You know…
I’m going to be REAL embarrassed for her if it turns out Elena Kagan is straight as a die — just a homely woman who always had trouble in the dating department.
It’s one thing to have a secret past rich in forbidden romance. It’s a whole ‘nother thing to be a sexual FAIL.
On the upside, though, she’s about to get a sweet job for life. So there’s that.
By the way — that images search on Velma was an eye opener. Dang, there’s a lot of Velma porn out there, you perverted nerds, you!
May 17, 2010 — 9:06 pm
Comments: 22
Oh, god — do I have to?
This is so unfair. I get to be depressed by politics in TWO countries!
Okay, here’s what happened: David Cameron’s party won more votes than the others — by a lot — but the next two main parties combined have more seats than he does. And they’re both leftist parties.
There was talk about the two leftist parties joining forces to shut Cameron out of government. Under their system, it might just be possible. Politically, it’s a natural. But, as so often happens with internecine fights, there’s mucho personal and historical animosity between the two. So that fell apart.
Cameron could have just said screw it and formed a government, which is what the righties in his party wanted him to do. Yes, there are still real, honest-to-god righties in the Tory party. The danger is that the other parties, because they outnumber him, could force another election any time they wanted.
Both Labour and the LibDems are likely to do even worse if another election were held soon. I doubt either wants another shot at it until they can do some housecleaning. A bold leader would take that gamble.
But Cameron didn’t.
He decided to form a true majority by making a pact with the further left of the two parties he beat. The one that did really badly. Much worse than expected. Won almost no seats at all.
And by “pact” — well, nobody really knows yet. He has to bring up some of their pet issues. Let some of them onto his cabinet. Maybe even make the leader his Deputy Prime Minister. This from a party whose agenda was just soundly rejected by the electorate.
And all this could’ve been avoided if he had been willing to talk to the party to the right of him. All he had to do was make some noises about immigration and Europe. Analysis of seat-by-seat results show if UKIP’s votes had gone Tory, he would have had 20 to 40 more seats. A comfortable ruling majority.
But no. Years ago, Cameron publicly labeled those nice old biddies a bunch of ‘fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists.’ Now the Tories are really flexed that they didn’t get the fruitcake-loony-racist vote and thinks it should be really, really ashamed of itself.
And if this whole rickety Rube Goldbergian contraption starts to burn oil, there could still be a new election called at any time.
Okay, I think I’m going to have to put this in terms of a really fucked-up alternate reality hypothetical.
Imagine it’s now in the United States, with everybody all wadded up about the collapsing economy and falling jobs and immigration. And by some sadistic twist of fate John McCain — no, Lindsey Graham has just been elected president. But it was a real squeaker because — well, Lindsey Graham. So he takes totally the wrong message from his narrow win and decides to move left and make Nancy Pelosi his Vice President. And give her a veto over anything he proposes. And if he pisses her off, she can throw the election out and make us do it again.
That’s kind of where we be at here.
I have seen the happy place, and this isn’t it.
May 11, 2010 — 10:01 pm
Comments: 35
Take me off your Rolodex, John
Funny how I sent some money to presidential candidate John McCain, and I continue to get emails from senate candidate John McCain. I suppose no wise politician abandons a good mailing list.
Anyhoo, I got a long chatty email from my bud John today, all about what a splendid job he’s doing fighting off the evil Obama administration.
And then he gets to the pitch:
But, today, my ability to fight for our country and the values we share is in jeopardy. I am in the middle of the toughest reelection battle I have ever faced. My opponent is aggressively raising funds to run ads attacking my record of service and dedication to our country. I will not stand for these attacks and will respond to them swiftly with your support. Our campaign will make our next purchase of radio and television ads by April 30th and I once again need your help. An immediate donation of any amount will enable me to fight back against these attacks.
What’s missing? Yeah…any indication this is a primary election and the dude he’s up against is a Republican. And why McCain might be a better Republican than the other guy, who would presumably have voted against O-care too.
It’s not that McCain isn’t a deeply committed ideologue. It’s that his political divide is the John McCain camp versus the People Who Piss Off John McCain camp. And there are more Republicans than Democrats in that second party.
Oh, but it pleases me that the only sponsored link I get when I do a Google search of “McCain” is a pointer to McCain Rustic Oven Chips.
It’s my IP address.
April 21, 2010 — 11:11 pm
Comments: 20
An ignorant Yank’s lazy overview of British political parties
Oof. I reeeeally didn’t want to do this. British politics is hella depressing and, with heroic effort, I’ve managed to live here for a year and a half without learning much about it. But, as everybody’s favorite little brown mustelid abroad — and with an election coming up in three weeks — I suppose I must.
Deep breath. Here we go…
Right. These guys. In power for thirteen years, drove the country off a cliff, the current leader has all the charisma of a facial mole with a hair growing out of it. Result: not doing too badly at the polls. Why? Douche or Turd Syndrome, I think.
I was surprised to learn that Labour is a 20th Century party, founded in 1900. They compare fairly well with the Democrat party in the US, but they’re more honest about their socialism. They’ve been in power several times for fairly short periods and seemed a bit hapless before the Big One in ’97.
