Greetings from the Nuclear Burn Zone

TGIF

Serious thinking on a sunny day

If we are going to kowtow to minorities to the point of giving up our own language traditions, we should not be surprised that the left wants to destroy not only our traditions and our culture, but also us. And before anyone gets huffy, look at the hundreds of American towns named for places in Europe but pronounced as if they were simply American.

By the way, my surname comes from Belgium and no one outside of my family pronounces it correctly and we have been here since before 1620.

Matthews/Burris: 21 slow-burning Minutes re: 'pay to play'

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Au Contraire, Mon Frere

Far from being a blight on the visual environment, outdoor advertising is a valuable part of the business community.

Shut 'Em Down

I gotta say, I am at a loss on this Guantanamo closure thing. Have any of you all seen one tiniest bit of argument about why we can't have the alleged terrorists in prisons in the United States? I mean I can think of arguments, but I haven't seen them. It seems that most people seem are intimating that it is a safety issue, as in "I don't want them in my state!" Is that it? Because that makes no sense. It's not like our maximum security prisons are being escaped from every day. Are people afraid that their state would become a target of a terrorist attack? Is that it? Somebody help me out here.

And while I am here, I might say that while I was born a Democrat and I will die a Democrat, that doesn't mean I can't be ashamed of being a Democrat when we have "leaders" like the ones we currently have. Will somebody in my party grow a fucking backbone and do the right fucking thing every once in a while?

EZ, you love to defend the party in all matters, what do you got to say about Pelosi and Reid?

US Chamber of Commerce Still Horrified About EFCA

Five state-specific commercials about "card check!" Aren't I one lucky sonuvawhatever!

Hot Talk

Making an ass of myself over at NW Wingnut again. Join me, won't you?

0-4, damn

Consider four attributes of the ideal man: self-control, bravery, confidence and sex appeal.

TGIF - free agent edition

This one goes out to our favorite quarterback.

TGIF - welcome back edition

I'm sure we can all get down with NWA's strong stance against the use of mind-weakening narcotics.

the War is over....Time for Celebration?

The war, first declared by Nixon in '71, is over!

I new BHO would end a war, just wasn't expecting this one:
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday: "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country."

Good to hear.....

Now if we actually stop locking up 100,000's of otherwise law abiding Americans, that would be a real victory!

Super-Weird Chris Matthews Content

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

13 minutes of power. Just disregard this, pretend I never posted it, etc.

I've had a good night's sleep, but this clip is still on my mind.

Is it simply the subject matter - the characters involved herein - or something else, about Matthews' 'performance?' Is he starting to remind me of some ensemble character in an Altman-ish rendition of my wonky-(we)blog-life? I fucking hope not, Jesus. When did Matthews gain the ability to turn into an ultra-avunvular, asshole-ish Jack Lemmon at will?

Disregard this.

The rise of the dead?

Just thought I would let ya'll know that the LA forum show was very hot. the setlist:
(Set 1)
Viola Lee Blues->
Bertha->
Viola Lee Blues->
Caution-> (raging! warren screaming something about a Gypsy woman)
Viola Lee Blues->
Black Peter
Cosmic Charlie

(Set 2)
Shakedown Street
New Speedway Boogie
Scarlet Begonias
Fire on the Mountain
Drums >
Space
Dark Star
Wharf Rat
Dark Star
Satisfaction

(Encore)
One More Saturday Night

Warren was sharp, there was very little aimless noodling, and the sound was excellent. I would recommend catching any and all possible future shows (with this lineup)

I am finishing up my finals week, and intend to begin posting more frequently (as in more than not at all) but first, piles of tests to grade....

I love reading Lex and SoliCit, but I wish that Wobs, Dave3544, and Ash would come out of retirement or "whatever", return to the OG, and we could have even more extended dialogue and good-natured back-and-forth over the ongoing apocalyptic deterioration of the "free" market system, the debate over holding torturers accountable, and of course the sad saga surrounding EFCA. Helloooo????? Are you out there?????? Would it kill you to post once in a freakin blue moon? (like me....)I know you comment here and there, but that isn't the same thing......just sayin. organize some serious grievances.... work it out........love is the answer... (I might be slightly influenced by my experiences from last night, but still....)

Business School Horn

EzraKlein Archive | Those Scary Union Organizers
Hipster's Complaint | Culture | The American Scene
Q & A with Alyssa Picard - The Boston Globe

Personal Health - High- Functioning, but Still Alcoholics - NYTimes.com
Wilco's Jeff Tweedy Responds to Jay Bennett Lawsuit :: Music News :: Articles :: Paste
Disgraced John Edwards back in the spotlight - Ben Smith - POLITICO.com

Start Making Sense: The Obama Administration's new international tax proposals
Obama Dines With Economic Critics - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com
The Health-Care Talks: Will Obama Get More Involved? - TIME

How Not to Join a Union

from the Center for American Progress, prolly the liberal wonk-Tank closest to l'administration.

if you've been avoiding the jargon-y EFCA talk up until now, here's as accessible a place as any to jump in.

TGIF

Goddammit, them's fightin' words

But, as a rule, if you’re really in the mood to see blood spilled, take advantage of your right to free speech by taking a position on the first amendment. For instance, there are those who argue there should be absolutely no limits on free speech, even when it comes to pornography, blasphemy or sedition.

Do you have to ask?

I think Jonah Goldberg nails it here.. The one overriding feature of the Obama presidency has been arrogance. The left, lead by the Obamessiah and his wife, Mary, thinks they own the world, but as the totally un-orchestrated Tea Parties show, there is a revolution a'brewin'. A revolution inspired and supported, but in no way organized or funded, by many groups that Jonah Goldberg works for and/or his mom owns. Please, whatever you do, do not notice the fact that Goldberg supports his assertion that Obama's arrogance is breathtaking with one quote from Charles Schumer and...well, the Schumer quote.

100 Days and Life to Go -- Thoughts?

We should be mindful, and critical, of even the best-written of the leading liberal fantasy-'profiles' of Obama.

Also: whatever their imbrication w/i a vast, world-statist conspiracy may be...the Politico's done us a service by compiling these 165 vids of the first 100 days.

BHO at 100 Days: C/NC? Step to it.

Another Idea That's Time Has Come

Fuck yeah! Andy Stern!

and/or

Perez Stern!

Go figure, huh....?

I'll admit it, we're complete and total hypocrites

Speaking, as I often do, for "the left," I'd like to take a moment to criticize President Obama for golfing this weekend instead of staying at the White House to monitor the developing swine flu epidemic.

The comparison between the swine flu outbreak which has devastated approximately 20 Americans in five states and Hurricane Katrina, which wiped out an entire American city, left approximately 2000 people dead, and tens of thousands homeless is in no way specious. The comparison between Obama golfing (golfing!) during this crisis and the (some say) criminal disregard for life shown by President Bush is so strikingly similar as to be shocking. The whole Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln thing is done after this. Also comparable is the fact that Obama has not even bothered to appoint someone to the position of Director of Homeland Security Health and Human Services Secretary who is acceptable to the extreme anti-abortion crowd, while all President Bush did was publicly praise the guy who fucked the whole Katrina thing up. I'd like also to note that it took 20 people getting sick before the Obama administration declared a public emergency, while Bush was savaged for waiting only two days after the hurricane struck to do anything about it.

When are we on the left finally going to admit that this Obama guy is exactly the same as Bush? Hypocrites all, we are.

