hope they don’t go for long drunken walks!

 
 

Shake, thanks for that update. Hilarious.

 
 

Hm. Apparently, the Republicans Need to Go Negative

If Republicans want a chance at resurgence, they must take a page or two out of President Obama’s worn playbook and veer sharply negative.

There’s an idea. You’d think someone would have tried that before.

 
 

Hilarious

 
 

If Republicans want a chance at resurgence, they must take a page or two out of President Obama’s worn playbook and veer sharply negative.

Yes, because if they criticize Obama enough, they can keep him from winning a third term.

 
 

Yeah, gotta put that one where it belongs: in the Batshit File. Legal price-gouging is a hell of a drug.

You forget the part where Medicare is expressly forbidden to use its buying power when negotiating prices for drugs, because that would upset the Market Gods, or something.

Seriously, when commonsense solutions preferred by significant majorities of the people affected are deemed by the people in power as too silly to even mention and antihuman ideas too silly to even mention are “must-dos” for the powerful, we have truly gone into bizarroworld.

 
 

Another variation on the loud off-tune “conservative” song about Poors and Olds and Minorities being the cause of our economic problems, rather than Pete Peterson and the rest of the Wall Street Mafia. If only we could make the Olds starving poor and sick, and teh dark-skinned once again relegated to the back of the bus & unable to vote, and all other Poors very very SICK, our economy would go right back to 1950s levels! Oh, and the Libertine Liberals (the man alliterates!) and the gays, of course.”

 
 

Thumbs-up +1 Egg Cup Putin Photoshop.
.

 
 

Thumbs-up +1 Egg Cup Putin Photoshop.

Is that Putin? I can’t recognize him if he hasn’t removed his shirt to show how manly he is, and all. I just assumed it was the whiner Tintin harpooned.

Also, since my iThingy browser only lets me “prove my humanity” when it feels like it, I can take a screenshot by pressing the wakeup/home button (on the face) and the power button (on the edge) simultaneously. I had a few mystery photos until I figured it out.

 
 

Is that Putin? I can’t recognize him if he hasn’t removed his shirt to show how manly he is, and all. I just assumed it was the whiner Tintin harpooned.

I’m sure it is. I just thought he looked like Putin. But the egg cup? GENIUS.

Also, since my iThingy browser only lets me “prove my humanity” when it feels like it, I can take a screenshot by pressing the wakeup/home button (on the face) and the power button (on the edge) simultaneously. I had a few mystery photos until I figured it out.

Is this perhaps in response to something on my catblog?
.

 
 

Is that Putin?
Earlier.

 
 

A long time ago, during that year’s guns-vs.-butter debate, someone ran an editorial cartoon that showed a crying black baby in a crib, while a man in a general’s uniform guzzled the baby’s bottle.

This infuriated the National Review, which promptly ran its own version of the cartoon: A hugely obese, Fat Albert type in a diaper, sitting in a crib and sucking on a bottle, while outside the crib a baby dressed in a tiny general’s uniform, complete with hat, cries.

National Review: Insane racism, or racist insanity?

 
 

It’s David French.

 
Quaker in a Basement
 

LIBERTINIS?

Yes. Put them back in bowl. Back in bowl, yes.

 
 

Now that I’m back;

That “libertarian” is quite a dodge. Most journalists are anything but libertarian in areas where that would mean siding against the left, such as guns, education, taxes, nonsexual health care and nonmedia corporate free speech.

Fuck this guy, but yes, I’d have to agree that the word “libertarian” is almost always a dodge, and a bunch of bullshit. Real honest-to-God libertarians who are actually opposed to an activist role for the government in foreign policy, AND the economy, AND the private lives of their citizens, are pretty goddamn rare in this country. They exist, I’ve met, like, one or two, but the overwhelming majority of “libertarians” are just garden-variety liberals or (much more often) conservatives, who want a big government where it suits them and a small government where it doesn’t.

I’m not saying this like it’s a bad thing. I’m just saying it’s not libertarian. There’s no such thing as a “libertarian” movement independent of the two big parties in this country.

 
 

“… do they make ANY arguments that aren’t fallacious?”

Modern right-wing self-identified manly manly men men spend all of their time erecting (and admiring each others’) huge fallacies.

 
 

Are sexually libertine leftists as unreliable as hipster bebop junkies?

 
 

Is that Putin?
Earlier.

It’s well known that Odilon Redon was deeply influenced by the aesthetic theories of Mort from Bazooka Joe Comics.

 
 

I never thought I would be gay but the lube write-offs are AWESOME!

It’d give “getting audited” a whole new meaning, for sure.

They tend to go easy on the audits if you buy in bulk.

 
 

I hope the hotel issues claim checks for your brains. Imagine how embarrassing it would be to pick up the wrong one.