Yep, the Conservatives’ new logo is a little squiggly tree. If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about the party under David Cameron, then how about this: I was brushing my teeth this morning, listening to Radio 4 and there was — honest to god — a soundbite of Cameron saying, “if you want a more liberal Britain, vote Conservative.”
I almost swallowed my toothbrush.
Snubbed Thatcher. Only put up female candidates where he could. The sort of green who rides his bike to work while a limo drives behind him with his briefcase. Gone to great pains recently to explain that the Tories won’t balance the budget by cutting government.
I hate this man with the sort of searing flame that can only be extinguished with a double fistful of soft, soothing entrails. Whatever happens, Cameron MUST go down.
Okay, I totally don’t get the LibDems. I mean, I don’t get the distinction between them and Labour. They’re the leftist result of a 1988 merger between two 19th Century parties — the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party — and their function seems to be as a perpetual “other guys.” As in “yes, but what do the other guys say?” Or “fuck it — let’s vote for the other guys!”
Their polling took a ten point up-jump after the UK held its first ever Prime Ministerial TV debate, and the LibDem leader distinguished himself from the other two by not coming across as a barking spastic.
Ugh, these guys. Whatever the mess uncontrolled immigration has made of Britain, the BNP is still a bunch of creeps. And they’re leftists — of the blue-collar, pro-union variety. Think Archie Bunker without the charm.
The press describes them as far right, of course, because they’re bigots — while blandly admitting they pull votes away from Labour, not the Tories. It will be very interesting to see how they do in the elections. I anticipate a fair number of people will vote BNP — not because they wish them well and want them in power — but as an angry “fuck you!” to the political establishment. We shall see.
Whenever we go to a country fair or village fête, the UK Independence Party has a tent, manned by the same sweet blue-haired old ladies who sell chutney and homemade jams in the tent next door. UKIP has the right ideas — mainly getting Britain out from under the tyranny of the EU — but they haven’t got the hang of being a real, live national political party. Some financial scandals early in the life of the party didn’t help. Oh, and their logo is lavender on bright yellow, which is like unto being poked in the eye with a knitting needle.
But that’s where I’d vote if I could vote.
Because, bottom line, it simply DOES NOT MATTER who wins the election. There’s nothing much for Parliament to do; Brussels rules Britain. Did you know 70-80% of the laws of the land come from the European Union? And ain’t nothing the British parliament or prime minister — or, for that matter, Her Maj — can do to change any of them.
They can talk all they like about a “United States of Europe” but it’s a totally different proposition from the US of A. These people have been fighting horrible, bloody wars with each other for thousands of years, right up until a few decades ago. There are huge differences in ethnicity, legal system, culture, history and attitude — particularly between Britain and the Continent — and an ancient, deep well of ill-will.
In other words, almost all of Britain’s laws are being written by people who use “Anglo Saxon” as an insult. How do you think that’s working out?
UPDATE: Uncle B just read this and said I got the ancestry of the LibDems wrong. In actual fact, the Social Democratic Party was founded in blah blah blah blah, something something. Hope that clears it up; sorry for the error.
April 19, 2010 — 10:22 pm
Comments: 30
Nothin’ but decaf
I won a poster contest when I was in High School. The theme was something like Keep Nashville Clean. When I was packing to move last year, I found the newspaper clipping that went with and was horrified to read what I had said to the interviewer. Man, I hit all the bullshit talking points: Children are the future. Adults are poisoning up the planet and we’re going to have to clean it up.
I didn’t say those things because I believed them or cared much. I said them because I knew what was expected of me. (Fuck yea, I’d just won an art contest — I wasn’t about to blow it by saying something the newspaper didn’t want to hear). We’re talking maybe 1975 and that shit was old already.
So let’s hope these mouth-breathing fluff-muffins are also unenthusiastically regurgitating today’s lesson. Click to watch, but my subtitles are pretty accurate. I counted 14 “likes” when the young ‘uns were talking, not counting those times when “like” was used correctly and not as an “ummm” substitute.
This is the latest from the Coffee Party — the liberal astroturfers trying desperately to challenge the Tea Party movement without anyone discovering they’re liberal. They do this by pretending to be passionate about bland non-issues.
Sifting through feedback from regional Coffee Party meetings, they’ve identified two issues their members are exercised about and want to tackle: the role of money in politics and making Wall Street accountable to Main Street.
Ha ha! Psych! If those are THE two issues that came boiling up from an engaged grassroots, I’m a polar bear.
The Dems have been trying to stir up anger over “Wall Street fat cats” from the get-go — they clearly think that’s a class warfare winner for them. And maybe it is, I dunno. It doesn’t seem to have caught fire as expected.
And the “money in politics” one comes from the unexpectedly wide unpopularity of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case — the one that grants First Amendment rights to corporations, including the right to unlimited spending before elections. They mention Citizens United by name at the end of the video.
Fake.
Oh, and listening to that young man babble about being the future, I couldn’t help thinking, “yeah, but by the time we get to that future, Sonny, you’re going to be more like me now than you are like you now.”