Wings

Lex has been repping the Wings for awhile now and I have been listening. I gotta ask though, is Wings what happens when there is no one to say "no"? That's my take on it. Not that I don't dig the whatever goes approach to music, but I'm just wondering if that's the general take on it.

The New Ellroy is Coming, 9/22

Dear Booksellers,

In all its mellifluous and macho-maimed magnificence: my new novel, Blood's A Rover.

Knopf will drop this atom bomb of a book on you September 22. Your job is to groove it and grok its groin-grabbing gravity between now and then. From that point on: you handsell it to the book-buying public; I appear at your store and drive legions of my fans and your customers nuts; we all make out and give publishing a cash-cascading and profit-pronging boost in a bum marketplace!!!

Dig it!!!!!

The novel covers 1968-1972. It's a baaaaaad-ass historical romance -- huge in scope, deep in its exploration of the era, filled with my trademark craaaaazy shit, and suffused with a heightened sense of belief and the corollaries of political conversation and revolution. Oh, yeah -- this is a book for these times!

You've got Howard "Dracula" Hughes, Gay Edgar Hoover, and Tricky Dick Nixon. You've got the mob's evil eyes scoping the Dominican Republic. You've got voodoo in Haiti, a vicisiou armored-car heist, and the Feds out to deep-sixi the black militant movement. More than anything else, you've got three obsessed right-wing toadies grapping with the horror of their misdeeds - and seeking redemption in the peron of my greatest female character: The Red Goddess Joan.

Read this book.

Grab its greatness.

Find me on Facebook and let me know what you think (post on my wall!)

Yours truly,

James Ellroy

(h/t: Sarah Weinman)

Ya think?

A checker at the local grocery store was just speculating that Cheech and Chong may, may, have been stoned while making the movie Up in Smoke. He doesn't know for sure, but you gotta think maybe they were.

Frame Talk is Frivolous, Frame Talk is Fun

The Politico has really nice dish - or mebbe it's navel-gazing tripe - about the official BHO semiotics of the Frst Hndrd Days.

ps - No, I have not abandoned the for(u)m of weblogs ("blogs"), I'm just caught in a move-in bind.

pps - And how about unconditional endorsee - and example of all that is righteous in the 20-something blog-wonk matrix - Ezra Klein getting hired by the MotherfuckingWashington MotherfuckingPost?!?

Bigger by the second

Over at NW Republican wingnut Coyote is having a fun time with numbers. In a post titled "An Obama rock concert?" - reference to the 75,000 people that turned out in Portland to see Obama The Decemberists - he posts picture of roughly 5,000 people in Lansing to see Joe "the Plumber" Plumber. No one said math was Coyote's strong suit.

Better, in the same post, he estimates that the crowd in Salem was 2,000. Now, one expects that a wingnut website is going to double the size of the crowd that actually shows up. Just as the cops automatically double the number of beers Coyote estimates he drank when they pull him over. Maybe he realized that in a state of 3.7 million, pulling in 2,000 people is not so impressive. What is that 5/ten-thousandths of a percent? I'm going to be honest with you, I'm not used to dealing with numbers that small, so I may be off, correct me. Or maybe Coyote remembers that Obama drew 10,000 people in Eugene - twice - so he updated his post and his number to reflect that some people were estimating there were 3,000 people there. Seconds later it was 3,200, but you know the libural media, right?

Six hours later, Coyote had that number up to 4,000. I am imagining that by this afternoon 8,000 people will have been at the Capitol yesterday loudly protesting the policies of the Bush Obama administration and calling for an end to the War tax cuts for the wealthy an increase to the capital gains tax an end to government as we know it.

Really when was the last time liberals were able to draw such a crowd? Huh? Huh? Oh yeah, that Obama rock concert.

Lex and George Will in a tree

I see that George Will has come out strong and insanely against people wearing jeans. If memory serves, and believe me it does, George is also on record opposed to men wearing shorts. I believe this makes two - count 'em TWO! - fashion policies shared by George Will and our own Lex Dexter. If Will ever comes out against men wearing sandals, then Lex will have found his soul mate.

Oh, I know that Lex is going to protest that he is not against jeans, but rather than he can't find any to fit is scrawny ass, to which I retort that none of his other pants fit him either, so I'm not sure why jeans wouldn't make the cut.

Tea Party Placards

The following slogans and screeds appeared in placard form during my ethnographic travels into le Right yesterday:

• My President Would Be Legal
• President Obama, Show Us Your Birth Certificate
• Revivetherevolution.com
• Suicide By Stimulus
• Stop Borrowing/Start Budget-Cutting
• Terminate Expanding Authority
• Taxation Erodes American (dream)
• Heil Hope
• Billions for the Bankers/Debts for the People
• Stop Raiding Our Piggy Bank
• Let Capitalism Work
• Less Government = Freedom
• Flat Tax 10%! Make It Do!
  
• Somalia Pirates = US Congress
• FairTax.org
• Comrade Obama
  
• Wake Up America, Before Your Liberty is Gone
• The Problem with Socialism is Eventually You Run Out of Other People's Money
• Democracy is Slowly Being Eroded
  
• We Hate Porky Little Amendments
  
• No Nanny State: Leave Us Home in Our Sovereign State of Jefferson
  
• More Common Sense/Less $ and Cents
• Obama: the Next Chavez
• No Taxation Without Representation
• My Tax Dollars Go To Illegal Aliens
  
• Punish Success/Reward Failure: What's Up With That?
  
• Taking Everyone's Assets
• NO to Socialism
• Tired, Enraged American
  
• Free Markets Not Freeloaders!
  
• If You're Not Outraged/You're Not Paying Taxes
  
• Freedom Is Not Just Another Word
• Abortion Kills Children
  
• Our Government Stole My Paycheck
  
• Separation of Powers, Buckos: Big God/Small Government
• Expensive Health Care: Michelle Obama made $350k for sitting on her a$$
• Obama, You of All People Should Know that Pork Defiles
• Ron Paul for President

What, you need a chaser? This knocked 'em dead in Medford.

Exactly

When a right-wing blog posts a commentary with the headline "The American Gorbachev" can expectations be so high that they are impossible to realize? No.

This piece is less of a critique and more of a comparison of two leaders of two big countries. Again, this comparison is not entirely accurate and/or scientific. I mean you can compare Bush to Brezhnev using the same template. Both invaded Afghanistan and stayed home more than they traveled. There was even a theory that the reason Brezhnev stayed home and Gorbachev traveled so much is because Brezhnev was fed from the outlet and Gorbachev worked on batteries. So, in this light, the real purpose of this comparison is more in the line of Plutarch’s ‘Parallel Lives’ of let’s say,“Alexander the king, and of Caesar, by whom Pompey was destroyed.”

Oh, and, in conclusion:

If Obama is the post American captain destined to bring our spaceship down from the position of superpower to “a normal UN sanctioned operational mode” let’s hope for a smoother landing and a sharp difference from Gorbachev who neglected the fact that one can make a nuclear submarine feel like a raw boat for only as long as it is facing an iceberg.

Fuck the police and the New York Yankees

H/t: LGM

The NYCLU is on the case.

Campeau-Laurion, the director of Web productions for a media company, attended the Aug. 26 Yankees-Red Sox game with a friend, who had a ticket package for 11 games at Yankee Stadium during the 2008 season. Campeau-Laurion had attended several of these games with his friend.

Campeau-Laurion quietly watched the game, ate a bag of peanuts and drank two beers. He decided to use the restroom at the start of the seventh-inning stretch – a period when fans often choose to use the restroom. He got up and made his way down the aisle as “God Bless America” began playing. A police officer blocked his path and indicated that he could not leave during the song. Campeau-Laurion explained that he needed to use the restroom and was not concerned about “God Bless America.” Then he attempted to walk past the officer.

