Blogger Bitch Of The Day

Any one else observing this phenomenon, or is a cross that only we must bear?

Dude, Like, X-Tremely X-Treme!!

The Transformation of Michele Bachmann

Today's must-read piece: Ryan Lizza profiles Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

"Bachmann belongs to a generation of Christian conservatives whose views have been shaped by institutions, tracts, and leaders not commonly known to secular Americans, or even to most Christians. Her campaign is going to be a conversation about a set of beliefs more extreme than those of any American politician of her stature, including Sarah Palin, to whom she is inevitably compared."

And former half-term Alaska Gov. Palin does have rather extreme views, including (possibly) the delusion that she's this century's Queen Esther of Biblical fame. It probably is fair to say that Rep. Bachmann has read a bit more of those tracts & so forth than ex-Gov. Palin, may have a more coherently delusional (or delusionally coherent) political/religious view of these United Snakes, & may be better able to express said views. Not sure if Bachmann's ever attended any pray-away-the-demons events at whichever church she's attending this wk., or at the one she attended for many yrs. before suddenly switching, however.

Hey, maybe if we read the New Yorker piece we could get some idea.

Also: Bachmann piece in Tina Brown's Newsweek this wk. Should provide a contrasting comparison of quality, standard & style.

Holy crap, crazier looking than usual:

Michelle Bachmann on the Campaign trail, Chris Buck for Newsweek

Juvenile Humor Dep't.

Looking for Mickey Kaus? He may be around here somewhere.Technical question: Why the fuck can't the techno-brainiacs make a 'phone (or whatever the fuck this was shot on) w/ a 4:3 aspect ratio? Telebision is better than ever (Definition & aspect ratio-wise. No implications as far as content.) but the Internet & stupid 'phones are returning us to the days of movies seen through Jell-O™.

Live By The Sword, Reap What You Sow

Tottenham riots: Police 'had not anticipated' extreme violence

Met police commander Adrian Hanstock says situation in north London suburb 'escalated out of all proportion'

They commit it, but they can't anticipate it. For once projection could be useful, but no.

Annals Of Advertising (American Iron)

From excellent source of stuff Mark Evanier:Haven't watched yet, but we'll bet every one on camera is now moldering in his or her grave. Nope, Robert Vaughn is still w/ us.

Something New II

Also noting that Chrome has a new & better pop-up blocker. So far (Once, anyway.) it's stopped the pop, rather than merely minimizing it to the taskbar.

Spot The Loonies

How counties went in the 2008 Goofy Obscurantist Party primaries:

Those on the other side of the Great Divide must live like rats in a cage. See how tiny & pathetic their counties are?

The electoral college vote.

Something New

Not quite sure about Chrome/Blogger or whatever suddenly deciding to bring the background of all the crap we copy & paste into items.

Whatever.

Gotta Love It

The police get to murder people, then can't be bovvered to show up to stop the resultant civil unrest.

There was still no police presence at Wood Green high street at 4am, even after dozens of stores had been smashed and raided, setting of multiple alarms.

Around 100 youths sprinted around the highstreet, targeting game shops, electrical stores and high-street clothe [sic] chains such as H & M.

A shame that it is disaffected, alienated youth who show up to loot, shoot & wail, rather than committed activists. Just once we'd like to see all the aggression being directed at the pigs, their vehicles & structures.

Of course, business & property owners do bear the ultimate responsibility for police murder & lesser police atrocities in any capitalist, free market, whatever society.

Psycho II

Our fave Jimmy Stewart line: "That don't mean dirt to me now!"And because we can:

Psycho

Robert Ryan fans (You know who you are.) are advised that The NYT has a piece on the actor, pimping for a series at NYC's Film Forum.

That said, and granting that one can catch most of Ryan's movies in various home media, howzabout Elvis Mitchell gets a hold of some of these flicks for his new gig curating LACMA's weekly film series? (Big screen, baby.)

Something we didn't know: Ryan was some sort of commie in real life, & one of the founders of Oakwood School, which appears to be cranking out commies to this very day.