 
 

“We’ve secretly switched Jonah Goldberg’s brain with Folger’s Crystals – let’s see if he notices…”

 
 

I hope the hotel issues claim checks for your brains. Imagine how embarrassing it would be to pick up the wrong one.

If Righties accidentally swapped brains, how the fuck would they know the difference? A desire to fuck goats behind a barn instead of young men behind a 7-11?

 
 

“We’ve secretly switched Jonah Goldberg’s brain with Folger’s Crystals – let’s see if he notices…”

Meanwhile, across town, there’s someone VERY unhappy with the cup of coffee they’ve just been poured…

 
 

Is this perhaps in response to something on my catblog?.

Yep.

Also, I figured a) it wasn’t really Junior’s mancrush and b) you knew that, but I couldn’t resist snarking on Putin’s er, derring do. Also, I really do have trouble recognizing him without additional cues.

 
 

In my experience, a libertarian is a Republican who you’ve just beaten in an argument.

“I’m not REALLY a Republican anyway……………………….”

 
 

Yep.

Funny, that. There’s not supposed to be any built-in, official way to take a screenshot on the HTC Incredible 2. No, you have to download this piece of crapware and plug the phone into a PC to do it. But apparently, there’s a built-in accidental way to do it, too, as I have two such screenshots in the phone’s gallery that I know *I* took!
.

 
 

Apparently, holding the power button, and tapping the home softkey prior to the power down options being presented now works (in a later update than the original s/w).

I’ll have to try that when I get back to my phone in the morning.
.

 
 

In my experience, a libertarian is a Republican who you’ve just beaten in an argument

Oooh! I like it! Might have to steal that one sometime.

 
 

National Review: Insane racism, or racist insanity?

Yes.

 
 

Jennifer said,

February 28, 2013 at 21:58

Hopefully the people who are on the bridge when it finally and inevitably gives way will be the ones who voted for those asshats who are about to piss away our money on legal battles with foregone conclusions.

Is there something about the Broadway Bridge I need to know?

 
 

Re: Broadway Bridge in Little Rock, AR:

http://bridgehunter.com/ar/pulaski/broadway/

It’s “structurally deficient,” with a 12.7 out of 100 rating (don’t really know what that means, but it sounds bad).

 
 

I am starting to wonder if I should forward this article to my Rabbi. He takes great pains to calibrate all of his political viewpoints (or at least those he feels comfortable expressing from the pulpit — he’s not gonna do anything untoward in terms of political advocacy from the pulpit) to be ever so slightly left of center. Perhaps he would get a kick out of reading that his (and the viewpoints of his like-minded pastoral friends active in our local interfaith events) carefully crafted only slightly liberal, Biblically-rooted viewpoints are now considered to be those of a “leftist libertine”?

 
 

Special Vatican correspondent Cokie Roberts?!

Go eat a bag of salted poisoned rat dicks, NPR.

 
 

It’s “structurally deficient,” with a 12.7 out of 100 rating (don’t really know what that means, but it sounds bad).

Oh hell, I know that, I was just teasing my fellow Little Rockian. I never go over the damn thing anyway, and won’t have to unless I head over to watch the Travelers play this summer.

Unfortunately my view of the Bridge from my 22nd floor abode is blocked. Now if the I-30 Bridge goes, I’ll have a front row seat…

 
 

Ubu – yes, that was in Time magazine.

The only thing scarier these days than getting sick is seeking a cure.

i keep meaning to read that article, but i’m afraid it will piss me off even more…also, too…i literally do not know what the son would have done tuesday after being released from the hospital without adequate supplies if hubbkf and i would not have been with him…$658 to get him set up with insulin, etc…and by the time we got everything filled, he was on borrowed time blood sugar wise…holy fuck…teh diabetes 1 is a ridiculously spendy condition…and i don’t want to see the hospital bill…3 days in icu isn’t gonna be cheap…

but hey, on the up-side, USA! USA!

 
bughunter, your animator for today's game of Toon,
 

TIFU by telling bridgehunter to display all “structurally deficient” bridges in the US.

Smoke started coming out of my computer’s ears, its eyes bugged out 14 inches, its head expanded to the size of a beachball and then contracted to a softball size, and then its eyes were replaced by Xes.

And then it fell down.

 
 

bbkf said,

March 1, 2013 at 16:36

Prescription Assistance Programs.

Hope it helps.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Yeah, LittlePig, I’m with you. When I’m lying in bed on Monday morning I know to turn the volume down when Cokie Roberts is about to come on. Fucking NPR blindsided me this morning.

 
 

I thought libertines were just libertarians between the ages of 12-20. Of course, I thought libertarians were the people who work in a library.

 
 

It’s “structurally deficient,” with a 12.7 out of 100 rating (don’t really know what that means, but it sounds bad).

I mean, really, what could possibly go wrong?

 
 

and i don’t want to see the hospital bill

Oh, there won’t be a hospital bill… there’ll be a pile of them.

