Clearly the answer stands before us.

FLAT TAX.

AIR TAX, uh, I mean ‘fair tax.’

The UK and France and Germany and the Netherlands all have strongly publicly supported news media which mean OMG THEY ARE ALL HUGO CHAVEZ AND THEY’RE COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!!!

Strangely, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights hasn’t reviewed close U.S. ally Colombia since 1999. More than a few groups (here’s one, Human Rights Watch) have notices a few things in that country.

Not just occasional arrests and harassing of a few opposition figures.

But something like, say, the last 5 President Uribe-appointed directors of the state security & intelligence agency the DAS are under arrest for crimes ranging from the spying on of journalists, businessmen, human rights workers, the political opposition, even prosecutors and the freaking Supreme Court of the Nation, and one director used that illegally obtained wiretapped information to help narco-paramilitary allies find and kill a professor and two union organizers.

Here’s a good review of how the poor, innocent, right wing President Uribe’s state intelligence agency, run entirely by people he nominated, was run by those rogue criminal elements he had absolutely nothing to do with and no knowledge of.

It isn’t so much that so many are blind with regard to Latin America — it’s that it’s a lot more useful for them to refuse to see.

El Cid is shrill.

Oh Mr. Forbes, you know soshulized medcin is going to join hands with ghey marriage, desegregation and womens’ suffrage any moment now and reduce America to a smoldering hole in the ground. There won’t be time for a crackdown on the media.

There was no photoshop? I covet that woman’s sunglasses, which appear to have the form of a black rectangle floating in front of her face with no attachment.

OT, but lulz… What happens when a conservative is interviewed about teh ghey.

Wow. Stewie is one of those people that takes just one glance and you say: “Douchebag.”

“Douchebag.”

Given the appearance of that …thing… in front of him, colostomy bag might be more appropriate.

I found this amusing (but not surprising).

Tea Party Advocates Who Scorn Socialism Want a Government Job

“March 26 (Bloomberg) — Tea Party activists, who are becoming a force in U.S. politics, want the federal government out of their lives except when it comes to creating jobs.

More than 90 percent of Tea Party backers interviewed in a new Bloomberg National Poll say the U.S. is verging more toward socialism than capitalism, the federal government is trying to control too many aspects of private life and more decisions should be made at the state level.

At the same time, 70 percent of those who sympathize with the Tea Party, which organized protests this week against President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, want a federal government that fosters job creation.

Shorter Forbes: “The reason I, like my Fox overlords, am so paranoid about imaginary government takeovers is because I secretly desire to be chained in a dungeon and whipped by a zaftig latex queen in Reich hat and Ilsa boots, but don’t know how to express that need except by saying the Negro is bad.”

I love when they try to equate capitalism with freedom, as if Russia and China don’t show that a system of economic competititon and state guaranteed property rights have proven a very poor guage of political and social freedom the way most people understand these things.

So, I have a question, speaking to my low-information roots. What exactly is it that Steve Forbes does? From what I can gather, he has a magazine that publishes the names of this month’s top capitalist running-dogs, sometimes according to a theme? I imagine this probably brings in some amount of money, but nowhere near enough to make the effort worth the cost

So I mean, what captain of industry is it that he sucks off of, that allows him this leisure activity?

I have done volunteer work for Freepress (McChesney’s organization). Good people, good cause and they hit the nail on the head when it comes to media consolidation and access issues.

They make Stewie nervous. Good for them.

More fun!

Pope implicated in fresh allegations over sex abuse by second Catholic priest

Revelations about paedophile priest’s transfer overseen by then archbishop of Munich follow Vatican storm over US abuse

Fresh revelations have been made directly implicating Pope Benedict XVI in mishandling the case of a paedophile priest in his former archdiocese of Munich. The allegations come a day after the Vatican responded angrily to the allegation that the former Cardinal Ratzinger had ignored an American diocese’s request that another predatory priest should be defrocked.

According to the New York Times, the former Cardinal Ratzinger, as Archbishop of Munich, attended a meeting in January 1980 at which the transfer of Father Peter Hullermann from the diocese of Essen where his parishioners had accused him of abusing boys to Munich was agreed.

The move was meant to allow him to undergo therapy, but instead he was immediately posted to a parish in Bavaria, where he continued to abuse children.

Beeeg schmile!