Tip o' le chapeau to.

Police Terror In The Militarized Society

Trouble in Tottenham, furor in Fullerton.

OFF THE PIGS!!Literally:

Kelly's father, Ron Thomas, a retired sheriff's deputy, said he expects to file a civil suit over his son's death in the near future. He has called for the chief to resign and all six officers to go to prison and, in at least one case, to receive the death penalty.

Or at least "Jail killer cops!"

And on the schadenfreude front, how's that 'thin blue line' crap working out for you & yours, retired deputy?

The Response: What Was The Question Again?

As mentioned immediately below, "Joanne & her fellow 'middle class,' know-how-to-wear-their-baseball-hats (Caps, actually, Joanne.) types don't look as if they like to miss too many meals. Or snacks."

Weigel's caption: "Fasting was optional."

Image from David Weigel, thanks to Balloon Juice. We all know Dave's a Journo-list commie, so take it all w/ a grain of salt. Selected for Slate. More, from his flickr stream. (Get a real camera, sonny.)

Defining The Middle Class

Joanne Butler is a senior economics fellow at the Caesar Rodney Institute of Delaware.

And here is how her economic perspicacity plays out:

I laughed out loud at the little airplane endlessly circling above the parking lot while towing this banner: “GOV — KEEP CHURCH-STATE SEPARATE FFR.ORG.” It would seem those atheists don’t care about their carbon footprints!

The crowd was well in excess of the 8,000 who had previously registered; the numbers may have reached 30,000. Although most attendees were white, the crowd included significant numbers of Hispanics and African-Americans. It was a younger crowd than I had expected — much younger. While there was a smattering of cowboy hats in evidence (hey, it’s Texas), I was pleasantly surprised to see nobody wearing backward baseball hats or baggy jeans. Another surprise was how few people were texting, checking their emails, etc. If this is Rick Perry’s base, it’s solidly middle class.

We'd guess them them to be solidly lower class, because they can't afford smarty 'phones to check their fucking e-mails or text their inane bullshit to their fellow cretins.

"Actual" research:

Afterwards, I had a fascinating conversation with the manager of a Houston diner. The Washington State native didn’t attend the event but thought it was “nice” that Perry was hosting it. He then talked enthusiastically about how Perry’s policies had kept the Texas economy strong in spite of the recession (one bit of evidence was the diner’s packed parking lot) and said the nation should give Perry a try — and that Perry was going to get his vote for sure.

Just a guess, but the diner may have been awfully close to the event, which might just, maybe, somehow explain the packed lot afterwards, as Joanne & her fellow "middle class," know-how-to-wear-their-baseball-hats (Caps, actually, Joanne.) types don't look as if they like to miss too many meals. Or snacks.

Additional: We saw another of Joanne's little piles some time ago & almost went off.

‘I used to be drunk, but now I’m bipolar’

6:31 PM 05/21/2011
“I used to be a drunk, but now I’m bipolar.” A guy who was applying for Social Security disability benefits once said these words, which sum up the problem with this entitlement program. (more)

Her mastery of economics is matched by her knowledge of psychology, the deal here being that once this guy stopped self-medicating w/ the booze he was able to start dealing w/ the bi-polar disorder he'd previously been dealing w/ by drinking. All a big scam to Joanne, naturally. Not an "entitlement" program, either. It's Social Security Disability Insurance, a payroll tax-funded, federal insurance program of the United States government. What an awful person. Imagine "I used to be a fattie who couldn't stop stuffing my ugly face, but now I'm bi-polar," coming out of her fat yap.

Reconsidering Our Options

Have hiked Eaton* Canyon before, & have been planning to do so again. (On a weekday, 'though. Fucking losers w/ "jobs.") But two fatal slip-&-falls in a wk. are turning that have been into had been.

*Named after the Eaton who was a mayor of L.A., & ancestor/relative (can't remember the exact relationship) of our friend Barbara? Doubtless named after the Eaton family, at least.

Blade Runner Prequel

Latest addition to the downtown Los Angeles skyline: The Ritz-Carlton. At night the edges are illuminated in neon.