Hugs for bbkf. He’ll be fine now… though if he’s your first born you might have to sell him pay the bills.

Advice for your son: Fortunately, insulin is one of those drugs that’s been around so long that the pharmcos keep their margins low. The maintenance cost of diabetes is small compared to other chronic diseases, even on crappy insurance plans. However, if you let it go and suffer complications like heart disease, retinopathy, kidney problems, etc., then it gets expensive.

I have type II and took insulin for a few years — beware, it causes rapid weight gain, and that will cause other expensive problems. For type I you’ll have to take two kinds, several times a day. Get a good doctor, one you trust and who explains things to you when you ask questions rather than being annoyed. See him every three months so he can have your blood tested.

Exercise, exercise exercise. Get a job as a mail carrier or bike courier or something, otherwise you’ll wind up making Jonah Goldberg look svelte…

 
 

Special Vatican correspondent Cokie Roberts?!

Go eat a bag of salted poisoned rat dicks, NPR.

Just think Corky Roberts. That’s what I call her.

 
 

One thing to think about is insulin meters – the meters themselves can be cheap, but you get screwed on the cost of testing strips. It’s like printers in that way.

I don’t know a lot about Type I diabetes; a lot of the patients I saw at the pharmacy were Type II (we’re the fattest area of the country, donchaknow). I dispensed a FUCKTON of metformin and glipizide, both of which are fortunately dirt cheap.

 
 

You should look into insulin pumps- they take a lot of the guesswork out of handling blood sugar levels. I worked with a woman who’d had Type I diabetes since she was a child, and she never had a handle on it until she got the pump. She had been staring down the barrel of a kidney transplant by the age of thirty until she got the pump and turned things around.

I have another friend whose mom, a Registered Nurse, inculcated in him an ironclad discipline, so he never needed to make the transition to the pump.

 
 

OT, but either food porn or food horror: lambs’ kidneys, soaked in cold water for an hour, wrapped in bacon, and roasted at 350 til done.

 
Helmut Monotreme
 

You have just condemned some poor sheep to a lifetime of dialysis. I hope you’re happy.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

You have just condemned some poor sheep to a lifetime of dialysis.

He’s an offal person.

 
 

soaked in cold water for an hour

When you are dealing with a food item that has to be soaked, cured, blanched, or otherwise treated so that it stops tasting the way it actually tastes, it is a sign from God that you should try eating something else instead. That is all.

 
 

lambs’ kidneys, soaked in cold water for an hour, wrapped in bacon, and roasted at 350 til done.

Proof that wrapping anything in bacon makes it awesome, even little fluffy lambykin’s kidneys.

 
 

I’m not sure I want to eat some animal’s poison-filter.

 
 

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I love this song.
And now you will too.

 
 

Oops. Title, lyrics NSFW.

 
 

When you are dealing with a food item that has to be soaked, cured, blanched, or otherwise treated so that it stops tasting the way it actually tastes, it is a sign from God that you should try eating something else instead.

Well on one hand, when you go to the effort to feed, care for, defend from wolves, and shovel shit of an animal, then slaughter it, you feel like you need to make the best use of every bit of it. Thus, we have foods like bacon-wrapped kidney, chitterlings, and haggis.

On the other hand, eww. Piss. Just because we once had to eat the piss filter of a big smelly animal doesn’t mean it’s a good idea now.

Personally, I’m an adventurous eater, and I expect meat be part of nearly every meal, even if only as seasoning. But I refuse to eat any part of the digestive tract -from lips to asshole- of any animal bigger than a shrimp. I’ve tried kidney and while it can be made palatable, I just don’t care for the texture.

And in this part of CA, lengua is quite popular, and I’ve tried it, but I just can’t eat it… the texture is too much like french kissing a cow. A lot of people love it, though… [shudder]

 
 

“Also, I really do have trouble recognizing [Putin] without additional cues.”

Well, that one was easy – this guy is smiling. Putin only “smiles” (if you can call the slight curve at one corner of his mouth a ‘smile’) when someone he dislikes is amusingly punished by something humorous but lingering, with either boiling oil or melted lead.

 
 

I refuse to eat any part of the digestive tract -from lips to asshole- of any animal bigger than a shrimp.

I guess hotdogs are out then.

 
 

But I refuse to eat any part of the digestive tract -from lips to asshole- of any animal bigger than a shrimp.

There is a really awful and raunchy joke in here and I just want to point out that I am not going to make it.

You’re welcome.

 
 

When you are dealing with a food item that has to be soaked, cured, blanched, or otherwise treated so that it stops tasting the way it actually tastes, it is a sign from God that you should try eating something else instead. That is all. – eataTREE

OTOH, dealing with a food item that has to be soaked, cured, blanched or boiled before you can eat it without causing your mouth to painfully swell up, can produce (provided you properly treat the food in question) the most yummy results

And yes, I am one of those people who believes that if you are willing to eat (potentially cute and cuddly) animals, you should eat the different parts of the animal and also not be squeemish about what you are doing/eating.

