Well, that was a nasty little storm we had today, but here’s a lovely rainbow:
And here’s an open thread for you naughty Munchkins.
Florida woman, still rocking a punk rock ethos in the 2020s, which is kind of sad. Betty Cracker has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2012.
This post is in: Open Threads
Well, that was a nasty little storm we had today, but here’s a lovely rainbow:
And here’s an open thread for you naughty Munchkins.
by Betty Cracker| 203 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Politics, Republican Stupidity, Assholes, General Stupidity
First, the angry birds:
It’s been rain, rain, rain around here thanks to TS Andrea, and my birds are madder than, well, a wet hen.
Now for the angry people: I was thinking about that Facebook asshole’s $10 million wedding-environmental destruction event that Anne Laurie called to our attention yesterday. In that thread, Jim, Foolish Literalist, said, “Dear Hardworking White Americans of The Heartland: These are the people whose personal wealth you devote your votes to protecting.”
The Facebook asshole’s Gilded Age consumption aside, there’s this: The six human beings who are heir to the Walmart fortune have as much wealth as the bottom 40% of all Americans combined. That’s six people on one side of the scale and approximately 125,600,000 on the other.
And throw in the fact that the corporation that generates that obscene pile of money for six people is notorious for destroying small town economies, treating its workers like shit and expecting the rest of us to augment their paltry paychecks with food stamps and Medicaid. People should be angry about this, but largely, they’re not.
Why? Well, one explanation is that Plutocracy, Inc. has successfully convinced enough people that they too will someday have Walmart-level megabucks to protect from redistribution to freeloaders because FREEDOM. I’m not so sure that’s true. I think if more people knew about this shit, more people would be pissed off.
What do you think?
This post is in: Politics, Our Failed Media Experiment
The incivility, effrontery, partisanship, etc., inherent in these choices will surely cause the Beltway media to collectively arise from its fainting couch, snap shut its peacock fan with an exasperated little squeak and furiously sally forth in search of knuckles to rap:
The non-racists at Townhall are already observing that “Benghazi YouTube video liar” Susan Rice is “moving on up” to a deeeee-lux appointment in the sky. Noise-cancelling headphones won’t be sufficient to protect tender eardrums from the high-decibel meeping that will greet the news of Power’s appointment, if appointed she indeed is.
This should be fun.
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, Assholes, Our Failed Media Experiment
Dr. Keith Ablow of Fox News’ “Medical A Team” (he must be the “Howling Mad Murdoch” character) has a deeply insane column up in which he theorizes that, instead of being the lazy, shiftless incompetent most Fox viewers understand him to be, President Obama is actually a wily super-villain who is waging “psychological warfare on Americans” via ultra-sophisticated blackity-black ops:
The techniques are often combined with black ops strategy, in which covert initiatives seek to dispirit, disempower and confuse adversaries.
The psychological warfare has continued, I believe, with other opportunities the president has had to make American’s [sic] question their individual freedoms and autonomy.
Ablow cites the thus-far futile attempt to restrict access to high-capacity magazines and improve background checks in the wake of the Newtown massacre as an attempt to wage “psychological warfare on the American belief that force is justifiable when confronting evil.”
This cleverly disguised pacifism explains why everyone on the left is united in praising Obama’s remote-controlled airdrops of Yoga videos, scones and instant latte cups in Yemen and Waziristan, as well as the accidental aerial disbursement of GameStop cards on the odd Afghan wedding party.
Ablow also espies dastardly blackity-black ops plots in the IRS and AP brouhahas and even Benghazi:
Seen through the lens of psychological warfare, the failure to defend our embassy in Benghazi need not be understood simply as a screw-up. It could reflect an actual strategy on the part of the administration to reinforce the notion that homicidal violence born of hatred toward America is understandable—even condonable—because we have generated it ourselves and are reaping the harvest of ill will we have sown. In other words, we should take our punishment.
Whereas consigning Osama bin Laden to the briny deep was what, a sack-dance in the end zone of failed whitey GWB?
Nut-picking, you say? But these aren’t the rantings of some random, syphilitic, bunny-hoarding Freeper — well, they are! — however, Ablow is also often included in the so-called “straight news” Fox programming.
The mind reels.
