Absences

You know, I haven't been blogging lately, and I'm pretty sure then tens of you who come to this site have noticed. It's not for a lack of material - lord knows that people on both sides of the aisle have been making spectacular jackasses out of themselves lately, although the Republicants have certainly held the lead.

It's not that I'm tired of doing this either. You can ask anyone who knows me; I love ranting at the morons of the world and have no fear or shame when it comes to doing so.

I am also a family man, with one child in his last year of living at home and another going through puberty - a spouse with a bad back and a new cat named appropriately after the bad guy from Mordor. All this while launching a new venture and trying my best to keep my musical mojo on track.

In short, I've been busy. Also in short, very little of what I say hasn't been said by other people - some smarter, some wiser, some funnier (although rarely all three). It's just that there isn't a conversation happening about these things. There's shouting on the right, an attempt at reasonableness on the left, and shouting is what is getting broadcast. The talking heads and villagers of Washington are so out of touch with reality that those of us living in the real world cannot even understand them anymore. David Brinkley you felt was one of us - even with his halting speech patterns and sly snobbish chuckle. The David Gregory Muppet? Not so much. The political media has become its own tribe, and like most tribes has become insular - and this is hurting us.

People like me are looked at as fringe, kooks, and somewhat batshit insane. Maybe so, but no less so than those with the 6 and 7-figure incomes attempting to tell us what to think.

There needs to be a new way to do this, and this has been pouring through my brain for weeks now. It needs to be eye-catching, ground-shattering, and something that will get people back and involved in the conversation. I'm pretty sure I know what that is, but I'm not so certain that I'm the right person to do it.

I need to think it through - so there may be gaps in my blogging. Go have a snack. I'll be back soon.

Cheap shots:

I love Bill Nye. This other fucking moron talking with him? Not so much.

Yes, it matters, you dumb bitch.

Especially if he's not smart enough to understand this Venn diagram.

Someone find me that Craigslist ad!

They don't want God in government - they want Christianity in government. given how much they actually distrust government, why aren't they afraid that government will screw it up and imperil their souls

Glenn Beck, you are a racist fucking pig.

A few days ago a Republicant congress-critter complained that people were shooting at them. Actually, it seems that they're only shooting at Democrats.

Speaking of Beck, when he left TV I sent him a brief e-mail thanking him for his efforts and signed it, "The Caliphate". I'm going to forward the same to this idiot.

Someone please tase Eric Cantor in the nuts.

Faux "News" learns a lesson about the shit we dump in the sea.

And because I love you, The Kinks

They used to hang people for this shit

Okay, now that the dust has settled and the Senate Democrats caved on the FAA extension (although it looks like the Transportation secretary is going to play Lone Ranger on this one) and everyone is going home for a month I have a question to ask. What the hell just happened? How the hell did we just let our entire political process be hijacked by people we didn't ever cast a vote for?

Our representative Democracy is supposed to be made up of two governing bodies. At today's date they are made up of a body of 435 Representatives, and another of 100 Senators. Thanks to the resolution that just got passed extending our ability to pay our bills that we didn't even need, that august body of 535 has now been whittled down to 12 for the purposes of financial matters. 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats - 3 of each from each house. Now here's where it gets tricky.

All this Legislative Jury of 12 needs is a simple majority in order to make things happen. If they can come to a simple majority of 7 people then whatever they say goes and it moves to the President. If they can't agree then automatic cuts go into effect that no one has legislated. So these 12 people are going to fun the fucking country.

No let's parse that down a bit: 6 of those people are Republicans, and a certain dickhead named Grover Norquist has been assured by leaders of both houses that the people appointed will be people who have signed his pledge to never raise taxes under any circumstances. Think about that for a moment. 6 of these 12 have put the fiscal whims of this man above the country they swore an oath to. They used to hang people for shit like that and now they're put in charge of everything. They have instead sworn allegiance to a man who believes that government should be drowned in a bathtub.

And now there's the other 6. Leaders of the Democratic Party are already saying that everything is on the table. Well, let's take a look at the past couple of years and parse out what that means. It means giving the Republicans what they mostly want. As proof positive of this, the Senate leadership is considering appointing Max Baccus or someone similar to him - a blue dog - who often votes with Republicans and has been known to flirt with Mr. Norquist as well. All it takes is one vote like this and it's game over.