Here’s another small difference between Venezuelan & Colombian media independence crackdown:

The head of Globovision, which promoted the 2002 Venezuelan coup and whose leader publicly accused President Chavez of directly aiding Colombian narco-guerrillas, was detained and released in order to appear before a court for upcoming charges.

In Colombia, journalists get death threats and then get killed by the narco-paramilitaries who, as I mentioned above, get fed their target info by the Colombian government in part by the use of illegal wiretapping.

Here’s another fun note:

You know that illegal electronic wiretapping by the Colombian government? They did it with equipment provided to them by the U.S..

U.S. officials, of course, pronounced their ‘strong concern’ over the minor detail that spying equipment they gave Colombia was used to help death squads assassinate a teacher, 2 union leaders, and others.

But hey! Hugo Chavez’ courts are trying a media owner for accusing the head of state of criminal activity. I think we know which is worse.

By the way, I hope the flood of recent news on Catholic and Vatican activities will finally shut all those liberals up who kept complaining that the Catholic Church was falling behind in its duties to rape little children. Day after day after day, the tiresome liberals keep whining, when oh when will the Catholic Church carry out its historic child-raping responsibilities?, and I hope that now you liberal screamers can finally see that the Church is and has long been entirely capable of its responsibilities in that area.

The layers of irony are like a japanese blade, intricately folded in a delicate and complex arrangement.

All of this begs the question…

Indeed it does, the entire article begs the question.

Always. Trust. The. Shorter.™

You know, Steve-o, you assholes on the right, abusing the First Amendment and forgetting your fiduciary duty to the good and welfare of the nation by elminating the fairness doctrine…this is why we can’t have nice things in this country.

Rather than making note that there are bigger issues in this nation than making a buck more off your assets, and that “community broadcasting” means more than putting on a late night talk show with a preacher or pop psychologist fielding calls from suicidal drunks, or talking about “How would Jesus react to ‘The OC’?,” you sort of forced the hand of the Nanny state to drag you kicking and screaming into the 20th Century.

Yes. I meant that.

You know what? I’m convinced. I fully support the FLAT TAX, provided one small teeny little change:

unearned income would not be exempt.

After all, fair is fair.

Ha. You stoopit libruls and your fake Al Gore fantasies of global warming.

Strangely, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights hasn’t reviewed close U.S. ally Colombia since 1999.

Why, they’re so close, you can’t pour a white powder line between them and the CIA!

unearned income would not be exempt.

Ten years ago, I had a solution to the growing (and now obvious) credit and mortgage crises: lift the income tax off interest on deposit savings accounts at savings banks.

It would encourage people to put money away in CDs and passbook accounts, while providing capital cushions to actual real community banks who lend money to homeowners, and would mitigate the tax burden that was shifting away from the rich to the middle class and lower-middle class.

Of course, I was roundly laughed out of the Manhattan Institute for saying it, and reminded that liberals ought to shut up and listen to economic experts…

Why, they’re so close, you can’t pour a white powder line between them and the CIA!

That’s sugar, I swear.

That’s sugar, I swear.

Why, I meant a chalk line, like the kind carpenters use! Whatever did you think I meant?

That’s sugar, I swear.

Actually, Alvaro Uribe tends to blame everything on either (a) ‘rogue criminal elements’ that have nothing to do with him no matter that he appointed them, or that he supervised their office, or that one was his former campaign manager (the guy who helped the paras assassinate the professor & union organizers, Jorge Noguera); (b) people who he’ll publicly accuse without evidence of being linked to FARC guerrillas, thus earning them immediate paramilitary death threats; or (c) Hugo Chavez, because like Fidel Castro before him, anything which the right doesn’t like in Latin America is due to Chavez’ meddling.

And he’s usually smart enough to do this via spokespersons. Teflon Ronald Reagan had nothing on this guy.

Cue “Chocolate Rain” in 5…4…3…

March 26 (Bloomberg) — Tea Party activists, who are becoming a force in U.S. politics, want the federal government out of their lives except when it comes to creating jobs.

A load of horseshit.

Those teabaggers are nothing more than the usual assortment of moovement cons, rebranded with the help of FAUX and FreedumbWorks.

