Sportin' Life Recap

L.A. Dodgers, L.A. Kings & L.A. Angels (of Anaheim) at Dodger Stadium w/ the Stanley Cup.

Not shown: L.A. Galaxy, current holders of the MLS Cup.* Also not shown: Punk-ass chump losers L.A. Lakers.

More visible cup, fewer visible Angels.

Kings defenseman Rob Scuderi holds the Stanley Cup
over his head at Dodger Stadium.

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*Maybe Los Angeles could get a championship in an American sport one of these days?

Racial & Religious Hypocrisy

Yes, a dog bit a dude today, & in other non-news items, a schmuck typing at Commentary (not this one, but you get the idea) is suddenly all in favor of welfare for fundamentalist Jewish parasites.

You know what else they possess? Staggering quantities of public assistance. Take the overwhelmingly Hasidic Kiryas Joel, the poorest place in America. As the Times reported last year, “half of [its] residents receive food stamps, and one third receive Medicaid benefits and rely on federal vouchers to help pay their housing costs.” And boy, do they have children: The median household in Kiryas Joel has six people, and the median age is twelve. Many of its men learn Torah full-time instead of working, and the community’s low high-school graduation rate would be even lower if its religious schools had real academic standards. These kids are hardly being “socialized to the world of work.” And it’s not just Kiryas Joel: back in 1996, at the heart of “welfare reform,” a full third of Williamsburg’s Hasidim received public assistance.

Welfare is, and has been for some time, a crucial ingredient in these communities. While Hasidim take care of their own, they also get taxpayers to take care of them. Like Israeli Haredim, Kiryas Joel’s Hasidim vote together to secure, for instance, a “luxurious 60-bed postnatal maternal care center… built with $10 million in state and federal grants.” Off the record, New York City officials admit that Williamsburg’s Hasidim “work the system,” and experts who don’t have to be reelected come out and just admit there’s widespread fraud. As Shmarya Rosenberg has argued, the Haredi birthrate, to be sustainable, requires large and consistent infusions of cash from outside. In Williamsburg, welfare really is a lifestyle.

Hey. You know who else called certain people parasites? We aren't saying he was right, but we aren't saying he was wrong, either, if you know what we mean.

No mention of fundamentalist frauds sponging from taxpaying job creators would be complete w/o mentioning the Fundamentalist LDS Church & their (in)breeding of cretins.

Old Timer Religion

We're being generous if we think we'll be here another 30 yrs., so indications that the generation of little creeps who could be our grand-sprogs are wising up don't mean dirt to us.

Could they have made a crummier or harder to read graphic?

By the time the megachurches are turned into rave venues & the Catholic parishes have been demolished & the ground beneath them plowed under & salted (for obvious reasons) our corpse will have been dissected by a med student. Oh, also the planet will have become a slagheap, so what fucking difference does any of it make, really?

Word Of G-d

Via international smutmeister Mick Farren, more reasons to despise American sheep.

"More than 80 percent of born-again or evangelical Chris­tians believe that "God helps those who help themselves" is a Bible verse.

"More than half of graduating high school seniors guess that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife, and one in ten adults believes that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. (Those two must've been multiple-choice questions.)

"Almost two-thirds of Americans can't name at least five of the Ten Commandments. Some of these people, moreover, are outspoken promoters of them. Georgia representative Lynn Westmoreland, cosponsor of a bill to display the Ten Com­mandments in the chambers of the House of Representa­tives and Senate, could remember only three when Stephen Colbert asked him to recite them on The Colbert Report."

Really, fuck every one of you ignorant pieces of hypocritical shit. If we didn't feel that virtually all activity is an imposition on us we would have started thinning the flock long ago. Lamb chops!

Plus which: A Mormon gets pissy, via bjkeefe. A note to the Mormies: Your bullshit church lies about how many of you there are. Don't get too carried away w/ the illusion of power, you theocratic fucksticks. Mountain Meadows, any one?

Questions, Questions, Questions ...