 
 

bbkf,
Very glad to hear the Son&Heir is out of the hospital. Diabetes is a bugger to be sure, but, thanks to Modern Medicine, controllable. I also think there are a lot of support and info groups online for it.
Best to you and him.

 
 

One thing to think about is insulin meters – the meters themselves can be cheap, but you get screwed on the cost of testing strips. It’s like printers in that way.

aaaaahhhhh, yes! through this, we found out that bc/bs does not cover the one touch/accucheck strips…which i’ve been using for the past couple of years…the target pharmacy we were at, called his doc back and got him an rx for a bayer meter which they said lots of patients like…son doesn’t…i asked at my pharmacy about this and they are kind enough to ‘cheat’ the system and they are filling my scrips as bayer but giving me one touch…one of the nice things about small towns…

son saw his endo yesterday who says he thinks he will do fabulously well, so that’s encouraging…he’s also referring him to a colleague at the u who might want to use him in a pancreas study…

as far as pumps, he isn’t fond of the idea…something about having something sticking out of the body…but he does want to get a diabetes service dog, which would be cool…

fortunately he’s super active so he shouldn’t have too much problems with weight gain and it will help with keeping his levels lower…

thank you all for the advice and the links and encouragement…i don’t know what it is about you nutballs, but you mean a lot to me…

 
 

Dad used to cook beef tongue once in a while, even moose tongue a few times but I was never a fan. Whitefish livers fried in bacon grease are another story.

 
 

And to bbkf, wishing the best for your son.

 
 

There is a really awful and raunchy joke in here and I just want to point out that I am not going to make it.

You’re welcome.

*sob* It’s like I don’t know you guys any more!

(runs crying into bedroom, slamming door)

 
Helmut Monotreme
 

Dad used to cook beef tongue once in a while,

So did my parents, I couldn’t stand it. I hated imagining my food was tasting me back.

 
 

Dad used to cook beef tongue once in a while

mom cooked us beef tongue once…all six of us refused to eat it…

 
 

I’ve tried beef tongue a couple times and liked it. It has to be cooked for the better part of a day before it has a decent texture.

 
 

I should have known better.

This National Review article by Heather Mac Donald (is ‘Mac’ her middle name?) started out almost respectable. Reading like yeoman blog journalism, stating facts and statistics about victims of Military Sexual Trauma Syndrome, quoting from the NYT, and actually sounding like a reasonable conservative…

Until she wrote this:

Why then have those same feminists who are now lamenting the life-destroying effects of “MST” insisted on putting women into combat units? Arguably, coming under enemy fire or falling into enemy hands is as traumatic as the behavior one may experience while binge-drinking with one’s fellow soldiers or as scarring as being “bullied and ostracized” by a female superior.

WTF?

Arguably, you’re a dumbass. Because you argue that being brutally raped and beaten by people you depend on to have your back in combat, people you thought were on your team, is the same as doing a job you’ve been trained and mentally prepared to do, even if that job is risky and life threatening.

What a tool. You’ll do anything to echo a talking point, even if it does make you sound like a fucking bitch.

 
 

I think ‘Mac’ must be short for Mendacious Antisocial Cunt.

 
Helmut Monotreme
 

That cant be right, she lacks the warmth and depth.

 
 

Military-sexual-trauma syndrome is that debilitating condition that befalls female service members who have allegedly been the victim of sexual assault by their fellow service members. According to the New York Times, female veterans are becoming homeless and involved in street life because of the post-traumatic stress that results from having been victimized in a military “that failed to protect them.”

that’s the sentence that did me in…it’s the second one in. ‘that debilitating condition that befalls’…she’s pretty flipping dismissive right from the get go…she is a twunt of the first order…

 
 

Why then have those same feminists who are now lamenting the life-destroying effects of “MST” insisted on putting women into combat units?

Whoa, nonsequitur done broked mah branes.

 
 

When you are dealing with a food item that has to be soaked, cured, blanched, or otherwise treated so that it stops tasting the way it actually tastes,

But cooking it is OK??

 
 

When you are dealing with a food item that has to be soaked, cured, blanched, or otherwise treated so that it stops tasting the way it actually tastes, it is a sign from God that you should try eating something else instead. That is all.

Beer is a sign from God that NUH-UH.

 
 

I never thought the purpose of cooking (for instance) steak was to make it stop tasting like meat. Indeed, it’s an optional step if you’re making a tartare or a carpaccio or, I’m sure, many other dishes. But before you even consider cooking a kidney, you have to stop making it taste like pee, because kidneys taste like pee because they are the pee-making organ. I have no problem with eating tongue or liver or most body parts, but I do have a problem with eating anything so inherently foul-tasting that masking that taste is an essential step in its preparation. The proper category of such an item is inedible.

