Oops!
Oh, hi. You didn’t wait up did you? Oh, you did? Because I told you I’d be…
Look, I was only…
But the bus was…
GROUNDED?
That is so totally unfair!
-=SLAM=-
Sorry. We went to see these guys. Which are sort of these guys. At least, they play their old material and include that guy who played the Flying V in the original band. But the old bass player has formed these guys under the same name and there’s lawsuits and bad feelings and all kinds of shit.
Anyway, they were really good. And it’s really late.
Have a great weekend!
October 15, 2011 — 12:05 am
Comments: 9
Liking the man, the plan…not so much
Point? I don’t need no steenking point. Seriously, I saw the one picture, and the other popped into my head. ‘Sall.
About this here 9-9-9 plan Cain’s got: I don’t like it. It stands for 9% flat tax on individuals, a 9% flat tax on businesses, and a 9% national retail sales tax.
Apparently, the numbers work, but it’s that last one I don’t trust. The mechanism required to collect any national sales tax is exactly what’s needed to impose a VAT. And a VAT, ladies and gentlemen, is bad. (Read that article I just linked).
I’ve lived under Britain’s (20%) VAT for years now without really understanding how it works. Wikipedia has a good but brain-hurty explanation. Weasel version: everything here is really, really expensive.
Check out this helpful graph (from the Wikipedia article). This is what happened to Denmark’s VAT after it was introduced in 1962. See, the problem is, VAT is pretty much invisible to you, the consumer. You know shit is really expensive, but you don’t see the tax.
You think our pols could resist this upward-creeping fustercluck? It won’t be Tea Party guys yanking the levers of government forever, you know. Sadly, two party system, Barney Frank’s going to get a turn at the controls again.
I’m still leaning Cain, though. I don’t like his plan, but at least he put a solid, plausible one out there for us to kick around.
October 13, 2011 — 10:22 pm
Comments: 24
Don’t jump!
First lady Michelle Obama is trying to help set a world record for the most people doing jumping jacks in a 24-hour period. Mrs. Obama led about 400 elementary and middle-school students from Washington, Maryland and Virginia in one minute of continuous jumping jacks on the South Lawn on Oct. 11.
Michelle looks a little drawn, doesn’t she?
Did you watch her on the campaign trail in ’08? Funny thing; she was ten times the politician her husband is.
Barack always had that thousand-yard stare and the styrofoam columns and that faraway, fakey accent, like he was reciting the I Had A Dream speech to himself in the shower.
Michelle connected with people, spoke without a ‘prompter and worked the room like a champ. I didn’t agree with a word she said, but she wasn’t a creepy robot like her hubs.
Man, she must have had a Hillary Clinton-style, you want me to make COOKIES? moment when they slipped the muzzle over her face.
Jumping jacks on the lawn. Wow.
October 12, 2011 — 8:09 pm
Comments: 27
Shhhh…you’re scaring the straights…
I was going for stink lines and flies, but I think I ended up with “smoldering tire fire struck by plague of locusts.” Oh well. Don Martin I ain’t.
Anyhoo, now is probably a good time to remember that most everything you’ve read about the politics of the Sixties/Seventies was written by someone who was there, in the streets, possibly wearing a giant papier-mâché puppet head. Someone who LOVED it. Who looks back at the period as the high point of his/her miserable life. (High point. Heh).
I was ten in 1970 and experienced the era as a giant national everything-lurching-out-of-control. I remember the Kent State shootings, and was most surprised to read this in the Telegraph today:
Shockingly, the public had little sympathy. A Gallup poll found that 58 percent blamed the students for the deaths, 11 percent blamed the National Guard and 31 percent expressed no opinion.
Would you have guessed that was the reaction? The writer adds that two years later, Nixon was re-elected in one of the biggest landslides in election history. American politics didn’t actually lurch left until a few of those hippies got a haircut, put on a suit and ran for office. The normos — the people who get up and drop the kids off at school and go to jobs — they don’t really cotton to this violent street theater shit.
So to the peoples of Occupy Wall Street, I say — carry on, chaps! Don’t lose heart now!
October 11, 2011 — 10:12 pm
Comments: 27
The cheese stands alone
Ohhhhh…how do I love this NY Post article about President Lonelyheart mooching around the White House scuffing his foot (if you’re fussy about your news sources, here’s the Washington Post pushing the same story line).
I mean, no. Probably, on balance, it would be better if the most powerful man in America wasn’t bugshit insane. Or, rather, resentful, sulky and damn well inclined to lock himself in his room, chain smoke clove cigarettes and listen to Joni Mitchell albums all day.
Still, I had to watch the Obama blimp make its great gassy rise above the political landscape, and it feels so damned good to see it sink back to earth.
For all the chanting and styrofoam columns in the world, it will never rise again.
October 10, 2011 — 9:10 pm
Comments: 42
Round 20: bring out yer dead!
Mrs Hill takes the dick with Anwar al-Awlaki. It’s been a week and no retraction, so I think it’s for reals this time. You know what to do, ma’am. Sorry to all those peeps missing out on Steve Jobs; the Dead Pool moves in mysterious ways.