Any technological geniuses who are always telling us what to put in our devil-box have any suggestions about wireless mouses? As a power-user*, we seem to run through about one a yr. Are we fated to blow approx. US$20.00 on a new mouse every yr. from now until the sweet release of death?

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*By which we mean we sit on our lardy ass all day & all night & all afternoon pressing our lead-finger on the damn thing.

Lambs To The Slaughter

Why we are completely justified, indeed, righteous, in our utter contempt for America & Americans:

When this pyramid of debt collapsed in 2008, the Rumpelstiltskins of Wall Street kept the gold while America’s middle-class families got stuck with straw.

Strangely, what anger there is about this financial shakedown of the middle class is largely misdirected toward Barack Obama and Big Government, even though the current president had nothing to do with creating the disaster and a lack of government oversight, not too much government, was a big factor in the debacle.

More strange, perhaps, is the easy acceptance of the new status quo. Convinced that the American Dream is the best dream possible, average Americans, unlike Europeans, find a way to blame themselves when their dreams take a big hit. Their style is to “take it all week on the chin with a grin” and not expect to be “runnin’ much of anything.” A cozy family, a softball game and a few beers with their buddies seem to be enough to satisfy.

In some ways, I admire that attitude. Life should be about the people you love and the simple pleasures, not a constant get-rich scheme. But it seems to me the working people of the United States have done their part for two decades. They have worked longer hours, they have become more productive, they have taken pay cuts, they have given up jobs to downsizing and outsourcing and have taken on two lesser jobs to make up the slack in the family budget. In the process, a vast amount of new wealth has been created but almost none of it has trickled down to the men and women who have done the hard work.

The enormous gap in wealth in this country is not fair and it is not healthy, either for the future of capitalism or of democracy. But don’t expect a revolution. The country song ethic will keep most folks quiescent, if not content. They will work even harder, keep sliding backward and “call it all livin’ the dream.”

We just don't get it. What is missing from the American mind? Why do the sheep want to be sheared? What will wake them up?

Taking Our Life Into Our Hands

Spent the last seven eternities looking for anything on the Internet about which we could possibly say something mean. No satisfactory results, so we decided on something else to shock us from the numb: Short term risky eating.

Will we survive to tell the tale?

Nostalgie De La Boue

Chez M. Door Tree,

Exploitation Movie Posters 1928 ~ 1968

Uni-Book ~ Universal Giant ~ Royal Giant ~ Beacon 1951 ~ 1966

Super Clap

From "the world's humanitarian news site," Supergonorrhea!

[Blah blah blah somebody blah blah] said the increase in cases of superbug strains meant there was a risk gonorrhoea may become an untreatable disease in the near future.

The proportion of gonorrhoea cases with resistance to the antibiotic recommended to treat the disease, cefixime, rose from 4 percent in 2009 to 9 percent in 2010.

The ECDC report follows a warning from the World Health Organisation that virtually untreatable forms of drug-resistant gonorrhoea were spreading around the world.

Dance Hell Style Super 12" Disco 45

A Reminder

This fuck

"I suspect that many in the Obama administration really don't believe in private enterprise. At best, they see business as something to be endured so that that it can provide tax money for government programs," said Jindal.

is the elected governor of a sovereign state, & his beliefs include demon possession & exorcism.

Please Mitt please: Cap't. Underpants/Anchor Baby 2012!!

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

At Whiskey Fire (as Thers is off inflating grades) we're going nuts w/ photos that haven't been seen in this space.

Wknd. Gasbag Recap (M.B. Edition)

SOS here at ground zerobrand headquarters, but we've been on a roll lately w/ the commenting.

Not stopping:

Not that long-time Internet acquaintance Aunt Snow can be considered impartial, but we thank her & Mr. Edroso. (We'll be getting a copy of that lurid book as soon as the rest of the cable bill's paid off.)

They're Just Fucking W/ Us, Right?

Previously on ...

Also, what the hell have they done to New Zealand?