 
 

You have to do something similar with brains (soaking them in milk before cooking to extract the taste because, well, brains don’t taste very good). They’re also on the list.

 
Helmut Monotreme
 

but I do have a problem with eating anything so inherently foul-tasting that masking that taste is an essential step in its preparation. The proper category of such an item is inedible

Says the guy named eataTREE.

Do you know how much marinating it takes to make an elm taste good?

 
 

Do you know how much marinating it takes to make an elm taste good?

but if you do it right, they are birch-ually tasteless…

 
 

Whoa, nonsequitur done broked mah branes.

Well what do you expect with delicate ladybranes. Shouldn’t have tried using them to think. That’s man’s work.

 
 

also, i agree with eatatree…kidneys = gross as do liver, branes and other organs…and since i just made a reprehensible pun in the above comment, i shall refrain from making another with ‘offal’ because, yeah…

 
 

But Smut, England doesn’t think of itself.

 
 

Last time I tried to eat a brane I was stuck in the sixth dimension for a week.

 
 

In general agreement with you all… I could go the rest of my life without eating most so-called “variety meats” with the notable exception of liver.

Braunschweiger, specifically. There are some days I just HAVE to slice off a coupla thick slabs of Farmer John’s braunschweiger and put it between two slices of jewish rye, along with a nice slice of white onion, and a healthy schmear of mustard.

Carnivore heaven.

Oh, and if I break out the braunschweiger, I must share with the kitty. He has made it clear that this is not optional.

 
 

He doesn’t care for the onion and mustard though.

 
 

Beer is a sign from God that NUH-UH.

What tigris said.

 
 

S. cerevisiae said,

March 1, 2013 at 20:34 (kill)

Hmm, look who’s name just suddenly turned all linky!

 
 

Bughunter is giving me cravings for Zum Uerige and the Blutwurst mit Zwiebeln und Röggelchen.

 
 

Hmm, look who’s name just suddenly turned all linky!

Yeah, it’s a work in progress – hell I can’t even get my own comment to show on my own blog yet!

FYBS

 
 

Yeah, it’s a work in progress – hell I can’t even get my own comment to show on my own blog yet!

FYBS

C’mon what fun would life be without Blogger’s random comment moderation?

 
 

Me dear old Mum was born and bred in London, so we ate offal. Tripe and onions, liver and bacon, steak and kidney, stuffed sheep’s hearts – but only Dad would touch the brains – considered them a major treat, he did, while us kids were making Eww and Ugghh sounds.
Around here, I suspect the farmworkers got the offcuts after the farmers took the prime cuts off a slaughtered animal, hence the continuing popularity of curried tripe and curried offal (kerrieafval). Curry really can disguise a flavour. Also full sheep or cow heads(all bits included), chicken feet and necks.
Global cultural diversity lives !

 
 

Oh, look. The egghead is again smearing the pages of America’s Shittiest Website with this turd of a response to the Harvard Crimson op ed saying, “If you might want to insult Harvard down the line, go elsewhere”:

Harvard Crimson to Conservatives: Love Us or Leave Us
This is hilarious. First, not in a million years would the Crimson dare write such an editorial about critiques of Harvard from the Left. In fact, when I was there it was the Left that stormed administration buildings — often at the bidding and instigation of radical faculty. Did the Crimson say “love it or leave it” then? No, then the mantra was more like “hate it and change it.”

More false equivalence on NRO! Splattered with wingnut talking points! How shocking! How unexpected! How utterly uncharacteristic!

Criticizing a university for being a home to intellectuals to score points with your philistine base is the exact same thing as trying to effect change of policy towards those more representative of the faculty and student body.

If you were there in the sixties and witnessed sit ins and protests, and you misunderstood the point, you really do have cabbage for brains. If you were there in the 80’s and witnessed the anti-apartheid divestment protests, and you misunderstood the point, then you really do have cabbage for brains. If you were there in 2001 and witnessed the living wage protests, and you misunderstood the point, then you really do have cabbage for brains. And if you were there in 2011 and witnessed the Occupy protests, and misundersood the point, then you’re a total fucking shit for brains.

Go back to sucking the cawk of the 1%. That’s got to be how you got your Harvard Law School J.D. anyway.

 
 

I love this song.
And now you will too.

Gotta love the Electric Six- I was in England right around the time that “Danger, High Voltage” debuted at number one on the singles chart.

I saw them play the Village Voice Siren Festival a few years back, they truly are gloriously sleezy.

 
 

Liver is fine when properly prepared.

It just is. And onions are part of that.
~

 
 

Liver is fine when properly prepared.

I bet mine tastes like beer.

 
 

Liver is fine when properly prepared.

With fava beans and a fine Chianti.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

This thread has inspired me to make calf liver with lemon tarragon sauce for dinner tonight. I have some lamb kidneys in the freezer. Perhaps I shall serve them for breakfast this weekend. After prep just cook in butter and add some cayenne. I don’t have any tripe on hand but I just might snag some at the market tomorrow. Tripe a la mode* is nice. Ooh, I’ll get extra and make menudo!