Wknd. Muzik Wrap-Up

Worst gigs ever, per those who agreed to discuss w/ The Guardian.

These tunes not (necessarily) associated w/ bad gigs:NEW MUSIC POSTING CRITERIA: Nothing by honkies*, & nothing post-1980.

*Exceptions may be made for hicks, 'necks & crackers & their authentic tunes of rural suffering.

Hugh Hefner Found Dead In Mansion

Few details available, but here is a photo of the corpse:

Delusional Lunatic Round-Up, Multi-Media Version

Read here, or waste your time (Unless you're a moves-your-lips-while-reading moron like most of the theocrats under examination.) listening here. Or watch & listen:

Priorities

Just laid-off Chicago Times/L.A. Tribune NBA beat writer Mark Heisler, who was advised of his termination while on vacation:

Five days later, I went downtown to turn in my company ID, laptop, Blackberry and American Express card. Unfortunately, my ID card no longer opened gate in the parking structure. They had already turned it off, along with my access to the Trib’s virtual network, my email account and, of course, health insurance.

I should point out that, believe it or not, I’m not angry about this. At 67, I was only going to work one more season and they just gave me the whole thing off, with pay, through April.

All that notwithstanding, I’m sitting in my car, behind the closed gate, marveling at the company’s efficiency, thinking, "If only we were as good at newspapering as we are at dumping people….”

Not that there'll necessarily be an NBA season for him to work anyway.

What. The. Hell?

May not be a joke/lampoon/satire.

Here We Go ...

Where we stop, nobody knows.

BEIJING—Global stock markets tumbled Friday amid fears the U.S. may be heading back into recession and Europe's debt crisis is worsening. The sell-off follows the biggest one-day points decline on Wall Street since the 2008 financial crisis.

Oil extended sharp losses to fall below $84 a barrel amid expectations a slowing global economy will undermine demand for crude.

In Europe, major markets fell, adding to losses Thursday. London's FTSE 100 declined 3.5 percent to 5,393.14 and Germany's DAX shed 3.8 percent to 6,172.00. France's CAC-40 lost 2.5 percent to 3,238.80.

Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average slid 3.7 percent to 9,299.88 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dived 4.6 percent to 20,877.74.

China's Shanghai Composite Index lost 2.2 percent to 2,626.42.
Losses today have been indiscriminate," said IG Markets strategist Ben Potter in a report. "The big question on everyone's mind is what will happen across European and U.S. markets tonight and will there be any form of emergency policy response?"

©2011 The Ass Press. Come sue us, ass pressers.

What's The Rush?

Southbound on the 110 at 1550.

In case you didn't get it because
you didn't enlarge the shot above.

P.P. Hotel

This dump (Gawd knows when it was last an actual hotel, if ever.) has a place in the history of Los Angeles punk action, when it was still known as an Elks Lodge.

Not the Asbury (Didn't our friend Shirley once live there?) the Babylonian edifice w/ the statues.

Erick Urks On The Horse's Ass Race

You just can not fool Erick Erickson for very long, can you?

This race is as fluid as ever and more and more interesting. The list of candidates is also getting shorter. I no longer see Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, or Thad McCotter as viable, adding each to the list of former candidates.

Quite the judge of horse's asses, isn't he? We'd be awfully surprised if Thad McCotter himself ever thought he was "viable." But Erick doesn't let up on the keen analysis:

But now we have to take Rick Perry seriously, keep an eye on Sarah Palin, and also glance at Rudy Giuliani. The Horse Race is getting interesting.

Here's the picture Erick likes to attach to his in-depth analysis:

Above doubtless taken before he decided to show National Nanny Michelle Obama that she'd better not suggest anything about diet & exercise to him!!

The More You Know

People bitch & moan (All the time about everything, & why the hell shouldn't they? Everything is made out of shit & we are all dying.) about Catholic dick, racist & former Nixon flunky Pat Buchanan's continuing employment at the Mighty Sorry, No Body Cares network, but we're all for it.