Rearranging the continents w/ a certain three-nationed continent in the center of the new constellation we can see (Africans & South Americans may be a little colder than they're used to in this particular scheme 'though.) but it seems wasteful to cover both islands in junk like that. They left Ireland right there, f'r crissakes! (Let's just pretend we don't even see what's going on w/ Jutland.)

The usual about microwaves & one's head exploding by accident.

Horned tower in center is atop the bldg. in pix 2-4,
& frying our fillings as we type.

Thank You

About fucking time:

But do stop talking about your television friend, Don Draper, and his television world as if they mean something in the world-world. Upper-middle-class, college-educated people have this guilty compulsion to invest the TV programs they consume with cultural significance, and to blather on and on about them.

Guess what? You're Trekkies. That's OK, though. What's wrong with Mad Men isn't that it makes you boring. What's wrong with Mad Men is that it also makes you stupid.

We stand behind no one in our admiration for telebision & its mystic powers of healing & sleep-inducing, but give it a rest, over-ejimicated effete elitists.

I'm Looking Through Communist Eyes

Dep't. of Not Knowing Or Caring:Extra amusing while the commie at the end prattles on in commie? The robo-captions. (You'll have to turn them on. Not referring to the Swedish subtitles when the local yokels are on.)

Best From A Distance

Shake it to the east

shake it to the west.

Hell In A Hand Basket* Dep't.

Sayonara Mlle. McArdle, & even the business section at The Atlantic is safe:

The other, even-more-disturbing explanation, is that Republicans see the rich as worthy members of society (the "producers") and the poor as a drain on society (the "takers"). In this warped moral universe, it isn't enough that someone with a gross income of $10 million takes home $8.1 million while someone with a gross income of $20,000 takes home $19,000.* That's called "punishing success," so we should really increase taxes on the poor person so we can "reward success" by letting the rich person take home even more. This is why today's conservatives have gone beyond the typical libertarian and supply-side arguments for lower taxes on the rich, and the campaign to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich has taken on such self-righteous tones.

This just goes to show how pathological the Republican Party has become. It would be so much simpler, more logical, and more politically appealing if they would just draw a line against higher taxes for anyone. That's what the Taxpayer Protection Pledge does, and it makes a certain amount of sense, even if I think it's bad policy. The fact that Eric Cantor feels compelled to go out of his way to talk about raising taxes on the poor shows how the nasty instinct for class warfare is undermining what should be a simple, small-government agenda.

*Those are at 2011 tax rates, including the employee's share of payroll taxes, assuming that the rich person makes $2 million in salary and $8 million in capital gains. Note that the effective rate of 19 percent is still significantly higher than those of Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett.

Not that Megatron is off the radar; she'll be sharing servers w/ David (Lest we forget: "Axis of Evil.") Frum, who presented charts to the class.

This is handy. Henry Blodget of Business Insider compiles in one place the charts showing the ominous divergence between the fortunes of working America and ownership America

Not that the arguments of savages fighting over their shares of a pie that is about to turn to shit in & at their hands are going to make any difference. In the long run we're all boiled alive.

Localized ecological systems are known to shift abruptly and irreversibly from one state to another when they are forced across critical thresholds. Here we review evidence that the global ecosystem as a whole can react in the same way and is approaching a planetary-scale critical transition as a result of human influence.

Ha ha. (Oh, alright. If you're not a subscriber, a recap.)

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*Or: Link Dump Dep't.

Mood Music

Sleepy time. (Pardon the stupid hippie smoking mushrooms there, but the shitheads at GoogleTube have discovered the phrase "Video player is too small.")Now wake the fuck up: It's Saturday & there's a lot to do.Ol' bastard Scratch Perry's still faking it, can't you at least pretend you still give a shit?

The Other Side Of The World

Took a walk along Cesar E. Chavez (formerly Brooklyn) Ave. in East L.A. todayyesterday. [Already? — M.B.] (The closest location to obtain an authentic L.A. County death certificate. Five yrs. ago it was possible to do so in convenient to us & many others downtown Los Angeles, of all fucking places, you know, w/ all the other gummint bldgs.? But no longer. Price is up two Yankee dollars as well.)