Of course that are endlessly fascinating to our corporate media, which would rather present them as the opposition to HCR rather than its real opponent, insurance lobby bucks and the corrupt pols who enjoy same.
~

What, are you kidding? Reagan had everything on Uribe. Megatons of everything that matters if you catch my drift. Why in five or ten years, when he invades some other country that the US tacitly encouraged him to invade, and we can no longer ignore the ravening specter of Colombian aggression, we will have ourselves another short glorious war. If Uribe was of Reagan’s ‘caliber’ there would be treaties and negotiations and UN sanctions and all of the customary international crap that means precisely fuck-all.

you sort of forced the hand of the Nanny state to drag you kicking and screaming into the 20th Century.

That isn’t going to happen. They may need to be bonked on the head and dragged into the 20th Century unconscious. That way, when they wake up, we can just tell them “this is how its been the whole time! Kthxbai!”

Ha. You stoopit libruls and your fake Al Gore fantasies of global warming.

So much for the twenty foot rise in sea level along the Eastern seaboard by 2100.

It might happen in 2020.

So much for the twenty foot rise in sea level along the Eastern seaboard by 2100.

2100?! Uh, we have the anitChrist in the White House, an earthquake happening every other tuesday, my dog just moved in with a stray cat and Megan McArdle is still writing articles (that I assume she thinks are, like, awesome) — do you not see the signs?! We’re toast.

In these turbulent economic times, and facing as we are, our second quarter of declining revenue, we here at Krakenco have had to make some tough choices. We have suspended our annual company picnic (although not the management retreat at Aspen). We eliminated the company matching 401k contributions (but not stock options for all managers of VP level or higher). We’ve even considered trying to expand our revenue stream by making and selling products people want at an affordable price, but lets not go crazy here, if we could do that, we wouldn’t be in this pickle would we?

I’m afraid we have to make some tough choices, and I am sorry to say, we have to let you go. ‘Release’ you, if you will. We know, you would have been fully vested in your 401k in just six weeks, and you just had a new baby, but try to look at it from my point of view, I just bought a new boat, and I have payments to make. Well security will escort you to the parking lot, and we will mail you the contents of your cubicle minus anything we think is cool. No, I’m afraid there will be no severence package. Please sign here and I’ll take that ID badge if you don’t mind terribly. Oh, and I’d like to remind you, you are still bound by the terms of the non-compete clause in your contract until today’s date in 2012.

Well, considering that our public broadcasting system was a result of the conclusion that a privatized media industry objectively failed to meet their burden to educate and inform the public (mass communication history baby!), Forbes’ screed is sort of doubly hilarious in that in being wrong, he also illustrates why it actually wouldn’t be a bad idea.

OT, but the endlessly pompous Republican blogger who stinks up the place at the paper I used to work at, has made his official pronouncement on Teabagger Violence: “Republicans aren’t being violent! Demoncraps are being violent!”

I commented there already, so I guess I’m part of the Violent Demoncrap Problem now…

“Republicans aren’t being violent! Demoncraps are being violent!”

I went for the mangoes but couldn’t get passed the Title of the blog. So, the American flag gives you the right to just be a complete moran, huh? “Cool.”

Steven the Ugly says:

“But it’s a rhetorical flourish that Dr. McChesney is apparently quite comfortable with. He has employed it repeatedly to argue that his version of media reform is the first step in the struggle to remake American society in a socialistic fashion.

I actually enjoyed reading this missive as its transparency of the actual fear people like him are beginning to feel gives me some comfort.

Yes, Mr. Forbes, we’re out to getcha. We’re jobless, we’re hungry, we’re tired. We want your money that you sucked off the economic system that we have to break out backs to support.

As I try to figure out how in the hell I’m going to come up with $651 to pay the IRS because I earned so little this I don’t even have a bank account, you ride high on the earnings of something you never created and thus rightfully never earned and use my money to support that system.

I would like to kiss Chavez for giving you fitful dreams of bolsheviks running amok in your backyard.

“Republicans aren’t being violent! Demoncraps are being violent!”

I made it passed the tite… and then, 2 paragraphs in:

It seems the Republicans may be receiving the more serious threats. Someone put a bullet through a window in a district office of Representative Eric Cantor.

It appears the Democrats are trying to use threats both real, and possibly imagined, to stir up sympathy for themselves and their support of ObamaCare.

Two sentences and a complete disregard for logic later, we have yet another example of RUBBER/GLUE. Here, just take my lunch money, I give up.

No Esteev, don’t give up, please don’t give up and give those bastards nothing. Let’s split lunch.