*No, there’s no ice cream involved.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

And sweetbreads! Haven’t made sweetbreads in ages. note to self …

 
 

Mrs. R cooks various cheap meats for the dogs including, sometimes, kidneys.
The smell is gagworthy.

 
 

Mrs. R cooks various cheap meats for the dogs including, sometimes, kidneys.
The smell is gagworthy.

And you played in a trad band? Begorrah!

Chicken necks is all I eat

That’s awesome! I’m more of a “hearts and gizzards” kind of guy. The heart is the best part of the chicken.

 
 

The heart oyster is the best part of the chicken.

 
 

The heart oyster pecker is the best hardest part of the chicken.
.

 
 

I’m not knocking the chicken oyster, Pup, but I think total chicken bliss consists of chicken hearts on skewers, lightly dusted with salt, cumin, coriander, pepper, paprika, and cayenne pepper and grilled over hot coals.

 
 

Total chicken bliss is a Republican endorsing a war.

 
 

Liver is fine when properly prepared.

If properly prepared = You can’t tell it contains liver, even when subjected to spectrographic analysis … I would still only choke it down when refusing to do so would offend a host.

*No, there’s no ice cream involved.

Damn. Got my hopes up.

 
 

And you played in a trad band?

I’m always careful to be somewhere else when they bring out the haggis.

 
 

chicken bliss consists of chicken hearts on skewers, lightly dusted with salt, cumin, coriander, pepper, paprika, and cayenne pepper and grilled over hot coals.

S’okay. GAME ON!

 
 

I can’t believe I’m blanking on this — someone here will know. Who was the very funny early left blogger with the muscles and the doo-rag? The Mighty someone?

I’m shamed I’m blanking on this.

 
Enraged Bull Limpet
 

When you are dealing with a food item that has to be soaked, cured, blanched, or otherwise treated so that it stops tasting the way it actually tastes, it is a sign from God that you should try eating something else instead.

Instead of violently disagreeing, I’ll extend an olive branch. You do like olives, right?

 
 

chicken bliss consists of chicken hearts on skewers, lightly dusted with salt, cumin, coriander, pepper, paprika, and cayenne pepper and grilled over hot coals.

I probably carried that chicken on my plane. Enjoy.

 
 

The fact is, gays and useless eaters will bankrup the USA, which is why I am glad the sequester is happening, it will get them good, but it needed to by 830 billion dollards starting with the welfare people — work or don’t eat, maybe just die and stop taking are money

 
 

I am glad the sequester is happening

Don’t you mean the #Obamaquester? Why are you rolling over for the Kenyan Muslim Hitler?

 
bughunter, on his bughuntermobile,
 

Woohoo!! Smoked liver sausage for breakfast!

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

i’m going to swing by the German deli today. Inspired by Herr Clyde, I have a hankering for Blutwurst. They make gooooood Blutwurst.

 
 

Heh heh heh
~

Trevino’s comments in that thread are a classic of his oeuvre, especially when he fapologises for publishing the name and occupation of a commenter on his own blog.

This fapology takes the form of (1) blaming the commenter for leaving identifying information just lying around where anyone could find it by searching the blog’s registration archives, and (2) switching to the passive voice as soon as it became a question of personal responsibility: “you were done an injustice”.

 
 

i’m going to swing by the German deli today. Inspired by Herr Clyde, I have a hankering for Blutwurst. They make gooooood Blutwurst.

Much as I like Blutwurst (and morcilla), my favorite blood sausage iteration has got to be the Irish style black pudding- it fries up nice and crispy, and is almost too rich.

Blood Sausage Iteration, band name?

 
 

OMG, what did I do to this thread?

 
 

Iterating the blood sausage.

 
 

Btw, I am completely done with cold weather.

Moving to Costa Rica.
.

 
 

OMG, what did I do to this thread?

Looks like you blutwursted it.

 
 

Moving to Costa Rica.

Wait up.

 
bughunter, on vacation,
 

Jeffraham PrestonianThe Planet Earth said,
I am completely done with cold weather

Reattributed.

Or Generalized.

Your choice.

 
 

I think I’ve been misunderstood to have taken a position against offal and organ meats. This is not my position. I am fine with offal and organ meats, so long as they taste good. And implicit in the concept of tasting good is not tasting like, y’know, urine.

There’s nothing wrong with liver as long as it’s not overcooked.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

There’s nothing wrong with liver as long as it’s not overcooked.

I fear I may have overcooked my liver. Cooking with alcoholic beverages has that risk.

 
 

Get with the program, Fred.
.

