Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

So very ready.

Let there be snark.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

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Archives for 2008

Also, I Hear He Is Muslim And Will Be Sworn In On A Quran

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We can officially christen it the failed Obama administration, as they are damaged goods before even taking office:

The big dominos seem to be falling already, less than a week from the news breaking. I simply cannot fathom the damage Barack Obama and Rahm Emmanuel have done to their incoming administration, a month before it takes office. But I do know they dealt hit a critical blow this week. Barack Obama has just been exposed as a liar to the American people. He lied to us in a manner that puts him in the same league as Bill Clinton, Senator Ted Stevens, Senator Robert Torricelli, Rep Randy “Duke” Cunningham and Rep William Jefferson. We have yet to know what, if any, crimes Obama has committed. But the fact is this week he went out and lied straight to the American people. He tried to cover his tracks.

Someone call the Elves. Is it too early to impeach Obama, or do we have to wait until he takes office? Technicalities, I know. At any rate, I am sure Andy McCarthy is willing to offer his legal advice drafting the soon to be required articles of impeachment.

Now really might be a good time to go rent The Hunting of the President, for those of you who have not watched it, or to buy the book. Blinded by the Right would be a good companion piece.

Also, a pair of these and maybe one of these. You will need them the next four to eight years.

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And Another Question

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Assume that the graph here is accurate, and the majority of the difference between what foreign auto companies pay for labor is the costs of retiree benefits.

The question- who does everyone think is going to pay for these retiree’s health care if the auto companies go under or the unions throw them under the bus and give up on their benefits? And you can’t just say the pensioners, because as far as they are concerned, they already DID pay for their future health care costs when they took lower wages for thirty years in exchange for benefits.

Or have we just not gotten THAT far in the discussion yet?

(Also, this graph is from Ford, which I understand is in the best shape of the Big Three. Does anyone have a similar graph for GM and Chrysler?)

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Fill Me In

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In a rant on the new Che movie, something I have less than zero desire to watch, Nick Gillespie states the following:

And you’ve got to ask: Who precisely is still debating Che’s methodology, other than, I don’t know, Lynndie England and various al Qaeda cells?

Can someone explain the Lynndie England reference? Not to downplay the Lynndie England monstrous behavior at Abu Ghraib, but I thought even Nick himself recognized that the failures there were due to leadership:

Hmm, how else to explain the abuse? Take a cue from U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who investigated it for the Pentagon. He told the Senate the abuse was due to “failure in leadership–lack of discipline, no training whatsoever and no supervision.”

What am I missing?

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It Just Never Ends

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How long is it going to muck out the stables when the Bush administration finally leaves town:

While the Pentagon preps for a new administration, a scandal from an earlier era is rearing its head.

A Defense Department project, supposedly designed to support U.S. troops, was used instead to channel millions of dollars to personal friends and allies of its chief. The “America Supports You,” or ASY, program was led in a “questionable and unregulated manner,” according to a Department of Defense Inspector General report, obtained by Danger Room. At least $9.2 million was “inappropriately transferred” by the project’s managers. Much of that money served only to further promote ASY, instead of assisting servicemembers.

In 2004, the office of then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld set up ASY as a six-month effort to showcase the U.S. public’s backing for the troops and their families. “If you’re serving overseas, and you watch the mainstream media coverage, sometimes you can’t tell if America knows you’re there,” one official overseeing the program says. America Supports You was seen as a way to counteract that sense.

They even loot their propaganda programs.

(via)

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Pork Tenderloin

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I am a very happy person right now. Here is why.

* Rub 1-1.5 lb. pork tenderloin with salt, pepper and beef bouillon (I use Better Than Bouillon paste; the regular stuff might do).
* Sear on high heat for ~30 seconds per side in olive oil. I cook with olive oil out of habit; other oils or even butter might work as well. Definitely don’t make the mistake of cooking with extra virgin.
* Transfer to a baking dish just coated with cream and a little water, cover with foil and cook in the oven at 260-275.
* Cook mushrooms in the frying pan to pick up all the good stuff that the tenderloin left behind. Transfer to the baking dish once they’re crispy.
* Let the tenderloin cook for about an hour and a half.
* At the end, prepare some crusty bread the way a good restaurant does. Cut off a thick chunk and then cut slices into the chunk that reach almost but not quite through. At the end the slices, which you can tear off, will be crispy on the surface and warm inside.

The usual problem with pork is how thoroughly you have to cook the meat. Pan frying pork does not work because by the time it is safe to eat the meat is dry, it’s chewy and the fat, which ought to be the best part, is an unchewable gristle.

I knew about slow cooking from my wife’s recipe for chicken in cream sauce, but I have never seen a cut of meat transformed like this. The meat came out tender enough to cut with a fork, fat and all. The mushrooms were coated in a seasoned mix of oil, juices and cream curd asking to be spread on the bread. Yum.