As a public television employee, I’m surprised that Forbes has caught on to our master plan. I’ll have to alert my superiors immediately. Damn you, Forbes!!!

Esteev, I normally avoid even reading him and definitely try to avoid commenting there, ’cause I reckon the paper’s been looking for an excuse to dump my own blog for ages, and fighting with the GOP blogger in a GOP town like Lubbock might be the kind of excuse they’re looking for… but goddamn, sometimes that ass just cranks out something you can’t resist punching him for…

No Esteev, don’t give up, please don’t give up and give those bastards nothing. Let’s split lunch.

OK, I’ll hang on a bit long. But I’m at the end of my rope here! This is the only thing keeping me going.

“As a public television employee, I’m surprised that Forbes has caught on to our master plan. I’ll have to alert my superiors immediately. Damn you, Forbes!!!”]

That will be enough out of you comrade, now back to your station!

Oh, and I’d like to remind you, you are still bound by the terms of the non-compete clause in your contract until today’s date in 2012.

Suck it, bitch! RELEASE THE KRAaKEN!

Geez Esteev, Brits have those people too? Here I thought the EU was a kind of sanctuary from them. And I was really hellbent on learning to like eel pie and warm beer.

As a public television employee, I’m surprised that Forbes has caught on to our master plan.

From what I’ve seen of public broadcasting, the plan appears to be “Make shit up as we go.”

This is actually one of the more flattering pictures of Teve Torbes that I’ve seen.

I might have something not completely retarded (satire) to say about the actual content of this bullshit argument, but first I need coffee. And maybe desk gin.

From what I’ve seen of public broadcasting, the plan mostly seems to be show British comedies for the umpteenth time and try to beg one single solitary dime out of the audience so the local station doesn’t go under.

Here I thought the EU was a kind of sanctuary from them.

I had that sent to me from a friend in England. She had a message attached that said, “Jesus saves — but not from being Rick Rolled”. We Americans take those folks for granted.

first I need coffee. And maybe desk gin.

Brew the coffee with gin, duh!

Brew the coffee with gin, duh!

I would love to, but I’m not sure my co-workers would appreciate that. Though the office coffee is so nasty that I don’t know that they’d notice.

And maybe desk gin.

I prefer credenza vodka myself.

Eel pie, meh. Never even seen one.

Warm beer is compulsory, though.

I prefer credenza vodka myself.

I’ve got some filing cabinet rum buried under some unfiled papers that should just be shredded somewhere around here…

I have a desk drawer for Scotch, tape and stationery.

DKW, do your purchasing drones ever wonder why your cases of scotch,tape cost $ 600?

DKW, do your purchasing drones ever wonder why your cases of scotch,tape cost $ 600?

Mine pitched a bitch about blotter, acid $1,000.

Warm beer is compulsory, though
Historically, it’s not that the beer was particularly warm, it’s that the houses were appallingly cold.

it’s not that the beer was particularly warm

Compared to the US, where if beer doesn’t frostbite your tongue, it’s warm? Sorry. I know what you mean: pubs in England keep kegs in cellars that are really quite chilly, about 55 degrees or so, and so the beer is really quite pleasant, but to the American palate, that’s like drinking soup.

but to the American palate, that’s like drinking soup.

Because Americans have shitty fucking palates and drink shitty fucking beer. The only way a bland-ass lager is drinkable is if it’s ice cold.

American beer must be chilled, otherwise the drinking experience will be most like drinking piss.

Irish or English beer, not so much.

The only way a bland-ass lager is drinkable is if it’s ice cold.

Wait…beer is supposed to have a taste?

Give a kick! I always just drank it to replenish the cooling tanks in the nuclear reactor they installed….

American beer must be chilled, otherwise the drinking experience will be most like drinking piss.

That, too.

Wait…beer is supposed to have a taste?

Ahhh, time to tell my favorite beer-related joke. AHEM:

How is American beer like having sex in a canoe?

They’re both fucking near water.

Ahhh, time to tell my favorite beer-related joke. AHEM:

We’re ignoring you. (Good one though)

OT, and sorry if this has been covered already, but violence-promoting wingnut Vanderboegh lives off GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_03/023064.php

We’re ignoring you. (Good one though)

FINE!

I actually heard it about Coors, but same difference.