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, Assholes, General Stupidity
A Congressional delegation that included wingnuts Dana Rohrabacher, Steve King and Michele Bachmann visited Russian security officials and lawmakers last week to discuss dealing with terrorist threats and investigate the Boston bombings. Straight-to-video action movie actor Steven Seagal was credited with setting up the meetings:
[Rohrabacher] repeatedly thanked Seagal, who took credit for arranging the congressmen’s meeting at the FSB, and said it helped avoid the experience of past foreign trips when all of the meetings had been arranged by the U.S. Embassy.“You know what we got? We got the State Department controlling all the information that we heard,” Rohrabacher said. “You think that’s good for democracy? No way!”
Seagal has special expertise in Russian foreign policy in general and relevance to the Boston bombings investigation in particular, having once played a former Russian mobster named “Ruslan” in the 2009 thriller “Driven to Kill.” Alert readers will recall that the Tsarnaev brothers’ outspoken uncle is also named “Ruslan,” making Seagal’s involvement a no-brainer for the US congressional delegation.
Sans the nanny squad from State, Rohrabacher found he likes the cut of Putin’s jib (perhaps peering into his soul as George W. Bush once did) and feels that Putin-backed Chechnyan strongman Ramzan Kadyrov has been unfairly criticized for torture, kidnapping and murder by namby-pamby human rights groups who don’t understand the nature of the enemy:
“Radical Islam is at our throat in the United States, and is at the throat of the Russian people…
“If you are in the middle of an insurrection with Chechnya, and hundreds of people are being killed and there are terrorist actions taking place and kids are being blown up in schools, yeah, guess what, there are people who overstep the bounds of legality.
“We shouldn’t be describing people who are under this type of threat, we shouldn’t be describing them as if they are Adolf Hitler or they’re back to the old Communism days.”
Seagal, who received “a lavish welcome in Kadyrov’s palace,” noted that the strongman has not been indicted.
Rohrabacher & Co. aren’t the first wingnuts to tap Seagal’s cinematic crime and terrorism-fighting expertise to address real-life issues: A couple of years ago, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio enlisted Seagal’s aid in an operation that successfully slew dozens of menacing chickens and a puppy at an alleged cockfighting ring.
Rest easy, America.
[X-posted at Rumproast]Wingnut Lawmakers, Steven Seagal Team Up to Fight TerrorPost + Comments (86)
This post is in: Open Threads
It’s supposed to be a pig. It’s not my best work, okay? I blame the poor quality foil from the decidedly inferior wine.
My kid texted me all upset from a pet store that has a lemur for sale. She said the poor creature is going mad in its little cage. Luckily, my mom didn’t BUY it for her. But lemurs sold as pets? WTF?
Please discuss whatever.
by Betty Cracker| 113 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
There are dolphins in this picture. You just can’t see them because every time I clicked the shutter, they dove below the surface. Even when I got exasperated and clicked at random where I knew the wily sea-going mammals were lurking, they knew to stay hidden, meaning they are exceptionally smart, keen of hearing and possibly Amish.
Today is Day 7 of our vacation and also our 16th wedding anniversary. Both the seven days and the 16 years have flown by at an astounding clip, which is what happens when you’re in excellent company. If you want to live forever (or at least seem to), spend your time with someone who lacks humor and is unsympathetic to your interests and concerns, is my advice.
Our little vacation cabin is quite rustic: The floors, ceiling, walls and doors are all made of the same dark wood paneling, making it comically difficult for near-sighted people to find their way out of a closed room. I’m guessing the half-dozen or so cabins on this property were built in the 1950s.
The proprietor, who is elusive to the point of non-existence, encased the A/C thermostat in a locked plexiglass box, so we cannot adjust the temperature, which is set at 76 degrees. It feels good during the heat of the day but necessitates blankets at night.
We had the property mostly to ourselves until yesterday. A German family has taken up residence a couple of doors down. The men are avid fishermen. Their luck is equal to my husband’s so far, i.e., none.
I’ve been keeping to the shade on the porch, watching others fish, reading and playing the ukelele very badly. The Germans have an adolescent daughter who has shown some interest in my crappy little uke.
If they’re still here when we leave on Sunday, I may make her a present of it, even though I’m pretty attached to it. Maybe someday she’ll remember that an old Floridian lady was kind to her. I don’t know — what do you think? The parents might hate my guts for it if the kid plinks away at it 24/7, but I’ll be long gone by then…