• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Their freedom requires your slavery.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Petty moves from a petty man.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / You can lead a whore to culture

You can lead a whore to culture

by DougJ|  August 17, 20105:43 pm| 36 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M.

FacebookTweetEmail

Last week, Fareed Zakaria — bless his anti-democracy Sinophilic soul — got a Cato flunkie to admit that 40% of Cato’s money his own research money came from the petroleum industry.

This week, there’s a list of how much the various Think Tank ministers of propaganda make. Ed Feulner of Heritage makes almost a million a year.

What amuses me most about the think tanks is the strange intellectual respect they are accorded, as if having written a book or earned a PhD made people immune to the lure of lying for money. I say if you drag a 200K salary through a library, you never know what you’ll find.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Sunspot baby
Next Post: They’ve Lost Cronkite Herbert »

Reader Interactions

36Comments

  1. 1.

    Zandar

    August 17, 2010 at 5:46 pm

    So, by McMegan McMath the other 120% of Cato’s funding comes out of Ayn Rand’s ass.

  2. 2.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 17, 2010 at 5:48 pm

    “Petroleum petroleum” does that double its powers?

  3. 3.

    C Nelson Reilly

    August 17, 2010 at 5:48 pm

    Strobe Talbott should get a raise just for having an awesome name

  4. 4.

    james hare

    August 17, 2010 at 5:50 pm

    Shit, for the right money I’ll start writing global warming denial papers. It’s a quite a bit easier to analyze an issue when the conclusion is predetermined.

  5. 5.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 17, 2010 at 5:51 pm

    Well, we already knew they were whores, it was just a question of price.

  6. 6.

    me

    August 17, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    Blagojevich is well hung. Or at least the jury is.

  7. 7.

    New Yorker

    August 17, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    What amuses me most about the think tanks is the strange intellectual respect they are accorded, as if having written a book or earned a PhD made people immune to the lure of lying for money.

    C’mon Doug. Everyone knows that the only PhDs who lie in order to get more money are climate scientists.

  8. 8.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 17, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    Horticulture? Shit, another gardening thread.

  9. 9.

    Bubblegum Tate

    August 17, 2010 at 5:55 pm

    @New Yorker:

    Everyone knows that the only PhDs who lie in order to get more money are climate scientists.

    WIN!

    Also, why do people still labor under the assumption that Heritage is any sort of serious research facility in the first place? It’s just a cog in the wingnut welfare machine.

  10. 10.

    russell

    August 17, 2010 at 5:59 pm

    Holy crap, I’m going back to graduate school!

  11. 11.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 17, 2010 at 5:59 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Sure, he fixes the post and now my comment makes no sense. Oh well, I should be used to not making any sense by now.

  12. 12.

    DougJ

    August 17, 2010 at 6:01 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Fixed it, thanks.

  13. 13.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 17, 2010 at 6:02 pm

    @DougJ: Now you make me look ungracious. You are such a bastard. Oh yeah, you are welcome.

  14. 14.

    beltane

    August 17, 2010 at 6:03 pm

    If you start a think tank would you hire me? I’d be willing to write blog postings for a mere $99,9999 a year.

    Whenever NPR brings on an “expert” from a think tank, I immediately change the station. The talking points of partisan organizations is of no interest to me.

  15. 15.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 17, 2010 at 6:05 pm

    @beltane: I would only do it for $249,999. I’ll be damned if I am going to let them jack up my taxes.

  16. 16.

    Redshift

    August 17, 2010 at 6:10 pm

    @beltane: It’s especially obnoxious when they have a panel where the “two sides” are wingnut “think” tanks and journalists. It both elevates right-wing propaganda, and reinforces the idea that journalists represent “the left.”

    The Diane Rehm Show used to do that quite a lot during the depths of the Bush Administration, and I used to email to bitch them out about it. They seem to have gotten better since then; they still give wingnut “fellows” unwarranted status, but now they usually have panels with “experts” from the right and left, or only journalists.

  17. 17.

    The next to last samurai

    August 17, 2010 at 6:14 pm

    I think those damn think tanks should be outlawed by a subclause added to the 1st amendment.

  18. 18.

    jeffreyw

    August 17, 2010 at 6:16 pm

    …”but you cannot make him think”.