Quick & easy summation: Like Echo Park but spread out, & pre-hipster/gentrification. (Matter of time? That would probably imply an unsustainable hipster overload.) Barely worth efforting any shots (or we were too numb from existenceexhausted from walking a few blks. to get much inspiration, if you can call it that).

Workers return to their dormitories on the 710.

Not

moving.

Mordor, viewed from the east.

Window Cameos Of The Mostly Bat-Dead

Convert, Or We Put Out Your Eyes

This sad sockpuppet for his parents' neuroses or worse has been around the Internet for his 15 mins. of fame twice already, but one may occasionally miss things while retrieving one's jaw from the floor.This caught our attention when we read it (Try it sometime!):

“When you’re trying to teach them the word of God and they consider it bullying, yeah, I find that a big problem with not being allowed to convert other people to my religion,” he said.

The devil-inspired First Amendment: Big problem. (Solution? THEOCRACY NOW!)

It's not entirely fair to pick on a picture of a young man whose testes can't be more than half-way to useful, but he's already chosen to present himself like a spinster aunt who's had the same same-sex housemate for 20 yrs.; we merely present the image.

Puka shells or pearls?

Mayan Calendar Up-Date

Dunno (or care much) what humanity may be tipping planetarily, but the species is about to push us over the edge.

One of the many things setting us off is that we just spent two hrs. looking for something extra-stupid or horrific enough to justify murder & couldn't find anything adequately awful but readable. What is wrong w/ you people?

Golden Dawn: It Can't Happen Here

From the Guardian:

Greece's pre-electoral climate has become more explosive after a high-profile neo-Nazi MP assaulted two female politicians from leftwing parties on live TV. The brawl, a first in the nearly 40 years since democracy was returned to its birthplace, broke out during a morning talkshow when Ilias Kasidiaris, the spokesman of the far-right Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) took umbrage at deputy Rena Dourou declaring that his party "will take the country back 500 years".

After leaping from his seat and throwing a glass of water at Dourou, a deputy with the radical Syriza party, Kasidiaris then turned on Liana Kanelli, an MP with the KKE communist party, who, waving a piece of paper, stood up to condemn the action.

As the cameras rolled, the cropped-haired Kasidiaris, a weightlifting enthusiast, who had served in the Greek military's special forces, is shown lashing out at Kanelli slapping her around the face three times as she threw up her arms in self-defence. Shouting "No, no, no," the talkshow's presenter, Giorgos Papadakis, then tried to intervene but within moments other guests present said the MP had fled the studio.

Strictly action:"Bar, bar, bar" until (1:10).We'd expect this to happen sooner or later on one of the Sabbath gasbag programs we are exposed to in these United Snakes, but realized the likelihood of an elected Republican official "showing some mouthy broad what for" is almost zip, as so few women appear on those gabfests. Maybe the Sunday show bookers aren't deliberately ignoring the ladies, but doing potential centrist-Democratic female guests a favor.

Accidental Gull

Hollywood Goes To War

TYRONE POWER: Besides being a famous actor before the Second World War, Tyrone E. Power, Jr. also served in the Marine Corps as a pilot. While overseas, First Lieutenant Power flew R5Cs, and was assigned to VMR-353 where he transported wounded servicemen from Iwo Jima and Okinawa to Hawaii—a flight always requiring a fuel stop on Kwajalein. On at least one occasion, Lieutenant Power dropped by VMB-613's compound to say "hello" to his friend from Officer Candidate School, VMB-613 Adjutant, First Lieutenant Arthur H. Navarre. While visiting, Lieutenant Power toured the squadron area, accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Nevils. Photograph: U.S. Marine Corps, Arthur H. Navarre Collection (Courtesy of Diane Hindy)

From a mess o' photos of Kwajalein during WWII.

As we watch it all go to hell, we can comfort ourselves for a few minutes w/ our one-time industrial might, & how we could cover an entire atoll w/ Quonset huts & jarheads in a yr.