 
 

Kinda related. So some of you, who have read my posts know that my future plans include the wish to retire in Ireland; (Mom was born there, I am a citizen). I am headed there in April for my bi-annual visit. I do sponsored projects accounting/grants management for a living. I currently work for NYU. So my plans are to retire in 8 years, but it turns out that Trinity College – Dublin has just opened a new bio-medical research center. JUST UP MY ALLEY. So I am trying to get an interview (at least an informational session) with them. So – assuming they accommodate me: When they ask “Why are you leaving?” what’s better to say than “America??? She is Crazy?” Cuz I swear to the Goddess that is what I want to say.

 
 

I fear I may have overcooked my liver.

In one of the James Bond movies, Sean Connery says “When I die they’re going to bury my liver separately – with honors.”

 
 

Someday better bury this thread with or w/o its organs.

 
 

Someday better bury this thread with or w/o its organs.

My cats are scratchin’ around it.
.

 
 

So I am trying to get an interview (at least an informational session) with them. So – assuming they accommodate me: When they ask “Why are you leaving?” what’s better to say than “America??? She is Crazy?” Cuz I swear to the Goddess that is what I want to say.

Tell them that you are proud of your Irish heritage, and you feel that your unique skill set will allow you to “give back” to the Irish people who have shown you such hospitality throughout the years.

 
2010 Jonah Goldberg
 

I would suggest that one of the main reasons so many liberals are in a flop-sweating, bowel-stewing panic over Fox News and the Tea Parties is that they understand such developments are a real threat to epistemic hegemony of liberalism that has been unraveling for the last decade and half. The Obama surge in 2008 looks more like a last gasp for progressivism than a rebirth. If the Obama Era was actually similar to the New Deal, his healthcare plan would be popular—and so would he. Neither is the case.

 
 

If the Obama Era was actually similar to the New Deal…

The GOP would be dead.

Don’t mistake a neoliberal for the real thing, people.
~

 
 

Don’t mistake a neoliberal for the real thing, people.

Obama has governed to the right of Eisenhower, and arguably to the right of Nixon.

 
 

Obama has governed to the right of Eisenhower, and arguably to the right of Nixon.

As Republican presidents go, Obama’s not so bad.
.

 
 

If the Obama Era was actually similar to the New Deal…

The GOP would be dead.

Don’t mistake a neoliberal for the real thing, people.

If the Obama Era was actually similar to the New Deal, in 2008 we would have been in the middle of a real shutdown of the international financial system and a near collapse of the American banking system, we would have had greater than 30% unemployment and rising among people seeking work in private nonfarm jobs with much higher unemployment rates in many large cities, we would have been approaching the complete exhaustion of the remaining sources of even pathetically minimal unemployment relief, and we would have had areas of the country where most children were already showing measurable signs of stunted growth due to malnutrition.

In short, we would have been in a situation where the public was absolutely scared shitless, for good reason. And unfortunately that’s what it took to make real reform possible.

I’m not always overjoyed with Obama, but don’t mistake 2008 for 1929-1931. There’s no comparison.

 
 

Oops. Should be 1929-1933, not 1929-1931.

 
 

In short, we would have been in a situation where the public was absolutely scared shitless, for good reason. And unfortunately that’s what it took to make real reform possible.

That’s the thing that kills me, the U.S. is like a junkie that has to hit rock bottom before anything is done. I really think that global warming and peak oil will be the things that will finally put the kibosh on us as a nation… we’re not even trying for a “soft” landing, so the crash is going to be a hell of a lot worse than it could have been.

 
 

On a lighter note, Robyn Hitchcock turned 60 today.

 
Quaker in a Basement
 

When you are dealing with a food item that has to be soaked, cured, blanched, or otherwise treated so that it stops tasting the way it actually tastes, it is a sign from God that you should try eating something else instead are Scottish..

 
 

turned 60 today
Whoa. That’s really old.

 
Helmut Monotreme
 

we’re not even trying for a “soft” landing, so the crash is going to be a hell of a lot worse than it could have been.

Its hard to tell if they are doing it because they really don’t understand that fossil fuels are limited and running out (and are the number one cause of global climate change) or if they are deliberately setting us up for disaster so they can buy everything when the shit hits the fan, shock doctrine style. I suppose it could be both.

 
 

Fuck Cokie Roberts with a rusty ice auger.

 
bughunter, on vacation,
 

I suppose it could be both.

Aye, it’s not that they don’t understand, it’s that they don’t care. They have enough wealth to remain unaffected by the change in climate, and have already studied it to find out how they can use it to enhance their wealth even further.

And beware, once global warming becomes part of their business model anything that might prevent it (like cheap fusion power, green energy, tropical reforestation, etc.) will be actively opposed and ridiculed by the corporate media, rather than simply ignored.

 
bughunter, on vacation,
 

Goddammit, I’m trying to enjoy my ski vacation. I have this timeshare for another 65 years and the snow has already all but disappeared.

 
 

When I heard Cokie this morning I couldn’t help picturing Pup groaning, rolling over in bed and throwing shoes at the radio.