  19. 19.

    Steve

    August 17, 2010 at 6:17 pm

    The Cato flunkie didn’t admit that Cato gets 40% of its money from the oil industry. He admitted that he, the flunkie, gets 40% of his money from the oil industry. Which of course has nothing to do with why he goes around denying global warming.

    Cato gets plenty of oil money, but it’s not clear how much. There are oil industry bigshots who are among Cato’s larger donors, but the money isn’t coming directly from oil companies like the flunkie’s money is.

  20. 20.

    Redshift

    August 17, 2010 at 6:19 pm

    @Bubblegum Tate: Wingnut welfare “think” tanks were created because right-wing billionaires were convinced that academia was biased toward the left, and they needed pseudo-academia that would reliably produce right-wing conclusions. They were deliberately created with all the trappings of academia (“fellows” and “distinguished scholars”) , and unfortunately, the media are suckers for that stuff.

    Just like the industry-friendly “sound science” that started with the tobacco wars and continues with global warming denialism, our media are apparently incapable of grasping that “research” where the conclusions are predetermined and the evidence is chosen to support it isn’t research at all.

    Pretty sad state of affairs.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    August 17, 2010 at 6:21 pm

    Too bad you can’t drown these Cato stooges in the think tank.

  22. 22.

    AhabTRuler, V

    August 17, 2010 at 6:30 pm

    @C Nelson Reilly: Even better: Strobe Talbott, III (Nelson Strobridge “Strobe” Talbott, III).

    I’d be impressed, but as I have mentioned before, I am a V, so when it comes to WASP-y names, I can hardly be beat.

    Now, if you can roll up with a six-o, I’ll be impressed.

  23. 23.

    Bubblegum Tate

    August 17, 2010 at 6:33 pm

    @Redshift:

    Yeah…pretty clever move by the wingnut welfare sugar daddies, I must admit, but still…isn’t the cat out of the bag as far as this goes? Like, don’t media types know full well that Heritage is exactly what you describe?

  24. 24.

    AhabTRuler, V

    August 17, 2010 at 6:40 pm

    Also, if I had known how much juice he was pulling in, I would have kicked him in the ‘nads when my department was outsourced.

  25. 25.

    Betsy

    August 17, 2010 at 7:04 pm

    My father keeps telling me I should adopt conservative views. It would make my (expected) PhD worth something. :P

  26. 26.

    Geeno

    August 17, 2010 at 7:16 pm

    @AhabTRuler, V: Ya mean like George Foreman VI?

  27. 27.

    Steven Rockford

    August 17, 2010 at 7:24 pm

    “If you drag a 200K salary through a library, you never know what you’ll find.”

    That’s good. Very good.

  28. 28.

    Turgid Jacobian

    August 17, 2010 at 7:38 pm

    Ani DiFranco saysI say every tool is a weapon Heritage Scholar if you hold pay it right.

  29. 29.

    AhabTRuler, V

    August 17, 2010 at 8:06 pm

    @Geeno: Nope. Naming six kids after yourself is not exactly the same as six generations sharing a direct patrilineal name. Not the least of which difference is that when George Foremans begin to depart this mortal coil, the numbers will change until, freak accidents notwithstanding, there will be a George Foreman, unnumbered. OTOH, I am now, and will always be a V.

    I mean, that and a buck-fifty will get you coffee, but it at least says something about familial continuity, rather than fecundity (not that there is anything wrong with that).

  30. 30.

    birthmarker

    August 17, 2010 at 9:18 pm

    @Bubblegum Tate: The Heritage Foundation provides a speaker’s bureau type service so if the media need an expert on a topic, they can readily book him or her. Then the speaker gets to spew the talking points which the interviewer in most cases is not that knowledgeable about, because s/he might interview multiple guests per program. My understanding is that the HF also provides the talking points which the speaker can access on the internet. And I guess if you vary too much from the script you lose your wingnut welfare spot. To top it off, the whole think tank racket is financed with tax deductible donations from corporations.

    David Brock’s book The Republican Noise Machine lays out the whole sordid mess.

    It’s a shame to watch our democracy slip away.

  31. 31.