NORTHERN END OF KWAJALEIN: Looking south, a general view of the crowded northern section of Kwajalein Island shows the extent of building that had occurred since the capture of the island one year earlier.  The lagoon is located on the right, while the ocean can be seen in the background. Photograph: U.S. Marine Corps (Courtesy of Frank E. Acker)

Speaking Ill

Never a big fan of the suddenly late Ray Bradbury; more a fantasist or fabulist or something than actual science fiction hack so ...

Big fan of his refusal to drive, even in the absurdly spread-out SoCal landscape. We probably agree w/ some of his public transit ideas. (Jet-packs hell, where are the monorails?)

And good for him, we suppose, that he hit 91, although this chunk o' text we lift from one of our many sources for "Hollywood" is yet more indication that knowing when to check out, or at minimum when to get the hell off stage, can be as important as success in the first place.*

If I asked him something new, the interview went nowhere. He had no new stories of any interest. He did have some political views he wanted to express but his daughter and others close to him asked me to, for God's sake, do what I could to steer him away from those topics.

They were...odd. And obviously the result of advanced age, medical problems and emotional responses to some personal tragedies. I suppose they would be called right-wing viewpoints, though every smart Conservative I know would race to distance themselves from Ray's views on, for example, how a woman should feel honored if a strange man came up and pinched her ass. There were others that were well into Glenn Beck territory...though Ray not only clearly believed what he said, he believed the mere fact that Ray Bradbury said it meant it had to be so. I took to telling friends, "If you wroteThe Martian Chronicles, you may be a redneck." It was one of those jokes you say to try and wring a smile out of a situation you find troubling. I finally had to beg off the interviewing job. I admired the man so much and felt such gratitude for past kindnesses that I couldn't bear to be around him in that condition. It was for the same reason that I won't attend a funeral with an open coffin.

NB: Excellent advice, although one is not always advised as to the coffin's potential state. (One doesn't have to look, either.)

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*Or not. In the long run:

If you could erase the last decade or so from the record, as I suppose time will eventually do

We Have Never Been So Disappointed

You people are fucking dead to us:

The Stainless Steel Spider

Election 2012

Inviting, innit?

Next block, slightly older school.

RFK

The Memorial Parkway is located on Wilshire Blvd. in front of the site (now a high school) where Sen. Kennedy was plugged 44 yrs. ago today.

These Names Do Not Mean What You Think They Mean

At the new home of Megan McArdle, John Avlon sez:

The California Republican Party has a long and distinguished tradition, from Hiram Johnson to Earl Warren to Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to Pete Wilson. It was once the quintessential big tent, though it contained plenty of ideological disagreements. Most important, it won elections, appealing right and center.

Then a quote from another deluded soul:

“In California it’s possible to find thousands of people willing to wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning, dress up in chicken suits, and wait in line all day just to watch a taping of Let’s Make a Deal, but the California GOP can’t find one termed-out state legislator, redistricted congressman, or dot-com weenie willing to run against Dianne Feinstein,” says John Phillips, a host at talk radio 790 KABC in Los Angeles.

“The same party that brought the world Dick Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Pete Wilson could now nominate a woman for statewide office who is bat-shit crazy. It’s beyond embarrassing; it’s suicidal,” Phillips adds. “The California Republican Party is officially in the Terri Schiavo stage of its life.”

Yup, Tricky Dick Nixon the paranoid, washed-up actor turned GE spokesmodel Reagan & Pete "Prop. 187" Wilson. Remember when "Pito Pete" was the great Republican Presidential Hope?

They'll Do It Every Time®

Every yr. we get the vote-by-mail pkg. & ignore it until election day. Then we still have to visit the precinct to drop it off. Saves a stamp, & we don't have to wait in line to punch the chads mark our ballot, but farther than the corner post box.

A look at the sample ballot & we see the polling place is much farther than the long blk. away it was last go-round. Budget cutting, we suppose.

Lesser of infinite evils

Judicial & District Attorney candidates: Virtually every one is an incumbent or a "Gang Homicide Prosecutor." (Quantification: Of 16 Superior Court candidates, three are incumbents, three are "GHPs." Also: three "criminal prosecutors" [one "retired"] a criminal "trial" prosecutor, & a child molestation prosecutor. Plus a "domestic violence litigator." [Pro or con?])