Before Campeau-Laurion could take a step, the police officer grabbed his right arm and twisted it behind his back. A second officer twisted Campeau-Laurion’s left arm behind his back, and the two officers then marched him down several ramps to the stadium’s exit with his arms pinned behind his back. The officers refused to ease their grip, even though Campeau-Laurion was not resisting them.

The encounter ended with one of the officers telling Campeau-Laurion to leave the country if he didn’t like it.

What makes this worse - much, much, much worse - is that this is, apparently, the official policy of the NY Yankees.

The Yankees began playing “God Bless America” during games following 9/11, as did all Major League Baseball teams. Unlike most teams, the Yankees also instituted a policy of seeking to prevent fans from moving during the playing of the song. It did so to promote patriotism amongst those attending Yankees games.

They are evil. And so are their fans.

A moral dilema

Is it wrong that I just spent a decent amount of time wondering which would upset me more - the death of one of my cats or the breaking of my favorite hammer?

Is it wronger that I still don't know. I mean cats are cats, but the perfect pipe is something special.

Health care, statistics, and vadge

In my last newsletter I gave you some statistics. I did not do this to attempt to set a hard base line, rather to point out the fact there is no “silver bullet” solution to our current health care situation. A few years ago a person testifying before a committee said “statistics are like a bikini, what they reveal is enticing but what they conceal is critical”. One should view any numbers under deliberation from such a perspective, as they often don’t tell the whole story.

-- Jeff Kruse, OR-1 (R)

TGIF

Listen To Her Heart 1978 Tom Petty


If this isn't working for you, you can watch it here.

You know, I don't get the Petty hate out there. Maybe if you're only knowledge of him was Full Moon Fever, which is middling rock over-played to the point of annoyance, then maybe. Then again, it could be just me. It could be that you needed to be a ten-year-old Solid and watching MTV in 1982 and have "Refugee" be the most interesting thing you had seen on the box. Although how you could deny "You think you're gonna take her away, with your money and your cocaine" is beyond me. Give Tom three minutes, you got nothing better to do on a Friday.

Isn't Jolie French?

I know all of you have been getting excited about the possibility of an Atlas Shrugged movie coming out soon. I mean it doesn't have a writer, or director or anything, but with just about everyone going Galt and attending tea parties and whatnot, you just know it is going to happen soon.

Our good friends over at Big Hollywood, perhaps America's best website for wingnut discussion of popular culture, are already speculating on who should be cast in the lead roles, especially that of Dagny Taggart. She is not only the heart of the book, but she has been the main source of wingnut masturbation fantasies since 1952. As such, it is crucial that the actress be hotter than the proverbial baker's oven. But does she also have to be ideologically pure? The answer, at least from the comments I read, is no. Actually, the answer seems to be that one Angelina Jolie, who is hotter than the proverbial baker's oven, would be so awesome there is some effort to rehabilitate her.

Actually Ms Jolie is a pretty good choice for the role. She is nowhere near as far left as her fellow actors, gave a fairly good interview in '08 about McCain and the good he might bring (apostasy!) and from what we've gathered is a serious woman that the world takes seriously- she supposedly holds her own quite well in cabinet level meetings and knows more than her UN counterparts about Darfur and whatnot.

Scrolling through the comments, I see no objections to her on the grounds that she is twice divorced, a home wrecker, and/or living in sin with children. My how the wingnut opinion of single mothers has changed over the last year.

Anyway, the biggest fear, of course, would be that "Hollywood" would destroy the story because they don't "get it." This has been my biggest fear for some years. It also serves as a ready-made excuse for the all-too-predictable failure of the movie at the box office. I mean, we all know that Americans are dying to see a movie in which the richer/betters in our society laugh as civilization disintegrates. Especially if the last half-hour of the movie features a twenty-five minute radio address from a character who has only briefly appeared in the film up to that point. Can you imagine the cuts to all of our heroes listening intently to their radios while John Galt explains to the word that they will all die unless they cede complete control of the world to him and his chosen few? Riveting film going to be sure. America is ready, but Hollywood couldn't handle it.

Of course, it has been suggested that the book would work better as a seven-part miniseries a la John Adams, which is, of courser, even more true. Then, Galt's speech could take up a whole episode and we wouldn't have to cut any of the brilliance. That way we could spend an hour watching scenes of bridges collapsing and roving bands of marauders killing each other and rich people packing for the big get away all while listening to a disembodied voice tell us that all of that was a result of taxes. Obama would never let it happen.

Anyway, you buy the tickets, I'll buy the popcorn, and we'll laugh and laugh and laugh.

Always nice to find an offer like this in your inbox

Reminder--Order FREE Organizing Materials Today

Twilley/Seymour Sunday Horn

Robert Kuttner: Obama's Banking Rescue: O for Opaque
Obama Officials Think Krugman Is Naive: Newsweek's Evan Thomas
Frank Schaeffer: The Krugman/Limbaugh Nightmare: President Obama Might Succeed

Well, the story of my wk is pretty much a) Dwight Twilley doing 'Looking for the Magic' and b) my rapidly-deflating faith in the Obama administration's ability to get us outta this mucky political economy-y quagmire. You?

Oxdown Gazette » Shorter Elizabeth Warren: Timothy Geithner, WTF?
We're Still Getting Screwed: Geithner Plan Will Make the Rich Richer! | Dean Baker
Dean Baker, "Unemployment Jumps to 8.5 Percent, Economy Sheds 663,000 Jobs"
Bankruptcy Would Be Tinkering Around the Edges of Detroit's Problems

No, seriously...I think we're very effed here.

Benjamin Dangl and Michael Fox, "Beyond Elections in the Americas: An Interview with Michael Fox"
Reid to liberals: Back off - Manu Raju - POLITICO.com
Van Hollen asks liberal groups to lay off - Alex Isenstadt - POLITICO.com

Better look elsewhere for some inspiration, because there's nothing about Evan Bayh that's ever going to get you too hot/heavy. At the same time, it's apparently very important that all we 'liberals' remember that anything that upsets Harry Reid's re-election plans is terrorism, indeed.

Salute Your Shorts: Godard, Truffaut and A Story of Water :: Paste
L'arrivée d' Sylvia Kristel
Badiou-101-for-the-rcpusa
On The Idea Of Communism: Badiou On Politics, Economy And The State « Kasama
The US maoists are reading Badiou, eh?

We electrified the guitar

If you haven't, do.

TGIF

Wouldn't mind taking this song out for a beer and seeing what happens, if you know what I'm saying.

The invisible hand of whatever

I doubt that anyone who reads this blog is a big fan of the "Market." Or at least the notion that the Market makes everything better. Still, on a micro level, supply and demand work pretty well. At least for determining what an item is worth. Let's say I "own" a house and I want to sell it. I put it out for bid, and people looking to buy a house tell me what they'd be willing to pay for it. Whatever the highest bid comes in at is what my house is worth at that moment. I've simplified, hopefully not to the point of uselessness.

There are times, of course, when a value needs to be put on my house without the mechanics of the market involved, say for tax purposes. In order to determine the value here, a neutral party, most often from the government, estimates what my house might be worth these days and taxes me accordingly. Now, you could easily argue - and people on the right especially often do - that the government is not neutral, because they have an incentive of over-value my house in order to collect more taxes. We all know that if there is one thing the government loves, it is collecting taxes.

