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substitute harry reid

Pff! That’s nothing like a convincing fake Harry Reid. Did they think we wouldn’t notice? Yeah. That was taken Sunday, when they thought they had the votes for a bailout.

I’ve decided to invoke the Sheehan rule: I declare myself to have absolute moral authority in this financial crisis. I lost $60K — and not in airy-fairy theoretical 401K dollars that only hurt at retirement time. Oh, no. Actually munnies sucked directly out of the weasely pocketbook at the point of sale.

And I say…errr…pass. No fucking idea, really. Substantial numbers on both sides of the aisle voted both for and against the plan, presumably for different reasons. So far, the preponderance of the people I trust say the bailout is horrible, but we have to do it anyway or businesses will begin to fail for lack of credit.

Okay. I guess.

But anything that makes that look blossom on Harry Reid’s sour mug gives me the shivering jimm-jamms.

September 30, 2008 — 11:52 am
Comments: 54

Fasten your seatbelts; here we go!

sale pending

Right! It’s on. I’ve got a whole fuckwad* of things to do in the next eight weeks if I’m going to pull this off. I’ll be totally boring and self-absorbed — when I bother to show up at all. That’s my promise to you.

Still, the process by which an American woman and her cat legally emigrate to another country might prove instructive. Think of my journey as a public service. Like Katie Couric’s on-air colonoscopy.

And fifty-eight days from today, if all goes according to plan (ha, ha) we’ll all sit down together (metaphorically) for champers and spotted dick before a roaring coal fire.

Toodle pip, and other gay British stuff!

*Fuckwad: a unit of measurement equivalent to three or more shitloads.

September 29, 2008 — 11:15 am
Comments: 85

Turn, turn, turn

Could it be…? Is our long national nightmare…or, at any rate, my own personal hand-flappy drama…coming at last to an end? My buyer and his entire extended family came back this morning for a second look (“what was that, a family reunion?” my neighbor asked when I got home) and the verdict is…yes. Yes, Weasel. Yes, I believe I shall bend you over your tacky linoleum countertops and have my way (really, I can’t think of any description for the deal I’m getting that doesn’t involve the words “ass” and “raping”).

Still…if all goes according to plan, I shall be walking away from Stoat Acres on November the 25th, a poorer but a…poorer mustelid.

And then the fun REALLY begins.

September 27, 2008 — 10:57 am
Comments: 51

The more things change…

economists in days of yore

I have no fucking idea how deep a hole we’re in or how to fix it (which means that one blogger who is being totally honest with you today is a weasel).

I do know this: the regular capitalist cycles of boom and bust correspond — not coincidentally — with each new generation of wet-behind-the-ears smarty-pantses in the financial sector. “The market is going up! We’re geniuses! And it’s going to last forever!

And then they all get hit by a bus and die. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

The UK Labour Party actually declared — more than once — that they had vanquished the market cycle, and there would be no more boom and bust. No shit. Uncle B always tells me that story when I’m in a god American are politicians morons sort of funk. And then we laugh and laugh.

Me, I’m an optimist. I think the American economy is still incredibly resiliant, despite everything, and will rebound (relatively) quickly. Uncle B is a pessimist, and is less sure of that. I’m just posting this so that, a year from now, one of us can point at the other and laugh rudely.

I understand really successful relationships are based on this kind of give and take.


Did y’all see this on The Corner? Not a joke. This was Washington Mutual’s very last press release before it sank beneath the waves:

WaMu Recognized as Top Diverse Employer—Again

Company ranks in top ten of Hispanic Business’ Diversity Elite and earns perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index

[…]

No comment.

September 26, 2008 — 10:30 am
Comments: 20

Burning down the house…

democrats did this!

This is the first time in my life I have been squished between those giant lumbering retards, The Government and The Market. I’ve lived in the same house for twenty years, had the same job for twenty five. No kids or student loans. However angry it made me in the abstract, government never really touched my life, beyond the steady slow drain of taxation…and that itch between my shoulderblades when I have to deal with an impertinent bureaucrat. The market’s ups and downs were, for me, largely theoretical. Sure, my 401K took some serious hits over the years, but doing the mental math, Zeno’s arrow will hit me in the ass before retirement does.

But now, after years of planning for this overseas move, the final step — selling my house — comes right in the teeth of this shit-storm. Ohhhhh, NOW I feel the flying fist of government incompetence, alllll the way up to my duodenum.

I was back and forth on the phone with my real estate agent last night. Good news! The last guy who looked at my house loved it so much, he offered me $12,000 less than my minimum break-even-and-walk-away-with-nothing price. Erm…no. Six thousand less? I don’t think so. Three thousand, and she waives a thousand of her fee…?