Correct Again!

As seen here (via TBogg) we pegged it!

Is this the end of McArdle?

And with that, I'll say so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye.  Be nice to the guest bloggers.  I'll miss you all.

Is it too much to hope she'll fade away, never again to darken the pages of The Atlantic? It would be irresponsible not to speculate. (And not to cross one's fingers & knock on wood. While holding one's breath.)

Book-typing leave is a wonderful way of easing out a public embarrassment. Whichever of the guest-loggers gets the most hits or raises the biggest stench will get his/her (We'd guess her: Quite the sausage fest at The Atlantic's "Voices.") own by-line; perhaps the pretense of guest blogging under Megatron's picture will continue, but w/in mos., Jane Galt's easily-distracted claque will have latched on to a new diva/o. Then it will be safe to make the pursuing-other-interests (desperately trying to find a publisher) announcement, savingThe Atlantic from the outraged squeals of the McAddled.

Can't fool us for long!

Not Illinois

Not So Fast There, "Whitey(?)"

Who's this schmuck kidding?

"The problem of the infiltrators must be solved and we will solve it," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month, in remarks aimed at calming protests against migrants in Tel Aviv.

[Interior Minister Eli] Yishai, of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, told the newspaper Maariv on Friday he saw the African arrivals, many of whom are Muslims or Christians, as a demographic threat.

"The infiltrators along with the Palestinians will quickly bring us to the end of the Zionist dream," Yishai said, adding that Israel had its own health and welfare issues. "We don't need to import more problems from Africa."

"Most of those people arriving here are Muslims who think the country doesn't belong to us, the white man," Yishai said in the interview with Maariv.

Aryeh Eldad, a right-wing lawmaker, urged Israel to order its troops to open fire on any infiltrators who penetrated its borders, rather than only at those suspected of being armed.

Only a matter of time until racialists on this side of the world replace "illegal aliens" w/ "infiltrators." Some of those racialists will probably be having a good laugh at the Interior Minister's concept of whiteness while they're appropriating.

1000 Words Worth

Thought we'd have to dig into some of our crummy but un-manipulated-beyond-cropping images for an obligatory daily item, but we found this, by The Guy Who Can't Find A Decently Drawn Suit of Armor to Manipulate.

Should you not wish to click, this masterpiece
is titled "Michele Bachmann & Nancy Antoinette."

Sat. Nite Boogie 'Til You Puke II

Kali bands whose lead screechers push up daisies.You will too; don't laugh.

Meat (No Potato) Report

Ate today at the now open & relatively close FIVE GUYS® we've mentioned before. It's easier for us to type "Google is your friend if you're really (we know you aren't) interested" than to self-link.

Yes, it's a hamburger, the sole criterion for which is dry/crummy or not; the patty on our Little Cheeseburger was certainly moist, the additional elements, mayo, mustard, tomato, grilled onions, & lettuce (Not sure we ordered lettuce, as we don't ordinarily. Do we look like a fucking rabbit?*) seemed fresh, the bun had sesame seeds.

Service was quick, & w/ no crowd we should hope so. The wage-slave who took our order & the manager-looking (black polo shirt rather than the red ones the other employees were wearing) guy who called our no. were entirely too friendly/enthusiastic. How long that attitude will last is anybody's guess.

Judgement: Several hrs. & we haven't thrown up, although we've belched several times. (As recently as now.)

P.S.: Didn't try the well-spoken-of fries, but that gives us a reason to livesomething to look forward to.

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*Don't be arsed.

Sooner Than Expected

Really was the last days of May, not even June.

The Brewers didn't need reigning National League MVP Ryan Braun to complete a four-game sweep of the Dodgers for the first time in their franchise history.

Only redeeming factor is that the Brewers share our (& Michele Bachmann's & Milton Bradley's) initials. May have to get ourself a Brewer ballcap.

Maybe not. MB, BM, could go either way.