April 13, 2010 — 10:07 pm
Comments: 26
Behold, seven dumb guys and a lady with no chin
Ladies and gentlemen, fresh from a bust-up trailer somewhere in rural Michigan, I give you — the Hutaree!
If these guys were really fixing to start picking off the local constabulary, then I hope they get locked up for a nice, long stretch. But it’s hard not to imagine Janet Napolitano phoning up Central Casting and ordering up a violent Christian militia.
“Get me some angry white boys with guns and Bibles, stat!”
Militias are one of those seasonal political problems, like how there are only homeless people when Republicans are in power. There are only scary right-wing Christian militias when the Dems control the apparatus.
Oh, well. There really was a Tim McVeigh (thanks a lot, dude). From what I’ve seen so far, though, the only charge that’ll stick to these bozos is Felony Mouthy Redneck.
March 31, 2010 — 10:11 pm
Comments: 31
…just three more years…
I’d like to hang this illustration over an insightful post about how our current boy president seems to go WAY out of his way to flatter our darkest enemies and endanger our oldest friends. But the truth of the matter is, I just got the old poster mashed up in my head with Bibi Netanyahu and the only way to exorcise a mental image is to draw it.
Most of my picture ideas are because the insulation on my brainal wires isn’t very good.
Edit to add: happy Passover, y’all!
March 29, 2010 — 8:54 pm
Comments: 30
Gesundheit
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. (Yeah, that’s right. I can still hear your thoughts. The injections don’t help at all). You’re thinking, “geez, Stoaty — you live in an Olde Worlde socialist paradise now. What do you care from Obamacare?”
Well, I own sixty acres of American scrub cedar and rattlesnakes out near the old Gore place. We call it Rancho Plan B. I pay American taxes and vote in American elections. I brush my teeth humming Yankee Doodle Dandy and insist on saying aloominum and skedule and coming home once a year to stock up on Jimmy Dean country sausage and Bounty paper towels.
But seriously — clown nose off — it matters here. You have no IDEA how much things in the US matter outside the US, in the general force and direction of world politics. The old saying when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold should probably be updated to when America sneezes, the rest of the world gets AIDS, Ebola and a side order of flesh-eating bacteria.
The interconnections in the UK catch me off guard. I was having a cup of coffee and a scone in a cafe in town yesterday and the lady at the next table over heard my accent and wanted to tell me all about her upcoming vacation in California. That happens a lot. So much for the taciturn Brits.
The BBC’s obsession with all things American is deep and malignant. You would not believe how much of a typical broadcast day is about the US, one way or another. I used to joke that Radio 4 could work a George Bush joke into the gardening program, but I think the Obama infatuation is even loonier.
During a radio interview of the English singer/songwriter Alison Goldfrapp a couple of days ago, the interviewer remarked that her most recent album was very upbeat. “Why is that?” he said out of an abso-fucking-lutely blue sky, “because of Obama?”
So you’d better believe the BBC has reported every twist and turn of the Obamacare saga in minutest detail. Absolutely zero insight, but minute detail. And you know what they’re rooting for.
The tug-of-war between freedom and the state is played across international boundaries. Pull hard, Yanks!
March 25, 2010 — 11:35 pm
Comments: 26
Loaves, fishes and pap smears
Yeah, dude. We totally, totally believe you can add tens of millions of people to the insurance pool and nobody’s premiums will go up and nobody’s coverage will go down. Totally. Because we are totally the inbred paste-eating retards they told you about at Harvard.
This is an unbelievably clumsy piece of political reasoning, this bill. They forgot the First Rule of Ponzi Schemes: in the beginning, everybody gets a pony. Near as I can figure it, nobody ever gets a pony with this thing.
If you already have insurance (Medicare, Medicaid or private), either your coverage goes down, your premiums go up or both.
If you don’t have insurance, the government is going to force you to stick your hand in your pocket and buy something you could damn well have bought any time, without the helpful assistance Guido the Legbreaker.
The segment of society that is currently uninsured, not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but poor enough to trigger substantial government assistance paying for this shit — the group of voters that is kinda, sorta getting a pony — must be incredibly small.
I wonder if he’s registered to vote.
March 23, 2010 — 10:55 pm
Comments: 38
You need an anvil to go with that hammer, Ma’am
Sonofabitch. They did it. They really did it. And they didn’t even have the sense to nix the gloating.
Huh.
I think Miz Pelosi just ordered a Number Twelve. That would be Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals #12, of course:
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
We’ve got to hang this stinking albatross around Nancy’s wattle. We know she was the balls behind this job — Obama, on the whole, being utterly useless.
But the vital message is: no-one should be tempted to reward a blue dog for being a good doggie and voting no. Vote for a blue dog, vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Simple as that.
We’ll never get her out of Congress — San Fran being what it is — but we can buy-god peel her leathery talons off the Speaker’s gavel.
We got here because Democrats pretended to be things they are not. The time of pretending is over.
Let the smiting begin.
March 22, 2010 — 8:43 pm
Comments: 45