She said — I be not a-shitting of thee — “I just hate to see us get this close to a deal without closing it.”

Yes, I took it. After I sell my car, my guns (oh <sob> my guns! My beautiful guns!), siphon the oil out of the tank in the basement and cash in my unused vacation time, I might just be able to limp into Heathrow with my cat and my fambly heirlooms.

Government has just stolen sixty thousand dollars from me. Let’s be clear about this: THE DEMOCRATS STOLE $60,000 FROM ME. Yeah, I know…all that fucked up impenetrable financial bundling on Wall Street, all the house flipping by yuppies…the final economic cause of death was complex and fairly bipartisan.

But the underlying AIDS that destroyed the market’s immune system was Fannie Mae. It was created by Democrats explicitly to make dodgy loans, its quasi-governmental status bent the market out of shape and forced other lenders (without government muscle behind them) to make dodgy loans of their own, it was HUGE, it was corrupt to the core, and Democrats fought any and every attempt to do anything about it.

Since 2001, Bush tried dozens of times to rein in Fannie Mae. McCain predicted this collapse in 2005 and sponsored a bill that would bring it under control. Shot down by huffy Democrats. Every time.

The Democrats OWN this crisis, the Republicans tried hard to stop it, and Bush and McCain refuse to hang it around their necks. Just so we can pass a bipartisan bill that props up greedy assholes and screws people who didn’t act like idiots. Republicans should totally PWN on this issue, and Obama got the polling boost.

You could light cigarettes off my forehead today.

Okay, you know what? Screw this spreading the blame around thing. I hereby adopt-a-pol. Barack Obama got $126,349 out of Fannie Mae employees and I want my half. Your stupid crisis pinched $60,000 I can’t afford to lose…sixty grand in carefully nurtured home equity. Three decades of frugal living and good decision-making. All my slack, all my seed money.

GIVE IT ME! I WANT MY MONEY BACK, YOU BASTARD!

September 25, 2008 — 2:22 pm
Comments: 67

But this one’s for reals

a tale of two hockey sticks

Click the graph for explanation. Not a deep thought — it hurts too much when I laugh — I was just farting around online, saw this and thought, “hey…that looks familiar!”

September 24, 2008 — 12:26 pm
Comments: 46

Senator Icarus

And the best part? They were commissioned from a firm in Birmingham. England.

Only £35.00 each!

— 9:30 am
Comments: 32

Other important historical stuff Joe Biden (whose IQ is much higher than yours, by the way) knows about and you don’t

lincoln's youtube account

Our lords and masters.

September 23, 2008 — 5:40 pm
Comments: 28

Blaming Wall Street operators for the current financial crisis is like discovering a fly-blown corpse and arresting the maggots for murder

Pithy obthervation from a sthmall brown muthtelid. More later.

— 9:25 am
Comments: 36

How green was my astroturf?

how green was my astroturf?

Astroturfing: a neologism for formal public relations campaigning disguised as spontaneous “grassroots” behavior. AstroTurf is an artificial grass first used in the Houston Astrodome.

So this is the story Ace was flogging last night: Rusty and Co. at the Jawa Report have made a pretty convincing case that a “viral” anti-Palin video being promoted on YouTube and pushed by email to the Kostards was, in fact, a professionally produced ad with a big-time PR firm behind it.

Okay, here’s the thing: the guy who uploaded it on YouTube used (apparently) his own usual online username (eswinner), which is his own real name (Ethan S. Winner), which is also the name of the PR firm (Winner & Associates). The voiceover is recognizably professional talent who has worked on other Obama ads. That there is what I call a perfect defense.

nelson muntz

“You honor, does my client look like a drooling imbecile to you? Does he suffer from a visible head injury? Do you see a wrench, mayhap, or a tire iron sticking out of his cranium at a jaunty angle? No? I rest my case. No-one writes anonymous letters and then signs his real name. My client is merely a professional Public Relations man professionally relating to the public.”

But here’s where the imbecile begins to drool: Rusty and Ace teased the story all evening but held fire. Rusty finally posted just after midnight. Within the hour, eswinner had erased all copies of the video, shut down his account and walked away whistling.

If there is any act more idiotic than trolling under your own name, it is trying to erase it afterwards. Dude. Duuuude. This is the internet. There is no erasing on the internet.

How smeary was the video? Was it effective? Did they do anything illegal? How convincing are the ties to Obama? Eh. Follow the links; those guys are all over it. Me, I just wanted to give scary-talented big time PR firm Winner & Associates the ol’ Nelson Muntz. Winner? Oh, I think not!

The innernets: you FAIL it!

September 22, 2008 — 9:29 am
Comments: 36