Blog Noir.An interplay of cultural references, snark, the occasional smutty joke, Dadaism, Mamaism, and a genuine outrage at the horrors of The Situation.
--to paraphrase Freddy el Desfibradddoro
Monday, July 05, 2010
The "Qu" cube counts as two letters
Now that I'm done teaching my summer course, some days I find myself at loose ends. I'm at home this week with Lady C., our hound, and we spend our days reading and playing Boggle™. The problem is, of course, she has trouble using words of more than one syllable, let alone spelling them. So it gets boring, and when things get boring the conversation inevitably turns to politics.
Even my hound is disgusted by the Tea Party farce. And that's because although she cannot spell, she has an instinctive quantitative sense. And she realizes that anyone who takes the Tea Party movement seriously is just not understanding the math.
When "grassroots" organizers such as Russo, Marsh, and Associates (founders of Tea Party Express™), Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform™, and the notoriously insipid Family Research Council™ (among the co-founders of the National Tea Party Federation™) set this thing up, I'll bet they never dreamed it would succeed like it has.
That's because most if us have yet to adjust to how complicit the media has become in treating astroturf as "news." Despite the fact that the commercial news outlets by and large wouldn't mention torture, and have conveniently forgotten that we were lied into starting a devastating war, they fawn over the Tea Partiers, follow every move of their Pageanteer-in-Chief, and lavish attention on any illogical argument that is offered. Network news broadcasts and NPR have been all over the FoxNews™-orchestrated rallies and their re-warmed anti-tax slogans. Eight years ago, I remember I would come home and watch in vain for coverage of huge anti-war marches -- and admit to having naïvely expected something like the coverage the tiny Tea Party has routinely received.
Of course, Lady C. now lives in California, which is where the anti-tax contagion started, back in those days of Governor Reagan and Howard Jarvis. She doesn't remember them, but occasionally when we are walking in the park, she will sniff the wind, make a face and put her tail between her legs as she tries to turn around and go home. Could it be?
In any case, the dog understands that since the budgetary cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is around $1.05 trillion, what the Tea Party is screaming about is chump change. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities chart above shows, war costs dwarf the things that they are complaining about like TARP ($151 billion in 2009), or even Medicare and Medicaid ($676 billion in 2009). To say nothing of the Minerals Management Service at the Department of the Interior ($0.348 billion in 2010) or the National Endowment for the Arts ($0.155 billion in 2009). Which all, of course, are smaller than regular Defense spending ($782 billion in 2009).
So what these people should really be doing is protesting is the size of the Defense budget and the additional spending on two wars through annual "Emergency Supplementals" and "Emergency Budget Amendments." And yet...
It would be silly to say that my dog was smarter than those Tea Party members, the equivalent of saying an actor is stupid for speaking like an Elizabethan nobleman. Still, in this case, I prefer my dog's inarticulacy to their theatrical protests, and those of the "deficit hawks" who have forgotten that their troubles came from being such "hawks" eight years ago.
She smelled something bad this morning, and I barely got her to cross the street into the park. I don't know what it was, but when we got home she clobbered me at Boggle™. She got 29 points alone for the words "economic" "muscle" "masquerading" and "protest."
Ooooh! Twinkaleey!!! Whooosh..tik.tik.tik.ita.tik.tik.tak.ata.click hey howfastcanUadd-hey-lookee over there thatn's faster.. It's like a freee slot machine wi'than invisible crank. Sure, I sed Crank-heeheehee, I sed Crank It Up BABY go Whooosh..tik.tik.tik.ita.tak.tik.ata.click Hah!! Tweak them Engines a Wall, Street, Pro-form-man cranker yankin foolz. Uhuh! Anybody can play - it dont cost nuthin! Whooosh..tik.tik.tik.ita.tik.tik.tak.ata.click Oh It dont cost nuthin'cuz itsa Freee Market! No money down! Just crank it Free an yank it Free an Mark It UP! Whooosh..tik.tik.tik.ita.tak.tek.ata.clack No!
... OK Aren'tcha glad it's not really real money? Say, how about we go see that special friend of ours. We'll stop by the ATM first, I can still get another hundred out of the Visa. ... whaddaya mean, "the dealer is dry"? What about Juan? ... Busted again,eh? ... No, no, no, very bad idea. Wang still thinks I owe him, an he's not a patient guy ... ... ... I feel like shit. Bad, really bad, man. You know, if you sit back here and just look at that screen, it looks just like a bunch of cockroaches in the refrigerator. Good thing it's not real money. I wish I really had some real money. You know, like, win the lottery and have a whole damn million dollars to spend. It's hard to even imagine that much money in one place, you know?