Now the last person who should be relied on to fairly value my house is me, right? Especially in any meaningful way. For tax purposes, I am going to value my house at $4. If I want to borrow money based on the value of my house, then its worth at least $400,000. Right? We all know this.

So someone, anyone, please for God's sake explain the new mark-to-market rules to me. How in the fuck can it make sense to let banks, not the market, not the government, but banks themselves declare what their mortgage holdings are worth? Am I understanding right that banks are saying, jeebus, no one on the market wants to buy our house for anything more than pennies. And then they say, jeebus the government is saying our house is only worth pennies. But the banks want their house to be worth more. They need to their house to be worth more so that no one thinks they're poor and have no assests, so they are going to be allowed to say that their house is worth whatever they think it is worth? And then borrow money based on that value?

This seems like perhaps the dumbest idea ever. And I don't want to go too far down this road, because I am not a trained economist in any way, but isn't this solution (again) designed to get banks lending money to each other? So if one bank tells another bank that it has holdings worth, say, ten million bars of gold-pressed latinum, it can borrow from the other bank one hundred million bars of gold-pressed latinum. And in turn that bank can borrow even more latinum from the first bank! Yeh! Because what we have here is a liquidity crisis, not an exploision of a debt-based housing bubble, a lack of middle-class jobs, stagnant wages, an over-supply of housing (in some areas), individual debt such that it makes semse to lend money to nobody. Those are problems we don't have. Nope, all we have is a crisis of confidence. If banks are not forced (BY THE GOVERMENT!!!!!) to tell people what their actual assests are worth, but are, rather, allowed to make up whatever they want, then we will all be able to see that Bank of America and CitiGroup actually have lots and lots of money and we can all quit worrying and start borrowing and buying each others houses at wildly inflated prices again.

Seriously, someone tell me where I have gone wrong, because I am starting to sound like someone who raves about these things. I feel like I am one step away from advocating a return to the gold standard here and this not a place I want to be.

This is not going to end well

In times past there was a prevailing wisdom that the violence stemming from the drug war equated to just one drug dealer killing another and after they finished killing each other off, things would go back to being peaceful and all would be well— this theory is no longer valid.

Ah, "Moderates"

Looks like we lost Feinstein on EFCA as well. Dig this:

"I think in this economy that what has to happen is that the unions and management get together and try to see if they can work out something," Feinstein said.

Yes, because after management has managed to fuck this economy nine ways 'til Sunday, we need to make sure that they stay in charge of this thing. Wouldn't want to go nuts and make it easier for the workers to have a voice, would we? I mean, I am sure the anti-EFCA forces will be perfectly willing to make some compromises that are good for everyone. And why do I deeply suspect that the compromises will be something along the lines of "stiffer penalties for management when they break the law balanced by stiffer penalties for unions." In other words, more of this crap where we pretend like there is a level playing field and both sides need to work to make nice-nice. Fuck that noise.

Wait a tick

I am trying hard not to think about the fact that it appears that Obama just killed the unionized American car industry, or at least let it die. Trying very hard. I must say, however, that it is disheartening to read this:

President Obama announced Monday that struggling automotive giants General Motors and Chrysler will be given a "limited" period of time to "restructure in a way that would justify an investment of additional taxpayer dollars."

at the same time that I know that the government is spending $970 billion to buy up worthless mortgages in the hope that one day, maybe thirty years from now, they might be worth something (and then we can auction them off for pennies on the dollar!).

The US autoworker is about to take a giant kick in the metaphorical balls. What makes me cry is that, while I just read a whole lot about how bad Joe Finance has it because he might lose his million dollar bonus at AIG, I imagine I am about to read a whole lot about how Joe Autoworker had it coming because he wanted health care after he retired. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I'd also like to note for the record, before we get too far down the fuck road that Obama defended the AIG bonuses because there were in a legal contract, and here he is saying that UAW must again "restructure" its contract in order for the industry to get more bailout money.

Of course, when one looks across the aisle, what do we see? Fuck stick and Lex hero Senator Bob Corker. Here is a guy who looks at a situation where the auto industry is coming to the government begging for money to stay afloat and the government says, sure we'll give you the money, as long as you make some changes to your business (especially if you can figure out a way to fuck your workers, because worker fucking is fun for everyone) and this asshat sees the heavy boot of communism come crashing down on American capital.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee and member of the Senate Banking Committee, said this is a "major power grab" by the Obama administration.

"This is a marked departure from the past, truly breathtaking, and should send a chill through all Americans who believe in free enterprise. I worry that in one fell swoop we've lost our moral high ground throughout the global community as it relates to chastising other countries that use strong arm tactics to invade on private property rights," he said in a statement.

God bless the people of Tennessee, but do they really look at the situation with the US auto industry, and one imagines the firing of Rick Wagoner, and see a totalitarian government interfering with the fine, fine businessmen at GM? How can they vote for this guy?

Lord the hate feels good, now I know how Vader felt.

But back to the sadness. Is there anyone who reads this blog thinking Obama is doing well? Are we still cutting him slack? Anyone ready to cut the line? I'm getting very, very close and having a harder and harder time believing that it would have been all that much worse under McCain. Especially when I read shit like this.

Goddammit, I so wanted to have something to believe in.

Follow Up

I'm posting a follow up to my earlier post about that highlarrious "Union Thuggery" video posted on NW Republican. I spent a good part of the weekend posting comments with the fellas over there with Brown Beard and Wobs joining in. Anyone want to help out?

I think I saw that movie

This has to be one...........
the most original thoughts regarding the impact of socialism on society. I would've used it for the benefit of my children had I not already informed them of the LBGT community looking for the perpetual free ride. Information that I acquired as an adult, since I'm not LGBT, had to be disseminated to my children at an early age because I married a closet case that eventually colluded with the gay family court system. My children were able to observe first hand that LGBT children are not "born that way". Kudos on your economics lesson to the economically naive.

Before I Give Myself a Well-Deserved RugBurn

I'm in a horrendous mood: EFCA's fucked, fntsy bsbl is off to a false start, and my worst pangs are wholly unmentionable for the moment. Suffice it to say that the soothing, sleek seal that is the Sea and Cake's Car Alarm isn't even enough to calm my shit down. Whatever, I'll spin it again....

Anyway, all this shit makes Dean Baker's shit-talk-y, sardonic Beat the Press blog even more appropriate than it already always is. No matter how far we've all contorted ourselves in the service of sanctioning and/or "giving a pass" to these or those of the President's this and thats, I think we all do well to keep the raspier raps from Baker, Henwood, Frank and Reed close at hand --- even if it means my recycling new iterations of what're closely-held, nearly 'goes without saying'-y premises.

Par example:

The media are busy perpetuating a myth that the United States has been a beacon of "free market" capitalism. This is a lie. The United States never had free market capitalism and certainly the system in place over the last three decades hardly qualifies.

The U.S. put in place policies designed to transfer income from the poor and middle class to the wealthy. This is most evident now with the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent bailing out the banks. For the last three decades, the banks and their top executives, made vast fortunes using a free government insurance policy called "too big to fail," under which bond holders and other creditors could lend money to the banks knowing that the government would honor their debts if they ever got into trouble.

It is an outright lie to call this a "free market." This is a huge government handout. This insurance policy is enormously valuable and the banks did not have to pay a penny for it. The banks are ardent opponents of free market capitalism. None of them have advocated that they be allowed to collapse.

Crap/Not Crap - Pearl Jam Edition

All questions raised by the comments on the AV Club in a discussion of Pearl Jam's Ten.