Right! Onward!
0. Rule Zero (AKAn Steve’s Rule): your pick has to be living when picked. Also, nobody on Death Row.
1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of (I don’t generally follow the Dead Pool threads carefully, so if you’re unsure of your pick, call it to my attention).
2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.
3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.
4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay?
5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy to catch the dupes. Popular picks go fast.
6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.
7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you don’t want the fabulous prize, you’re too smart to be a regular. It takes me forever to put them in the mail, packages go by slow boat, typically take minimum eight to ten weeks and lose the will to live along the way.
8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.
The fabulous prize? Sweet, sweet Spotted Dick! There’s no dick like Aunty’s dick!
October 7, 2011 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 120
O HAI
I haven’t posted tonight? Are you sure? Because I’m pretty sure I…oh, okay, okay. Fine. Hang on. Let me rustle up a chicken picture.
Got distracted. I guess I fail blog today; even my spammers are giving advice:
You will have to master the artwork and technology of site visitors to your website. Is the web page without site visitors is like having an ice cream store within the desert, situated one hundred km from the closest highway. It has the most efficient ice cream in the world, but when anyone enters your retailer, you will be defeated.
Dang it! Now what will I do with all this efficient ice cream?
Oh, hey — I chased a fox all around the yard in my socks this afternoon. (No, Dr Seuss, the fox wasn’t in my socks). It was just at dusk and the chickens had gone to roost but were not locked up yet, and I look out the kitchen and see a big, fat fox out my back door like some kind of blues lyric. Man, you shoulda seen me move.
“AAAAAAUUUUUURRRRR!” I screamed. And, “WWWOOOOOOORRRRAAAAGH!” And, “YAAAAARRRRRAAAAAAGH!” All running and flailing and waving my arms.
God, I hope the neighbors weren’t sitting in the garden.
Okay, Dead Pool tomorrow, 6 sharp Weasel Blog Time. Be here or be a railroad engineer!
October 6, 2011 — 11:13 pm
Comments: 32
This is me, back when people liked me
I sat down to do a Photoshop of this picture, but I thought — what can I add? What can I possibly do to this picture to make it weirder or more embarrassing than it already is? Dude is reading a picture book about himself to a group of under-fives. (Anyhow, Nice Deb posted a Photoshop derived from the same image before I’d managed to scrape together an idea).
It’s not a book so much about him, actually, as First Dog Bo. The word balloon says “a puppy!!!” which I guess he must have announced from the presidential podium.
I looked it up on Amazon, so I could link to the actual book, but I can’t work out which one it is. It’s not Bo Obama: The White House Tails. I don’t think it’s Bo Obama: First Dog of the United States of America. Doesn’t look like Puppy Power Bo Obama #1 (sayyyyy…did they steal that from Scrappy Doo?). Not First Pooch: The Obamas Pick a Pet. I dunno. Maybe it’s The First Pup: The Real Story of How Bo Got to the White House. Definitely not First Dog of 1600 Pooch’lvania Avenue: My First Year in Arf! Arf! Office! or First Puppy’s New Home. Or First Dog or Bo, America’s Commander in Leash.
Geeeeeeez, people! I know first pets have been a part of the landscape since Nixon were a pup, but — get a grip!
October 5, 2011 — 10:37 pm
Comments: 48
Where the jam sammiches at?
Well, well…lookee what turned up in my front yard last night.
We’ve caught glimpses — or imagined we’ve caught glimpses — of badgers before, but this is the first one to turn up on the naturecam. And a big fat boy he was, too.
After a cooler than normal Summer, we’ve just had a few days of blazing heat. Well, blazing heat for England. And they call it Indian Summer too, poor dears, without knowing why (they think it has something to do with the Raj).
But last night the spell broke, and the world remembered it’s October, the wind shifted, the cold blew in and — voilà — badger in the garden. There’s a sett about three quarters of a mile from here, but if he’s a bachelor, he may be setting up housekeeping nearby.
Oh, that’ll do wonders for Uncle B’s pansies.
October 4, 2011 — 9:20 pm
Comments: 15
We are all Meghan McCain
I love making fun of Meghan McCain. It’s so pleasantly guilt-free.
Normally, I would feel kind of sorry for anyone so badly and publicly used. Meghan’s friends in the media only love her because she is Republican and deliciously stupid. It is a signal characteristic of stupid people that they are too stupid to realize they’re stupid (really. There’s been science and stuff).
But Meghan pushes herself out there hard, and then is too stupid to realize it makes her a public figure. Fair game. Ripe for the ridiculing.
If you didn’t read Red State’s hilarious McCain parody, there are bits of it left here. Unfortunately, the context is a take-down letter from her lawyer.
This law blog has a most enjoyable (read: bitchy) post on why Meghan’s complaint is bogus and what to do about it.
Short answer: MOAR RIDICULE!
October 3, 2011 — 9:50 pm
Comments: 38