 
 

Pups & El : For us disadvantaged folk : What did she say This Time?

 
 

Dear Lubricious Lefty Libertines,
I note with displeasure that I am at work because you failed to destroy civilization over the weekend.

Thanks for nothin’!

 
 

Boehner said he doesn’t know what the effects of the sequester will be. And it’s true – NOBODY KNOWS! Because Obama was wrong about capitol janitors and Arne Duncan was wrong about teachers getting pink slips IT MUST BE TRUE THAT NOBODY KNOWS!

I suppose she could have cited the CBO estimate of 700,000 job losses or the Fed estimate of a 0.5% hit to GDP or every fucking economist in the country saying the same thing but noooooooooo, Villager Cokie tells us that nobody knows. She spent the entire segment talking about the politics, with fucktons of false equivalence, devoid of facts, blah blah blah.

 
 

Hell, I know what the effects of the sequester will be. Worker’s wages will drop more and CEO salaries will go up.

 
 

The new wingnut trope is that the sequester won’t be so bad after all, and Obama is a dirty liar for saying it would be, etc.

These guys are setting themselves up to get coldcocked. It may be the only good thing about this whole fiasco.

 
 

These guys are setting themselves up to get coldcocked again. Or they would be if they were able to look at starved bodies in the street and think anything other than “Tut, tut, what a mess! Why didn’t those moochers bootstrap their way to riches?”

Fxd.

 
 

These guys are setting themselves up to get coldcocked. It may be the only good thing about this whole fiasco.

At least they would be if the media wasn’t in the tank for them with that “both sides do it” narrative. Also, the obscene gerrymandering that took place in 2010 should prevent any real housecleaning from taking place in 2014.

 
 

At least they would be if the media wasn’t in the tank for them with that “both sides do it” narrative.

Yes, this. I ranted about this at my place on Friday.

I mean it was actually sorta almost interesting to a few people that David fucking Gregory (of all people) actually, briefly, barley sorta almost stood up to Boner for a second (before meekly submitting, of course) this weekend. But then that wore off and the talking point of “nobody knows what ‘s going to happen!” was properly trotted out by the paid shills.

How the fuck do you fight that?

 
 

James Fallows (who I still respect even though he hasn’t left that shitrag that the once respected The Atlantic has become) passed along a brilliant tweet in a post titled “False equivalency in one tweet.

Democrats: “1 + 1 = 2” Republicans: “1 + 1 = 3” Media: “1 + 1 = 2.5”

 
 

barley

Now that is a proper type-o!

 
 

Now that is a proper type-o!

More like a Freudian slip.

 
 

More like a Freudian slip.

Or that, yes.

 
 

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I miss that scandal. Fun all around.

 
 

Hiking the Appalachian Trail – Chasing the Argentinian Tail

It’s so easy to get those two mixed up!

 
 

Pups & El : For us disadvantaged folk : What did she say This Time?

This morning Cokie said “They say Medicare recipients are excluded, but Medicare provider payments will be less, and that means a change in care…”

Yes, moron, there will be a change in care – doctors might actually have to get away from doing every test on Earth to cover their ass for lawsuits. Increasing provider payments every year has been THE structural flaw of Medicare Part B since it’s inception (that had to be promised to get it passed). Oh horror of horrors, Cokie, doctors might have to make due with only a 5% yearly raise instead of the more typical 10-15%! Which would help make medical inflation lower! The inhumanity!

Stupid lady doesn’t realize that make-every-test-on-gramma-shes-only-95 and I-pay-too-much-taxes is mutually exclusive.

 
 

This morning the Chicago Tribune had a full-page ad from Newsmax—Newsmax!—advertising a book of theirs that “explains” Obamacare. Of course, it “explains” things like Why Grandma Must Die. (I’m exaggerating, but just slightly.)

Christ. I know things are tough for newspapers and full-page ads don’t grow on trees, but couldn’t they exercise even a little quality control?

 
 

“Yes, moron, there will be a change in care – doctors might actually have to get away from doing every test on Earth to cover their ass for lawsuits. Increasing provider payments every year has been THE structural flaw of Medicare Part B since it’s inception (that had to be promised to get it passed). Oh horror of horrors, Cokie, doctors might have to make due with only a 5% yearly raise instead of the more typical 10-15%! Which would help make medical inflation lower! The inhumanity!”

That’s not where the main bleeds is, unfortunately. The doctor only gets paid if his office performs the test, and Medicare is notoriously stingy about the tests it does cover.

The bleed comes from doctors inflating their reported services and just plain crooks. I doubt the cut in pay will chase off the crooks (it is money for nothing) and the doctors who stay will just inflate their reported services until they’re caught.

 
 

but couldn’t they exercise even a little quality control?

When I moved out of Chicago 20-some years ago, the Tribune was (editorially, anyway) a total right-wing crapsheet. Have things changed that much?

 
 

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