***

Meanwhile, Erie Brewing should stop calling their Big Red a wee heavy ale until they mix in some peat-smoked barley malt. It has the alcohol to be a wee heavy, but so does an appletini.

***Update***

If you are going to try this recipe, follow the advice of many commenters and deglaze the pan with some booze before cooking the mushrooms. Naturally I recommend beer.

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Open Thread

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Kind of tired and still trying to get a bunch of stuff done before the holidays, so no more from me tonight. The heating pad and ice rotation and alleve seem to be working, btw, so thanks for the advice.

Also, it appears that the Obama children were not the only ones who were promised a post-election puppy, as Joe Biden is now the owner of a new dog.

Finally, this picture just came in, and even though I have about 75 pet photos to still get out there from you all, this gets moved to the top:

I will spare you all the obligatory Ghostbusters reference.

*** Update ***

Via LGM, the best scientific work ever:

“Research shows that the bigger allowance you get from mom and dad,” explained Andrew M. Sum, director of Northeastern’s center, “the less likely you are to work.”

No kidding…

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What If Instead of GM, We Started Calling Them Terri Schiavo Motorworks?

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Mitch McConnell and company voted repeatedly to pay these guys to… not shoot at us:

The Iraqi government plans to cut salaries for the estimated 100,000 members of the Awakening movement whose revolt against Al Qaeda in Iraq played a key role in bringing about the sharp fall in violence in Iraq.

The move is certain to aggravate building tensions between the Sunni volunteer force and the Shiite-led government, which assumed responsibility for the Awakening movement from the U.S. military earlier this month.

The U.S. military, which calls the movement the Sons of Iraq, had been paying members $300 a month to carry guns and protect their neighborhoods against Al Qaeda.

Starting this month, Awakening members will be paid 300,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $250 a month, according to government spokesman Tahseen al-Sheikhly. Awakening leaders, who had been earning $400 to $600, will also receive the lower salary.

And these guys:

Insurance giant AIG was given $152 billion in bailout money by the federal government since nearly collapsing in September. Now the company is planning to take millions of that money and hand it over to employees in a program that sounds a lot like bonuses.

AIG’s new CEO is only taking a single dollar for his compensation this year and the top 60 executives won’t be getting bonuses. But that hasn’t stopped AIG from finding a creative way to keep some of their top employees in what they’re calling “retention payments,” reports CBS News correspondent Priya David.

To some it seems like business-as-usual end-of-the-year bonuses.

But $15 billion to the auto industry, one of the last industries in the country that actually makes something, is a violation of core principles.

You don’t have to be crazy to wonder if the $15 billion will save anything- I don’t have much hope it will. I still don’t know if any of them other than Ford are really in a position to survive. We might very well be pissing away $15 billion dollars if we do eventually aid them. Right now I see the options as do nothing, and let them die, or do something, and they might live. For all I know, it may be too late:

General Motors Corp. said Friday it will temporarily close 20 factories across North America and make sweeping cuts to its vehicle production as it tries to adjust to dramatically weaker automobile demand.

GM said it will cut 250,000 vehicles from its production schedule for the first quarter of 2009, which includes a cut of 60,000 vehicles announced last week. Normal production would be around 750,000 cars and trucks for the quarter, spokesman Tony Sapienza said.

Many plants will be shut down for the whole month of January, he said, and all told, the factories will be closed for 30 percent of the quarter.

“We’re adjusting pretty dramatically,” spokesman Chris Lee said.

The move affects most of GM’s plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. During the shutdowns, employees will be temporarily laid off and receive a portion of their normal pay from the company. They can also apply for state unemployment benefits, Lee said.

They may already be dead.

On the other hand, you do have to be crazy to be able to pretend that somehow any principles are at stake other than union busting, which, I guess, is a principle in and of itself:

An action alert circulated among Senate Republicans on Wednesday called for Republicans to “stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor.”

In doing so, analysts said, Republicans were planting the seeds for a fundraising appeal to big business — other than the Big Three, of course — as they gear up for a major political fight next year over expected legislation that would make it easier for unions to organize.


Mitch McConnell and the Republicans (a more complete list here) who all voted against this bill but for the financial bailout will all earn 160k and the best benefits package in the country, but are going to let an entire industry die because some autoworkers make more money than Bob Corker thinks they should. You might call that class warfare. I don’t like the idea of bailouts any more than anyone else, but now is not a time for misguided “principles.”

What about the billions we just flat out “lost” in Iraq ($9 billion, to be exact)? Here is another $2 billion down the crapper:

I don’t want to hear it about the $15 billion dollars and your principles. I just don’t. Especially when the chain reaction to suppliers and dealerships and what not could have a devastating impact on an already battered and beaten economy. A couple weeks ago someone in the comments asked- If you were told terrorists were going to attack our economy and we could lose 2 million jobs, but you could possibly stop it by spending 15 billion dollars on a new system of defense, do you think the government would?

I think I know the answer to that. But I am not a crazy Republican Senator from the new confederacy.

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