So, the country is now run by the ideals of Grover Norquist? A man who has never run for elected office and has never held a post in government? Screw the Koch brothers and their money, the real power has been handed over to this dumbshit. People, the reason we only let elected officials run things is so that if they screw up we can get rid of them and replace them with someone hopefully better. How do we dump a dumbshit like Grover Norquist?

And yes, I know what I'm talking about when I call him a dumbshit. He's a fucking moron. He continues to spout ideas that the past 10 years have repeatedly disproven and has taught all of his disciples that spending less is the same thing as smaller government. Does anyone under the age of 30 remember a time when Republicans wanted government to be smaller so that it was more efficient?

WHO GIVE A FUCK HOW BIG GOVENRMENT IS IF IT'S WORKING!!?!!???!

Unless people take to the streets and put the safety of the American Governmental experiment ahead of their own lives - unless we have protests like we see in Egypt, France, Greece, Russia and other places - peaceful protest - unless we as a nation get off of our fat asses and do something, it's over.

And until the last few years, it was fun while it lasted.

Cheap Shots:

Can we use the Cheesehead Democrats as a model?

After a while, don't the sheer volume of "Isolated Incidents" turn that phrase into a lie?

Matt Damon rocks!

Bitch.

Woah. It means nothing at all, but it's still cool.

Write your own headline about Santorum and Jelly.

We don't hit gurlz!

I despise the current governor of New Jersey. I think he's an awful man. That said, this bit of speech by him is downright awesome and deserves applause.

I wonder if Mike Hucksterabee has been hiring the same animators in Korea that Jon Stewart does when he lampoons the news for the Daily Show. They have the same level of truthiness.

Mr. President, I'm several years younger than you and I've been receiving these e-mails for years.

And because I love you, Randy Newman

Work slow-down

I don't even know what to think anymore. This deal that got worked out regarding the debt ceiling over the weekend is such an insanely bad idea that I can't imagine anyone rational supporting it. The asylum is being run by the inmates - and just the stupidest and craziest ones.

It seems to be the prevailing wisdom on the left hand side of politics of saying, "meh - it could have been worse". Way to go Baby Boomers, you've accepted the slacker generation's motto and incorporated into stuff that's actually important - which even the slacker generation doesn't do (which is the whole goddamned point).

Let me explain something. I manage money for a living. That's my day job. I process billions of dollars worth of pipeline personally and oversee the equivalent of the economy of a small town. I'm not an economist - I actually work for a living. I watch the policies be put in place and I see how the implementation of these policies affect the goals. I'm saying this so that you understand that I'm not just talking out of my ass here.

This plan is like logic took a holiday. I can tell you from having run the economies of various projects that cutting spending NEVER makes sense when you're trying to create jobs and results. Cutting spending slows things down. Period. Simple. If you have a car loan and you start paying $50 per month less on that loan then it's going to take longer to pay it off, and you're going to accumulate finance charges. That's what we're doing here. We're going to wind up spending less thanks to budget cuts and the economy is going to slow down, and it's going to cost us more money in the long run.

Why can't any of the morons in congress understand this? It's simple? A 4th grader can get the concept!

And the idea that tax cuts create jobs is such complete bullshit. I have to ask when does this process start? These fucking tax cuts have been on the books for a decade now. Where are the fucking jobs?

I don't understand this at all. Being so wed to ideology that you accomplish nothing or in this case create further damage is NOT what we are paying these people to do. This is Darwinism on a geopolitical scale and it's going to turn out badly for all of us.

And it's so damned easy to fix. Raise some fucking revenue and the rest will work itself out! I just don't understand these people.

Cheap shots:

Of course, it could be that they're just trying to create an intellectual new class of hooker.

Get back to work you bums!

This will probably doom the already doomed Huntsman campaign, but for the record I don’t think she's even slightly hot. I think she's Tammy Fay Baker; the early years.

If you really believe this then you're a fucking idiot.

This has the potential of being good news, but I'm sure there are a dozen ways they can fuck this up so that it is even worse than before.

Pam Geller is a dripping hate cunt. And I use that particular expletive so very rarely. But she and others are fund-raising on the murders of children. Fucking pedophiles.

Tar Baby? Really? Are you fucking kidding me? TAR BABY!!??!!?!!?

Funny, ACORN never did shit like this.

The dumb being the blind.

Texas Pride.

I've said it before and I'm saying it again now - no Socialist gives Timothy Geitner a job.

And because I love you, a-ha