1. Crap/Not Crap: STP at their best were better than Pearl Jam.

2. Crap/Not Crap: Mother Love Bone was good.

3. Crap/Not Crap: Screaming Trees were not very good.

4. Crap/Not Crap: Nirvana is a band you can like when you are "like 12 years-old," but Pearl Jam is the music for the true connoisseur.

5. Crap/Not Crap: Pearl Jam were not "really" grunge.

6. Crap/Not Crap: "Grunge" is just a media word that has no real meaning.

7. Grunge is most closely related to: a.cock rock, b.metal, c.hardcore, d.punk [sure indy rock should be on the list, but that's not the way the AV Clubbers see it]

8. Ten was part of the soundtrack of: a.middle school, b.high school c.college d. not terribly familiar with the album

Fantasy Baseball is a Metaphor for Similies

Well, Jesus fuckin' Christ, it's fntsy baseball time again. It's a time for Wobs, ex-OG personage Dave3544 and I, among a coupla-three chums from other walks of la vie, to engage in a months and months-long exercise of nervous clicking, scannning etc. It's a time for clunky nicknames and profane poetry - not unlike that of the OG, come to think of it - and a generalized, sports-y anxiety that you'd do well to taste for yourself.

What's that, you say? Not a fan of "baseball"? Well good for you, snob! 'Thing is, that has nothing to do with this. We need you kids.

Go here to sign on. League ID = 220900
League = Skin Kin 2009
Password = 'readyondayone' (remember the Hillary for Prez campaign? EZ does.)

Like eating a pound of chocolate

One of the ideas floating around about how to "fix" EFCA so that it is more palatable to one or two Republican Senators and some "liberal" "progressive" "vehemently anti-union" business owners is the idea that unions would be allowed equal access to the workplace when conducting organizing drives.

This sounds like a good idea, but is not. Let me tell you why.

1. It solidifies the "captive audience" meetings that we are currently fighting against. We think these are bad things. The employer should not be allowed to force its workers to go to propaganda meetings as part of their employment. We mean this for anti-union meetings, political meetings, religious meetings, or anything else. When the employer buys eight hours of work, that's what they buy, not eight hours of someone's life.

2. "Equal" means whatever the employer wants it to mean. The meetings with union organizers will be held in the basement, with no coffee, no donuts at 8:45 am on Monday. The meeting with the bosses will be held in the conference room with coffee, danish, and maybe, for those Friday afternoon meetings, with beer.

3. No matter how much time the union is given, it will not be equal. The union might have half-an-hour. The employer has the next seven-and-a-half hours in the day. We cannot win the captive audience game, so we shouldn't play it.

It is not a level playing field now and never will be, we shouldn't make it easy for the bosses to pretend like it is.

The motherfucking lid blown off of EFCA

All I can say is that

I was unaware of the negative consequences of EFCA when I wrote in support of it in the past. All I can say is that I put my trust in a certain individual who I, apparently, should not have trusted. In the future, I will do my own research before endorsing this type of thing.

This Fox News story is the tragic tale of a small plant in Indiana that suffered through an organizing drive conducted by the UAW. These factory owner asshats actually let their employees decide whether to organize a union via Satan's preferred method - card check. I think we can all see what's coming (we all watched the video, right? That makes it easier to see what is coming). Two! At least two people were harassed by some union THUG. We'll one of the women mentions that he was always there and she seems like she didn't like it, but she doesn't actually say that she was harassed. The second woman is pissed because people knew she was against the union and see seems to have been harassed by her co-workers, but still UNION THUGGERY PROVED!!!

And here's the sickening thing. At least 50% of people at the plant signed a card. A union was formed. Some percentage [at least 30%, although the story keeps vague about all the numbers. Maybe so that no one has a better idea of how this really works] of workers asked for a vote. The vote was held and the union was decertified. See how horrible EFCA would be? Union THUGS can harass people, intimidate them, and force them to sign union cards that they don't want to sign. Or, at the very least, card check would create more situations where it is easy to manipulate a story to make it seem like this kind of thing could happen.

And then what happens when these union THUGS!!! get their union by threatening to kill anyone who doesn't sign a card? What happens to these poor, frightened people? Well, they are forced to sign a petition to the National Labor Relations Board asking for an election. After some mandatory employee meetings, some video watching, saying goodbye to some longtime colleagues who were total dicks throughout this whole thing, and hinting to your bosses that your spouse is looking for work, you get to vote on decertifying the union. The similarities to Communist Russia cannot be overlooked.

Thank God the fine folks at NW Republican are on top of this stuff. I doubt very much that I will be falling for whatever Lex pushes on me next time (unless it is shiny.)

TGIF

For Lex, cause he's there.

Wow, Did We Just Lose EFCA? That Was Fast - In a Slow, Painful Way

*** Card check’s death? Did the legislative battle over the Employee Free Choice Act (a.k.a. “card check”) end before it truly began? GOP Sen. Arlen Specter’s decision yesterday to oppose the bill, even though he voted for cloture on the measure in ’07, dealt a blow to organized labor, denying them the 60 votes they need to end debate -- even if Al Franken ends up joining the Senate. We can tell you this: The White House appears to be happy (but very quietly so) to have this debate out of the way. No doubt they were for it. But it was always more of a Biden cause than a Barack cause. At this point in time, with everything else on their plate, sticking a finger in business’ eye wasn’t something the White House was looking forward to. Would Obama have signed it? Yes. But he doesn’t have to worry about it now, at least maybe not until 2011.

(from First Read)

I am really, really trying to avoid saying something about Arlen Specter's recurrent personal health struggles.

And I'm really glad to hear that those centrist Dems are off the hook for having to stand up for the labor movement.

Question: If this defeat is real and irrevocable, has it done more to dampen my (already flimsy) faith in the Dem/Labor alliance, or my faith in actually existing organized labor en general?

Question 2: Does anybody anywhere believe we can advance to a filibuster-proof majority by 2011?

('Better crawl back into the earthly comforts of my current undisclosed location, before I go ahead and join a Trot faction or the Air Force or some shit....)

You see the twist is that no one even knows any more, man

In short, it was an offer that no capitalist speculator could ever refuse.

Which reminds one of the scene from the film, The Godfather, in which the corrupt politician woke up with a bloody dead horse's head in his bed. It's a scene once again played with gamblers, corruption and politicians. Except this time there's a twist: It's the taxpayer that will wake up with the dead horse's head.

- Dr. Jack Rasmus, Professor of Political Economy

Author: Epic Recession and Global Financial Crisis, forthcoming Palgrave/Pluto Press, 2009

Which reminds me of the scene from the film, Red Dawn, where the father is standing behind the fence in the concentration camp and he screams "Avenge me, boys! Avenge me!" Except the twist this time is that it is the American taxpayer standing behind the fence and we're shouting "Screw the capitalist pigs! Screw 'em even if it means the complete disintegration and destruction of our society! A new world will rise from the ashes of the old!"

Which reminds me of a song I once sang.

Which reminds me of that scene on the show, The Simpsons, where Homer is at the Hullabalooza and there are two slackers watching him catch a cannonball in his stomach and one of them says "Oh, that's cool" in that way that slackers have and the other one asks, "Are you being sarcastic, dude?" And then the first one says "I don't even know anymore, man." Except this time it is everyone who reads this blog who doesn't know what the hell to think about the bailout because on the one hand screw the fucking capitalist dogs, but on the other hand it would be really nice not to have our nice little lives destroyed by a depression.