    BrianM

    August 17, 2010 at 10:18 pm

    To be fair, it’s all the fault of the word “re-search”. How could people, much less PhDs, be expected to know it didn’t mean “searching anew for conclusions our betters have already drawn”?

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    August 17, 2010 at 10:36 pm

    @AhabTRuler, V:

    Not the least of which difference is that when George Foremans begin to depart this mortal coil, the numbers will change until, freak accidents notwithstanding, there will be a George Foreman, unnumbered. OTOH, I am now, and will always be a V.

    Actually, according to Miss Manners, that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work for everyone who’s not royalty: as elder members die off, you’re supposed to move up in the hierarchy so, assuming that both your father and your grandfather are still alive, by the official rules you should now be III, your dad should be Jr., and your grandfather should be Sr., regardless of where they stood in the hierarchy previously. If you had a son, he would be IV, but he would move up to III if one of the older men died.

    I mean, no one’s going to come along and force you to drop the “V,” but I’m afraid you don’t actually have the force of tradition behind you in keeping it.

    /pedant

  33. 33.

    mclaren

    August 18, 2010 at 12:01 am

    Don’t underestimate the power of writing things down. A raging kook who screams spittle-flecked hysteria in the public parks gets derided as a loon; the exact same spittle-flecked hysteria written down in a book and issued in an elegant hardcover edition gets deep respect and awed reviews in hallowed literary periodicals.

    As for earning a PhD, only 25% of Americans earn even a four-year college degree. Barely 3% of Americans go on to earn a PhD. That’s a qualification. It means you’ve done something 97% of the population hasn’t.

  34. 34.

    some other guy

    August 18, 2010 at 9:57 am

    It means you’ve done something 97% of the population hasn’t.

    Something of value, though? The dudes from Jackass have done things 97% of the population hasn’t. Zakaria’s PhD in political science, for instance, seems about as useful as Johnny Knoxville having his scrotum run over by a golf cart.

    Maybe my bitterness about the Masters of the Universe fucking us all over is making me a touch over-populist these days, but I can’t help but wonder if the world would be a better place had all those PhDs in finance and economics decided instead to seek careers in getting gored by wild animals and setting themselves on fire on MTV.

  35. 35.

    timb

    August 18, 2010 at 10:56 am

    @Betsy: I noticed in that law school. If you are willing to pimp conservative ideas, you are in a distinct minority of somewhat smart people and you will always have someone on the inside who will hire just for your “beliefs.”

    It’s just one more way that shows that the best cultural critic of the last 75 years was Douglas Adams. In So Long and Thanks for All the Fish on eof the main characters meets a prostitute who claims to be provide a special service to rich people. “I tell them it’s OK to be rich.”

    “You what?” he said.

    The girl laughed and stepped forward a little out of the shadow. She was tall, and had that kind of self-possessed shyness which is a great trick if you can do it.

    “It’s my big number,” she said. “I have a Master’s degree in Social Economics and can be very convincing. People love it. Especially in this city.”

    If you can convince Richie Rich he deserves it (and he desperately wants to believe he does), you are set for life.

  36. 36.

    timb

    August 18, 2010 at 10:58 am

    @mclaren: Then why do so many of them work at Barnes and Noble

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - BarcaChicago  - Off the Gunflint Trail/Boundary Waters 8
Image by BarcaChicago (7/11/25)

World Central Kitchen

Donate

Recent Comments

  • Central Planning on Saturday Morning Klown Show Open Thread: GOP Falling Into the Pit They Have Dug (Jul 12, 2025 @ 5:39am)
  • Baud on Saturday Morning Klown Show Open Thread: GOP Falling Into the Pit They Have Dug (Jul 12, 2025 @ 5:38am)
  • Baud on Saturday Morning Klown Show Open Thread: GOP Falling Into the Pit They Have Dug (Jul 12, 2025 @ 5:37am)
  • Baud on Saturday Morning Klown Show Open Thread: GOP Falling Into the Pit They Have Dug (Jul 12, 2025 @ 5:35am)
  • rikyrah on Saturday Morning Klown Show Open Thread: GOP Falling Into the Pit They Have Dug (Jul 12, 2025 @ 5:30am)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
No Kings Protests June 14 2025

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

Feeling Defeated?  If We Give Up, It's Game Over

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!