OTB, that put a smile on my face. I think in a few months there will be many more who oppose “big gubbmint” protesting while being sent checks from said big government.

OT, and sorry if this has been covered already, but violence-promoting wingnut Vanderboegh lives off GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE:

What an asshole. As if you need further proof that all of this “big government” shit is code for “OMG THE BLACKS ARE TAKING OUR SHIT.”

As a 13-year-old in Eng-er-land, way back in the 1960s, I once whiled away the time estimating the optimum room temperature, given the clothes I was wearing (a school uniform), a thermometer, a window that opened and closed, and a radiator that worked; as well as my own body, of course. The answer was 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

Having long since emigrated to California, I can hardly believe this. And actually the English have since softened up, adopted central heating that works, etc etc.

So I suppose you could say that, at 55, the beer was fairly warm.

Love how MMalkin gets all red when she’s falling-down drunk. I almost didn’t recognize her, what with the laughing and all.

Notes:

1 Oh, forget it.

Tee hee hee!

And people hating on American beer can just keep thinking Bud and Coors is all that’s made here, I’ll just keep drinking the I’M NOT TELLING YOU SO HA HA. Haters.

And people hating on American beer can just keep thinking Bud and Coors is all that’s made here, I’ll just keep drinking the I’M NOT TELLING YOU SO HA HA. Haters.

Oh, I heart microbrews. There are some excellent ones here in the Midwest.

The greatest trend in America over the last twenty years has been the rise of real beer.

A “Media Crackdown” you say!

Why yes, it would be quite salutary if the main distributors of mass-media information would be so civil as to cut down on the fucking crack, alright.

Hey, maybe they could even try the same approach to all the coke & meth & booze & ⚡ ℞ pills⚡ while they’re at it … & thus pull some far-overdue quality-upgrade out of their overpaid jaded hipster-fuckface arses – if only by default.

The optics problem that the mass-media has almost makes the ones pols have look easy-going by comparison.

Never have so few pissed away such a golden opportunity to propagate accurate & useful information (exactly when it was most vitally needed) on behalf of spewing noise-drenched memetic Polyfilla™ to so many for batshit-buku pay. That they then market the ensuing IRL mayhem that ensues as if it’s just another reality-series & put on their whore-paint & bellow their best scenery-chomping BAAAAW over the societal entropy that they’ve done so much to aggravate is mere adding of insult to injury – & no insult can match the gruesome scale & potential outcome of the injury in question.

Perhaps it’s hardly irresponsible to speculate that even elite PR pros like Burston Marsteller lack the necessary torque to pull anyone’s cojones out of a moral Hibachi that hot.

And people hating on American beer can just keep thinking Bud and Coors is all that’s made here

If it ain’t in my health department monitored supermarket, I ain’t buying it. Who’s knows what kinda crap they’re stuffing in the beer that’s killing my brain cells????

Pass The Crack Down On The Left-Hand Side

totally stuck in my head now. THANKS A LOT

Dear Mr Haitt,
Is this one of your splendid prep test examples? I’ve not been paying attention to all the cites and footnotes and endnotes and whatnot — like the rest of Kaplan’s entire product line’s customers — to say nothing of the content (here or in all your other splendid products), but this:
We are aware of all, oh forget it.
seems different somehow.
Will it be on the actual test? My HB pencil swirls anxiously over the dots.

While Chavez isn’t the most stable or high-minded leader in the hemisphere, I’d like to point out that he didn’t “crack down” on the media until after the 2002 coup, after which he cracked down on those media stations that had participated in a foreign-backed coup d’état. If a hostile government had paid a few of our generals enough money to try and take over the country, and our news channels went on the air endorsing the conspiracy, how long do you think it’d be before all the newsies landed in Gitmo?

So perhaps the appropriate question is this; Could a military-style coup of the kind commonly cooked up by big corporations south of the border be coming our way? And if it does, would the elected government of the United States be able to survive it at all, before we even get into a discussion of who should be punished by who?

WTF has this guy ever done but whine about the taxes he has to pay on the money he inherited?

The greatest trend in America over the last twenty years has been the rise of real beer.
You would say that.

1 Oh, forget it.

You ask us to forget passing the dutchie?

Good day, sir!

Just exactly what is that brown thing that Stewie is digging into?

It’s a chocolate fountain.

Geez, I go away for a week’s vacation and miss a comment thread with beer in it. Phooey.