National Review blawg re: EFCA 'compromise'

Over at the Corner, the "Committee for a Level Playing Field"'s proposal scores something like a "not not not crap," which supports the OG consensus that the Starfucks/Whole Shit/CostFilth troika is more in league with the NAM/US Chamber Of Commerce camp than with everybody the crap else:

The three companies' compromise bill rejects both of EFCA's most noxious elements — card check (or abolition of the guarantee of a secret ballot) and mandatory arbitration. What it does include is an assurance of greater access for unions to a firm's employees during a unionization election, and increased penalties for employers who break the rules. Their proposal would be much less harmful than EFCA, but at the same time it unnecessarily concedes the false premise that the reason for unions' decline is procedural rather than substantive — i.e., fewer workers feel the need to belong to them.

Some will criticize these three companies for catering to their latte liberal customers (at least in the case of Whole Foods and Starbucks) and using this as a public relations exercise to show that they are the good guys. And this may be in part true, but it could have been much worse. There were fears, when this alternative was still under development, that it would include some form of card check.

I don't understand what was so great about it

LGM is running a series of posts comparing Brad Delong's optimism about the Geithner plan with Krugman's pessimism. LGM doesn't add a lot, so this is merely a hat tip.

I find myself in the Krugman camp, mostly due to the influence of Dean Baker. I believe that housing prices in the US were wildly overinflated and that many millions of people will continue to struggle to pay their mortgages and then won't when they lose their jobs. Loans will not be paid back. Toxic assets are not currently undervalued (I didn't realize people we arguing this! I am slightly horrified. I guess I need to follow more links.) The way out of this recession is not through reinflating housing prices. God no.

As I always say though, happy to be shown I am wrong.

One thing that makes me think Delong is deluded (Chris Matthews ha!) is his belief that the hedge fund managers who are planning to buy the assets and manage them to eventually recover their value are supposedly not going to fuck it up because they have $30 billion of their own scratch in the game. Somehow this incentivizes them to not fuck it up.

Q: Why is the government making hedge and pension fund managers kick in $30 billion?

A: So that they have skin in the game, and so do not take excessive risks with the taxpayers' money because their own money is on the line as well.

Q: Why then should hedge and pension fund managers agree to run this?

A: Because they stand to make a fortune when markets recover or when the acquired toxic assets are held to maturity: they make the full equity returns on their $30 billion invested--which is leveraged up to $1 trillion with government money.

Q: Why isn't this just a massive giveaway to yet another set of financiers?

A: The private managers put in $30 billion and the government puts in $970 billion. If we were investing in a normal hedge fund, we would have to pay the managers 2% of the capital and 20% of the profits every year. In this case, the private managers' returns can be thought of as (a) a share of the portfolio's total return proportional to their 3% contribution, plus (b) a "management incentive fee" of (i) 0% of the capital value and (ii) between 0% (if the portfolio returns 3% per year) and 9% (if the portfolio returns 10% per year)--much less than hedge-fund managers typically charge. the Treasury is only paying 0% of the capital value and 17% of the profits every year.

Q: Why do we think that the government will get value from its hiring these hedge and pension fund managers to operate this program?

A: They do get 17% of the equity return. 17% of the return on equity on a $1 trillion portfolio that is leveraged 5-1 is incentive.

Oh, is that how it works? If they didn't stand to make so many billions they just wouldn't really put the ol' brain power to it, but with billions in profit on the line, they will really get the juices flowing for us? I mean wtf? And aren't these the same McGenuises that just screwed the pooch? Were they just not trying before? Isn't it traditional that when the US gets in financial trouble it "hires" the best and the brightest for $1 a year? [How 'bout we call them dollar-a-year men? Brilliant!] See, the thinking here is that people don't need the incentive of billions in profits derived from government-backed leverage in order to save the American economy. If the American economy is saved, they will make money along with everyone else. If it is not, then no one is making money. It is already in their interest to help save the economy.

For all of these reasons, this plan looks exactly like a big gamble using leveged government dollars wherein the only people who will end up making any money will be the Wall Street finaciers who just happen to have one of their own in a position of power.

And I am off my rocker here, but why the fuck is Krugman not part of this administration? Let's offer him billions to help us out here.

Primary Text from......wow, Dean Baker!

t r u t h o u t | A.I.G. Bonuses: Class War in the Media

Of course, the bonus money is relatively small change in the scheme of things. The same people who think it's fine to give incompetent financial company executives multi-million dollar bonuses are busy crafting plans to hand several thousand times this amount to the same crew in their latest bailout scheme. They are saying that if this plan doesn't go through, the economy will be wrecked.

Just to be clear (because the media won't tell you), the people who designed this plan are the same people who wrecked the economy. Before anyone even thinks of supporting this plan, they should get a clear answer from Bernanke, Geithner, and the rest of the crowd to the question: "When did you stop being wrong about the economy?"

Fuck Starbucks, Fuck Whole Foods, Fuck Costco

Costco, Starbucks, Whole Foods Present Alternative Labor Plan - washingtonpost.com
(H/T: AP):

As business and labor gird for battle over legislation that would make it easier for workers to organize, the debate could be transformed by a "third way" proposed by three companies that like to project a progressive image -- Costco, Starbucks and Whole Foods.

Like other businesses, the three companies are opposed to two of the Employee Free Choice Act's components -- a provision that would allow workers to form a union if a majority sign pro-union cards, without having to hold a secret ballot election, and one that would impose binding arbitration when employers and unions fail to reach a contract after 120 days.

To all our readers who aren't necessarily immersed in the labor movement: this is an attempt to get you, the highly-educated, conspicuously consuming progressive, to identify with these corporations against unions, workers, rising wages, workplace democracy, and something like a for-real check on corporate largesse. At this point in the Employee Free Choice Act debate, y'all's hearts and minds are endlessly more important than those of us laborite nerds. If you don't feel like this Employee Free Choice Act has been defined to your liking on this blog or elsewhere, or if you would like some specific, anecdotal illustrations of how the present process of forming a union is tailor-made for employer intimidation, please say so. Point blank: this bill is the last best chance for workers -- and I am including anybody who works for wages, here -- that we will see during the Obama administration, let alone whatever Jindal or Udall or whatever-the-shit administration will follow.

Nobody reading this blog loves coffee, Ryan Adams cds, organic produce, fake meat products and cheap Ric Flair dvds more than me; but never mind what they're selling, eh? It's what you're buying. The US Chamber of Commerce is betting that NPR fans and Gen X ur-hipsters identify more with their latte store and its liberal arts semiotics than they do with the folks who brought us the weekend -- which side are you freaks on? Are you primarily a consumer of steamed milk or a worker, like other workers, who figures 40+ hours a week of whatever-the-fuck merits economic security and, shucks, the right to do your job and have a say at work without fear of employer behavior that can be alternately arbitrary, patronizing, charitable or cruel, but which is always, as it stands in the non-unionized workforce, damn near unfuckwithable?

GOP grammar

Meanwhile, don't look now, but Nancy Pelosi and the Obama Administration is busily working to build up a debt larger than our country or any country has ever seen.

--Michael Steele in a written e-mail

There are not two Americas

Just so we're clear here...