After all, it's no worse than FOX News hiring a bunch of pathetic pseudo-leftists to provide counter-point (Balance!) to the collection of reactionary droolers FOX News puts on every day & wknds.

Indeed, it seems to us that it's a public service to give the pants-shitting creep a platform to expose himself & his fellow-travelers on the path of hate & fear. From Politico, via TP.

FIRST LOOK – “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?” by Patrick J. Buchanan, out Oct. 18 from Thomas Dunne Books:

--Chapter 1, “The Passing of a Superpower”: “Ignoring the real causes of racial disparity in home ownership – age, income, length of residency, and the credit ratings of mortgage applicants – the Bush administration plowed ahead in the same suicidal direction the Congress had set out on years before. Community bankers were pressure to make mortgages to home-buyers who could not qualify under standards set from decades of experience. … We are not the people our parents were. We are not even the people WE used to be. FDR was right about what would happen if we did not get off the narcotic of welfare.”

--Chapter 2, “The Death of Christian America”: “Obama’s White House … enlisted in the long and successful campaign to expel Christianity from the public square, diminish its presence in our public life, and reduce its role to that of just another religion. Cultural power in American long ago passed to an anti-Christian elite that rules the academy, Hollywood, and the arts. Secularism is now America’s state religion.”

--Chapter 4, “The End of White America”: “A rebellion is under way in America: a radicalization of the working and middle class, such as occurred in the Truman-McCarthy era, during the George Wallace campaigns, and in the anti-amnesty firestorm that killed the Bush-Kennedy-McCain push for a path to citizenship for illegal aliens. What all these movements had in common was populist rage against a reigning establishment. … Why the alienation of Middle America? … They sense that they are losing their country. And they are right.”

--Chapter 5, “Demographic Winter”: “The reason the West is dying is simple: children are no longer so desirable. The child-centered society has been succeeded by the self-centered society. … [H]aving one child … means a more rapid death and disappearance of Western man.”

Lift that rock & take a good look at what's squirming down there.

"Yesterday"

Is the tune she was playing after the guy stopped talking to her & we began our descent into the bowels of the Red Line.

Buttermilk Sky

Wasted Yrs.

Eleven of them ('84-'95) down the hall from the cash vault in the third sub-basement (So we can't show you our window.) of this bldg.

The blue panels under the larger windows were maroon in our day.

In the rear. Used to eat lunch from the cafeteria there.

The Holiday Inn that occupied the southern part of the block is now an apartment bldg. We wonder if it's all one room dumps w/o kitchens, or if conversion happened.

Could Be A Bargain

Here's something you don't see every day.

Tourist info.

UPDATE (1725PDT 8 September 2011): We scooped 'em again!

Rent Is Theft: Defend Yourselves!

From the Daily Breeze website.

Police are looking for Darryl James Stamper, 49, who is suspected of recently beating his landlord.

The victim was beaten when he asked Stamper for his rent money. Stamper told the landlord, "No," and punched the victim numerous times. The victim suffered broken bones, police said.

Stamper is 5 feet 7, 150 pounds, with blond hair and green eyes. He has a tattoo of a clown on his right shoulder.

Anyone with informationLow-life squealers whose tongues will be cut out by the Peoples Committee on Justice for Landlords should call detectives at 310-726-7900.

Who's the fucking victim in this case anyway, Moneybags the Slumlord, or the person coerced by the explicit threat of state violence to pay "rent" to some fucking parasite? Huh?

Monsoon Clouds

Seen over the Park Plaza Hotel.

Funny, but we don't remember the weather weasels calling such conditions "monsoons" (There were occasional drops of water hitting us from above.) until fairly recently. Also don't remember such conditions that often. Not that our memory means anything.

Security & Stupidity Follow-Up

We grabbed something about what a collection of arrogant assholes our beloved warrior caste is a few days ago. Now, more proof how effing ignorant & arrogant these bastards are.

Especially amusing in light of the military policy that, among others, the cowardly murderers who fly drones from Nevada to shoot & bomb the other side of the world are not to have their last names used in the media because of all the Shariah law infiltrators in the U.S.