When there's no Rule of Law then Authority will Rule
When they came for the dopers I remained silent - Because I’m not a junkie or a dirty hippy When they went after the crack dealers I approved – because I’m afraid of saggy pantsed gang bangers When they renditioned Abu the goatherd I paid the bill – because those ragheads just might be dangerous When they rounded up the illegal aliens I cheered – because I have blue eyes, I’m obviously American When they tapped my phone, without any cause Secretly searched my apartment, without any warrant Demanded to see my identification papers, without any explanation I did not care – because I thought I had nothing to hide Now I fear...
I would be mourning you... if you had spoken English
Rising Hegemon points out a post titled: “Hmmm . . . At Immigration Center Site of Rampage, Aliens Taking Citizenship Test Didn’t Speak English”. In this callous screed, frequent New York Post columnist Debbie Schlussel has a Malkinesque moment:
But there’s an interesting piece of info that’s come out in the reporting and it may point to immigration fraud at the center. . . Too many people who don’t speak English game the system and get citizenship.
So fourteen people, including students, a receptionist, and a teacher, are brutally murdered, and the deeply compassionate Ms. Schlussel summons outrage about. . . the victims’ trying to gain citizenship without knowing enough English?
Never mind that subsequent reporting shows that they were actually taking classes to improve their English prior to taking citizenship tests, completely negating the validity of her thesis.
No, the real problem here is that more than a dozen people here were just killed in cold blood and the response is to baselessly accuse the victims of an unrelated issue. It is all about you, after all.
That said, here at IMF,S, we are never ones to miss a breaking trend. So, here are some other recent tragedies that Schlussel appears to have missed:
[February 13, 2009] The crew of the plane that crashed into a house near Buffalo on Thursday night discussed a “significant ice buildup” on the wings before an accident that killed all 49 people on board and one person on the ground.
There’s an interesting piece of info that’s come out in the reporting about the Buffalo plane crash. Apparently that house in Clarence Center, N.Y. was there because immigrants settled the area in 1823. Apparently Clarence Center was originally called Van Tines Corners. Typical of today's rampant immigration fraud, this bunch of Dutchmen have been “passing” as Clarence Center. So, you can see that it weren’t for those immigrants, the house wouldn't have been there, and the plane would have never hit it!
[March 6, 2009] The wife of Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been killed in a car crash in which he was also slightly hurt, party officials say.
There’s an interesting piece of info that’s come out in the reporting about Susan Tsvangirai. The truck that crashed into her car was a Nissan. Is it any coincidence that another Japanese, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, was designated by Emperor Hirohito to lead the attack on Pearl Harbor in a Japanese vehicle less than a century ago? Probably both Tsvangirai and Yamamoto would be alive today if those dashboard control labels had been written in English!
[March 18, 2009] Actress Natasha Richardson died Wednesday at age 45 after suffering a head injury during a beginners’ ski lesson.
There’s an interesting piece of info that’s come out in the reporting about Natasha Richardson’s ski accident, which illustrates the danger of even a bunny hill… if it is located in a bilingual country. Apparently all the signs at the “Mont” Tremblant ski resort in Quebec were in French and English, causing emergency personnel to take twice as long to read them, delaying crucial medical attention. If only more rich liberals understood how “English Only” saves lives, they'd be alive today! But, if they understood it, they wouldn't be liberals, would they?
1. Prey on Fears of Child Molestation to Commit Vote Fraud
Jacoby's arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department late Saturday came after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by people employed by YPM. The voters said YPM workers tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters.
As you can see, the McCain ad says that Obama was the one who pushed the "comprehensive sex education" measure. The Obama campaign has pointed out that the bill would simply add instruction on disease prevention to already existing Illinois sex-ed standards. But the McCain campaign cheerfully turned this into Obama's support for "learning about sex before learning to read."
More than convicted 500,000 sex offenders now live in the United States. Of those, about 100,000 to 150,000 are missing - roaming the streets with no one watching over them. According to the U.S. Justice Department, released sex offenders are 4 times more likely to be rearrested. And, on average, child molesters serve only 43 percent of their sentence. These statistics are frightening. We need to stop playing Russian roulette with children's lives. We need to stop these pedophiles now... As case after case of missing or abducted children is broadcast, many parents wonder if their child is safe. Every day that goes by without this bill is another day we risk another victim. Now, more than ever, we need to stand together and unite cities, communities and states in the effort to stop the assault on America's children.
[Mark Foley and Orrin Hatch, "Making prey of the predators" Washington Times, 6/24/05, p. A19]
4. Send Text Message to your High School Age Page
Xxxxxxxxx (7:19:38 PM): ya go vote...i dont want to keep you from doing your job
Maf54 (7:19:44 PM): can I have a good kiss goodnight
"It sounds like a good time to re-start the conversation about getting Reagan on the $10 bill," Norquist said. "I don’t know why the Bush administration has dropped the ball on this."
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