If you're a US auto worker, it is pretty much your fault that your employer has decided to build large, crappy cars no one wants to buy. It is also your fault that your employer decided in the 1950s to oppose government-run health care in favor of employment-based health care, driving up their costs. It is also your fault that your employer engaged in decades of profit taking and dividend paying instead of reinvestment in the company. These things are your fault because you are in a union that has managed to negotiate you a wage that supports a middle-class lifestyle. This wage will be hype-inflated by including all projected future retirement benefits so that this country's right-wing media can say you earn $70 an hour. In order for your industry to get a government bailout, you have to agree to a pay cut and a reduction in future benefits. You are a greedy, grabbing, no-future-seeing asshole who could easily be replaced by any other Joe Lunchpail in America.

On the other hand, if you are an executive at the American Insurance Group, then you are a hard working slob who just happened to walk into a very fucked up situation. You are doing your best to bailout an company that was totally messed up when you got there, and now some government bureaucrat is talking smack about you receiving a bonus for not quitting, even though you are going to be allowed to actually keep all of it. While others only have to fear for their jobs, you have to fear for your life. For fuck's sake, some crazy union people plan on driving on public roads past your house! Union people!! Despite the fact that you earn well more than a middle-class wage, no one in this nation's media will actually mention what that wage is, let alone translate it into an hourly wage. You are a brave, brave person who can't begin to understand why this is happening to you. You are providing this nation a valuable service doing your best to oversee the spending of $85 billion dollars, a job that, if anyone else on this planet could do it, no one would want to. Not without some sort of million dollar bonus, anyway.

Krugman on AIG

full article here:

I’ll leave to others the question of who knew or should have known that the bonus firestorm was coming; but it’s part of a pattern. At every stage, Geithner et al have made it clear that they still have faith in the people who created the financial crisis — that they believe that all we have is a liquidity crisis that can be undone with a bit of financial engineering, that “governments do a bad job of running banks” (as opposed, presumably, to the wonderful job the private bankers have done), that financial bailouts and guarantees should come with no strings attached.

This was bad analysis, bad policy, and terrible politics. This administration, elected on the promise of change, has already managed, in an astonishingly short time, to create the impression that it’s owned by the wheeler-dealers. And that leaves it with no ability to counter crude populism.

The man has three houses to pay for

I was writing a post last night wherein I discussed wingnut attempts to pin the AIG debacle on Obama, even though their boy Bush was the one who gave AIG the $85 billion. Some very, very fine weed and a shiny box with moving pictures distracted me. One thing I commented on was the undercurrent of argument that the people who were getting the bonuses were just poor, hard-working slobs who had nothing to do with the crisis, and Obama was terrorizing them and making them fear for their jobs. It was the bit I didn't think anyone would buy, as I have often been accused of "reading too much into things." In my own, completely unnecessary, defense, I give you the Washington Post.

I understand Obama's railing against the bonuses -- but I think he may be making a mistake, both short-term and long-term.
...
Well, because in the short run, hammering the AIG employees to give back their bonuses risks costing the government more than honoring the contracts would. The worst malefactors at AIG are gone. The new top management isn't taking bonuses. Those in the bonus pool are making sums that for most of us would be astronomical but that are significantly less than what they used to make. Driving away the very people who understand how to fix this complicated mess may make everyone else feel better, but it isn't particularly cost-effective.

Yes, it really would be a tragedy if these hard-working Joes, the backbone of American industry, were driven away while their industry was collapsing and thousands of qualified people, who have not been part of destroying a financial giant, were looking for work.

Jesus Christ driving a turnip truck.

It gets worse, though. While Joe Sweat-Argyle needs his promised bonus, Joe Lunchbox at UAW can go take a leap. Yes, he has been forced to renegotiate a contract, but that's a future contract you see, so it's cool. He's already been paid for what he has done, if he doesn't like the new contract, he doesn't have to show up to work. It's just that simple.

There you have it, the nation's liberal media at work.

h/t: LGM

I got nuthin'

Not that anyone cares, but I apologize for falling off the map. I have been swamped with my teaching... (I always said I wanted to teach research methods, and I did, and do, but it is a lot of work, and it is like teaching a foreign language to many of these (last semester) seniors.)

Obama is in socal. He will actually be in Pomona tomorrow, at an electric vehicle experimental site (which I had not previously heard of) and then at a pseudo town hall meeting in downtown LA.

I showed my media class the stewart/cramer bit. and we were discussing why cnbc had no real obligation to anyfreakinbudy but their owners... and the class has been debating whether Guvmint control of the media is the only (best) alternative to the status quo corporate media.... whadda ya'll think???? I gave modern bbc as a positive example, and pointed out that in 11 European countries the gov't owned media is the number 1 rated channel, but they seem skeptical to put it mildly...they can't seem to envision how pbs could be #1....
(sorry for the slang, but it is how I type when grieviously organized)

Menage a my dreams

DF: Oh yeah. Carl Reiner and Bette Midler. How do you turn something like that down?

We all feel like that sometimes

I feel like Scooby-Doo tilting his head when he hears Grandpa rip a loud one. Hmnh??

Dig it

I'll go to my grave arguing that Eve of Destruction is one of the all-time great songs.

prisonship/_OG_ material self-inventory of things/events/places/etc.

1. courtney's dissertation defense: a blogger and a unionist and a social constructivist, courtney kicked a shitload of ass today. felicitations, hero!
2. grace is enough exhibit, Valerie Davis Haug and David Siebert, at Ditch Projects: Probably the best 'party' I've had in some many months, notwithstanding all of the earth-shifting-ly sonorous, sound and incisive drawings/paintings happening all around me. David Siebert's series of painterly canvasses came on like Leroy Nieman having his way with somebody's beach house portrait of a salty sailor or drunk harbormaster -- but blown up, as mentioned, into a way more theatrical size. Valerie Davis Haug is a charming hostess and supportive interlocutor of mine, as well as a kinda Exorcist-y, kinda Flannery O'Connor-y horror/satire terrorist who works, among other things, with markers and shit.
   
3. neil halstead, live at le Doug Fir: ahem, I was drunk at this shit, and once again reminded that I needn't ever again labor after attaining any sort of acoustic/dour thing: this guy's got it covered, and I'm a plate of goddamn yams.
   
4. springfield, OR: thank you, Springfield, for reminding me to look between the grocer and the grocery outlet; the diner and the luncheonnette; the strip club and the strip club and the strip club. thank you for anonymity and a none-too-highbrow, totally-fine-with-me township where i can spend my time of elevator-shaft-induced exile.
   
5. babylon's burning by clinton heylin (pic above.) i'd've preferred to've put the cover of the book above, but the cover suffers from its association with this book's dreadful subtitle: 'from punk to grunge' seriously? this couldn't've been the decision of Heylin, awesome author of the awesomely subtitled, awesome From the Velvets to the Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History for a Post-Punk World. this book picks up in places where its absolutely crucial, aforementioned predecessor didn't go, like pre-1977 London, and pre-pre-1977 London. apparently I really need to hear some records by, say, Dr. Feelgood, Ian Dury, Radio Birdman, the Avengers, the Ruts, etc. Maybe some of you can help me with starting out on this stuff? On the US side, I've learned lots of LA punk and lesser-known NY action. 'Only halfway through and already I'd say that this, Velvets/Voidoids and Jon Savage's England's Dreaming are the "punk books" to be assigned before anybody should go near Greil Marcus or Azerrad. As Heylin acknowledges in the acknowledgements, this book was half-written out of a desire to usurp the place taken by several famous, rather opinionated and through-a-glass-darkly books about punk. He's a god for doing us this favor. Babylon's Burning - and the accompanying cd box set, I'm sure, which I'd love somebody to, y'know, buy for me - belongs in the "'bestuv genre" genre.
   