FTA. Still applies 35 yrs. post-Vietnam.

Another One Bites The Dust

If you know Brick or give a shit you've already gotten this link in your e-mail, but what the hey, we'll let others in on it.

We'll also guess he won't be heavily edited at IRoM.

Hey, Don Heckman has the picks o' the wk. there.

Do not need a review of Peter "The Hose"* Frampton, however.

*Credit: Flo & Eddie.

Gotcher "Moonbeam" Right Here

If you fucking shitheels had nominated Jerry Brown in 1976 instead of Christian Cracker Carter we might never have had to deal w/ the destruction of these United Snakes that the "amiable dunce" Reagan began under the control of his corporate masters.

He compared the Republican Party to the Catholic Church he encountered as a young theologian. “This budget reminded me of doctrines, from back when I was in the seminary,” he said. “If you’re 15 minutes late to church, you could burn in hell. That’s how Republicans are about taxes. There’s a fanaticism. They are deeply stuck in a no-tax identity that is almost now, on the national level, a religion.

" 'No taxes' is a central dogma in the new Republican church. You can’t deviate," he said. "They won’t burn you at the stake, but they’ll recall you ... nobody up here has the courage or cojones to do anything about it," he said.

You get what you deserve, Americretins. We hope all you assholes old enough to have voted then don't have any Social Security when your turn comes around.

Plutocracy Up-Date

Sad fucking truth that some know/admit, but most deny:

Trust is not in oversupply today. The United States has largely ceased to be a democratic republic (which is to say, a republic whose officers are validly elected by the demos, or commonality, of the community), but has become a plutocracy dominated by moneyed interests.

This is the result of (1) elimination by President Reagan of the existing Federal Communications Commission requirement for equal access to the public media by candidates for office (a system in which a Fox News, as presently constituted, would have no place); (2) the 1976 Supreme Court decision declaring money spent on political campaigns as a constitutionally protected form of free speech; and (3) more recent Supreme Court decisions banning restrictions on campaign funding and declaring business corporations “persons” with full constitutional rights to unlimited “free speech.” It is difficult to see how these changes and their consequences for American constitutional government can be reversed. The foreign implication is that the United States is no longer the political society it has, since World War II, been understood to be. This undermines the world’s trust in American democracy, and the American economy.

One could add the selection/appointment of G.W. Bush by the Supreme Court in 2000, but what real difference does it make? The party's over, & we know whose fault it is. Vengeance is all we can hope for at this point.

You Couldn't Make It Up If You Tried

Had to leave the bunker today, which means pix. Here's a crazy person on a stage talking about Jee-ziz to an audience of rocks.

Buchanan Again

At (4:55).Note also how Pat is all droppin' his "g"s & saying crap like "throw me in the briar patch." Condescending racist asshole.

Later: Beaten to the punch, it appears.

Cavalcade To The Cellar*

As this is not a radio or telebision operation regulated by the FCC, we can send personal messages that would be illegal were we using the public's airwaves instead of Google's broadbandwidth.

That being said:

Former Bums of Brooklyn 56, Current Bums of San Diego 2.

We'll probably be eating those words tomorrow when the suck-fest between the two worst clubs in the NL West will continue.

*Like a Stairway To The Stars, except not quite.

Vote Fraud In Action

If these actions by Americans For Plutocracy aren't illegal, why the hell not?

Now, Politico is reporting that AFP has mailed absentee ballots to Democrats in at least two Wisconsin state Senate recall districts with instructions to return the paperwork after the election date. The mailers, obtained by reporter David Catanese, instruct reliable Democratic voters to return ballots for the Aug. 9 election to the city clerk “before Aug. 11.”

Americans Are Exceptional

An exceptional source.

Related?

1966	Charles Joseph Whitman shot and killed 14 people at the University of Texas before he was gunned down by police.
1981	The music video cable channel MTV made its debut.
1988	Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh began broadcasting his nationally syndicated radio program.