6. current persona-conflagration of lex dexter/pattyjoe/crazy jimmy/Rick: = cosmo from chinese bookie, ric flair, todd barry, elliot gould qua marlowe. (as quoted on twtr: "my heroes aren't actually 1970s movie-sleuths...but they're the best exemplars I've got to turn to for this kind of 'living.'")
7. gabba-on-the-go: gabba takes hardcorefornerds into the TUMBLR pile!
8. recent media appearances: a) Permanant Campaign, live on voicemail... hey, write in the comments if you happen to've gotten one of last Saturday's special song-messages! this last Sat., brown beard and i spent an r-rated, still-drunk afternoon phoning out cover classics all over the USA. it's a good thing i don't have gabba's phone number, or somebody'd've gotten a completely incoherent cover of "Washer" and overlaid with Southern-accented belching. Setlist, as I remember, included: "Remedy," "Tumbling Dice," "Head Over Heels," "Theme for an Italian Restaurant,".... what else?!?b) [pictured above, from l-r: 'PC' John Hodgman, funnyman Paul F. Tompkins, songstress Aimee Mann and Pharmacist Ted Leo, workin' it at the Best Show telethon...] two Tuesdays ago I pledged to TBSOWFMU, and had my name ("Patrick from Eugene, Oregon") read over 'dem WFMU airwaves. tom Scharpling thanked me personally, and even responded to my silly request to have the godlike Jon Glaser bring the character of 'Google' back to the airwaves. if somehow at this point you still don't get where I'm going with the worship of the TBSOWFMU, maybe you should just check out this perfect Stereogum tribute to the show, replete with a story about the self-same episode during which i made my all-important media appearance. seeing how i literally trembled while listening to the podcast of the show some two days after my call, i do not imagining ever having the courage to call in to the show, and thus will have to consider supporting it through monetary means.
   
9. twtr: seriousy, you should follow me on twitter. i don't care if you don't wanna "tweet" yrself - fuck, why would'ja? but, seriously? do you like what Lex writes, maybe? but, shucks, maybe you think I get a little 'flabby,' here and there? well guess what, tigerlilies? that's because my true chosen form may in fact be that of twitter's 140chamax milieu. seriously, just sign up and read my twtr. pick some weird pseudonym, email me, and then you'll be able to watch lex fall down a really short flight of stairs. don't worry, i really won't tell anybody that you're doing it; instead i'll just compel you to read kyle, wobs, dave3544, ted leo, hodgman and, of course, scharpling's threads. (seriously: i'm not going to hassle you to read my - wait for it - impending, actually-existing, hardbound zine when it drops. i'm just asking you to do this one thing with me.)
   

Let it be known

You do not fuck with little Johnny Stewart.

A trenchant critique of altruism

In a display of über-objectivist praxis, the Ayn Rand Institute kindly requests your donation.

One of those moments

Should the thought that Happy Gilmore could have probably gotten a loan with which to buy his grandma's house, at least after he got on the tour, have occurred to me a long time ago or not at all?

I'm sure none of us saw this coming

It seems that a mother's burgeoning political ambition isn't the solid foundation for a marriage that some thought it would be.

p/p, m/f, socialisme ou barbarie

Public/private is a hegemonic border within the political culture of capitalist societies, intended somehow to delineate proper divisions of labor between government and capital, between politics and the economy. The discourse has proven irrepressible, even as these intended distinctions prove themselves impossible at the levels of political economy and everyday life.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Notwithstanding Pat "fuck political spin, I care about results" Buchanan, I personally think that the "Rush Limbaugh as head of le GOP" frame is brilliant work by the White House - you?

Sen. McCaskill Rips Hypocrisy on Earmarks

This is a poorly edited (albeit an 'official') clip, but:
1) Claire McCaskill is an under-celebrated Senate badass who needs to up her OG profile; and,
2) She exemplifies the new, '2009' tone of les Dems, which as far as I can tell may actually include "trick plays" like calling the Republicans liars and thieves.

Where I'm at these days

Zombie islamofascist unionists!

While I have my (strong) disagreements with how SEIU runs its organization, I give full props to their media operation, which is top notch, and they've been producing some great pieces about the Employee Free Choice Act, like this one:

"With malice for being a sty:" Listening to Spiderland Horn

Clinton Pessimistic on Iran Outreach - washingtonpost.com
I was once a young man with squarely chopped locks. I was once an older man who sung about myself as a younger man. What's your bleeping provenance?

New spin on vinyl: Bundled MP3s - Mar. 2, 2009
Sometimes I think that the combination of bundled mp3s and the new Administration is enough to make 2009 one promising sunovabitch. Sometimes I stay out late and slippy-dip with the lads in the lanes.

Firedoglake » Things Rahm Left Out Of His Love Note To Himself
The Limits of a "3 Minute Rahm" in Obama's Kitchen Cabinet - The Washington Note
Are you an activist or an operator? Have you ever heard of the Tuxedo Killer, who would periodically require his victims to say "I love you" if they were to be afforded a merciful evisceration?

Very Few Small Business Owners Would Face Tax Increases Under President's Budget
I should start a distro operation that specializes in 7"s from 1990-1998, if only to honor this here lax tax.

NPA, "Let's Do It, like the Workers of Guadeloupe and Martinique!"
Once I heard a Castro-ite (?!?) from Dominica and an evangelical/black nationalist/Trot trade unionist from Guadeloupe debate whether I was an angel or just a "young man." This was next door to a barbed wire-d Club Med.
‘Socialism!’ Boo, Hiss, Repeat - NYTimes.com
Socialism is the new socialism, kids. Take the good with the bad: an exotic political desire called 'socialism' lives on, even in mainstream US newspapers. But it does so in the shape of an unconvincing, Hollywood movie shark.

Rahm Emanuel Discusses Rush Limbaugh on Face the Nation

Rahm.
Say what you will about Rahm's sketchy congressional NAFTA-ish-ness and his relatives' completely distasteful comments about Israel/Palestine: Rahm is a DYNAMITE OPERATOR when it comes to the (not necessarily ideological) arena of framing/discourse/spin.

Crap/Not Crap: BHO's "All-at-Once" Strategy

[See the "poll" on the "right," alright?]

This (admittedly rightward-ho!-ish) explanation of the all-at-once strategy is from the Note's Rick Klein:

This week an ambitious President Obama continues his move from what he must do (the economy, Iraq) to what he wants to do (healthcare, energy policy) and what he’s judging that he must do again, and again (AIG is the latest back at the federal till).

Using that sky-high popularity for what it’s worth (and then some), Obama is pressing ahead in a brash style, telling his opponents he’s ready for battle, calling them on hypocritical statements as quickly as they’re doing the same to him, and choosing more fronts, not fewer.

This is what he was elected to do -- though not necessarily all at once.

Now, piece by piece, Obama is taking ownership of problems he inherited -- not just from his immediate predecessor, but from decades of calcified politics that couldn’t deliver breakthroughs on the biggest issues of the era.

The pile-it-on strategy (just last week, remember, he said he was ending the war, fixing the financial meltdown, and curing cancer) signals an early evolution for a president who’s struggled with his own definitions of bipartisanship and effective governance.

More than ever, he looks like a president who will succeed spectacularly or fail miserably.

How much is too much?

I suppose yr answer to this question hinges, maybe, on whether or not you think the "all-at-once" srtgy. really is BHO's strtgy. I think it is, and I think it's "not crap," but you tell me...

I do not claim to know what the next six months of legislative combat have in store for us, but I think this tack is the White House's best bet for beating down the politically insane but tactically effective lockstep marching of the Congressional Rs.