turning gold into lead

"Reading the Declaration of Independence 235 years after it was written, it’s kidney-punchingly obvious that the United States government has become precisely the sort of bloodsucking tyrant against which the Founding Fathers revolted."

short form and long form

night shopping

if i had to register a domain name for the person behind me at the checkout tonight, it would be www.ChloeSevignyInScoobyDooPajamas.com

:)

i love it when people don't know how pretty they are...

Fairness in Broadcasting

Earlier, there was much ado about the Fairness in Broadcasting Act. I don't see what was so bad about it. It might have actually resulted in some movies where:

• intelligent people live in rural areas, and city dwellers are poor inbred layabouts
• vampires were actually evil, not just misunderstood
• Michael Moore points out the better side of capitalism
• members of the clergy remain faithful and avoid doing evil
• animals do not make wisecracks
• the profits of Big Media were exposed by some plucky young oilfield workers
• characters are not defined by their ethnicity
• neighbors are not wacky
  
• the woman does not fall for the "bad boy"
• fruit carts and glass deliveries are safe from car chases
• the noble American military saves the world from corrupt environmentalists

It would also require the formation of several new cable channels - one to show movies where the husband recovers from the abusive two-timing wife, one to show obedient children and sensible parents, and more than one to show high-budget computer-animated documentaries about Young-Earth Creationism (preferably voiced by Morgan Freeman).

bad pun alert

in the interest of helping dustbury's commentors keep from gagging, i'll make my horrible pun here:

dustbury posted about odd and undescriptive color names - such as the mud-putty-hued "weekend in the country". one commentor said "dead salmon probably is not a popular item", to which i refrained from responding

...

...

...

"dead salmon is a very popular color in a bear market"

lbj

okay, maybe obama isn't the worst president in u.s.history (yet) - lbj created a trifecta of quagmires:

Escalation of the Vietnam War

More than 50,000 Americans and many more Vietnamese died as a result of that policy; our country was bitterly divided in ways that still weaken us today, and the economic cost of the war was immense. It contributed to the wave of inflation that shook the country in the 1970s.

The Medicare/Medicaid complex

These entitlement programs are the biggest single financial problem we face. They dwarf all the Bush-Obama wars; they make TARP look like small change. They not only cost money we don’t have — and are scheduled to cost inexorably more until they literally ruin the nation — they have distorted our entire health system into the world’s most bloated and expensive monstrosity. Thanks to these programs, we have a health system that marries the greed of the private sector to the ineptitude of government.

The War on Poverty

Since the Great Society era of Lyndon Johnson, the country has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into poor urban neighborhoods. The violence and crime generated in these neighborhoods costs hundreds of billions more. And after all this time, all this money and all this energy, the inner city populations are worse off than before. There is more drug addiction and more social and family breakdown among this population than when the Great Society was launched.

inquiring minds want to know

no, not "how many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop" - these are questions for the brocko bomber:

How come you haven't made unemployment illegal?

Instead of making cars get 62 mpg, why not 62 million mpg? Also, do something about the gravitational constant.

Are you smart enough to create a problem so big that even you could not solve it?

Is this question racist?

Why do you need permission to be clear, and not need permission to bomb Libya?

When your economic advisors hold policy meetings, do they stuff a towel at the bottom of the door?

and many many more

happy 235th

"We shouldn’t limit our reading or understanding of this document for anniversaries such as today."

update: this should apply internationally...

not just "kind of a..."

...and in related news, mark halperin also apologized to viagra users everywhere, for comparing their... small problem... to the worst president in u.s. history.

...also, our previous president is still waiting for about 3,930,000 apologies.

one flipped beatle

john lennon, republican?!?

i'm back

physically, at least...

great society?

no, grated society.

on the road again

going on another cross-texas trip for the next nine days. so at least that's an excuse for posting sporadically...

a little bit before i leave: parker brothers choppers are building a tron light cycle irl

did i do thaaaaat?

i commented here, and two posts later lileks wrote this sentence:

"it’s not important to know what they mean, but it give a sense of period without saying “everyone wore hats like it was hat day in Hatville. I needed a drink.”

Come to think of it, I like that line."

coincidence?!?

...

...

probably...

and this is sadly funny

read em and weep

now that's sad

one of the few people who looks far better than their online avatar/banner illustration is having trouble finding and/or sorting eggs...

now that's funny

...and by funny, i mean pathetic

Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Asghar Soltanieh has criticized the regulatory authority over its handling of Japan's nuclear crisis.

“The poor and slow response by the [IAEA] secretariat, and particularly the director general, with regards to the Fukushima nuclear crisis is really disappointing,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA on Wednesday.

...and in related news, an anonymous hatless spokesman stated that “The poor and slow response by the international community with regards to the Iranian nuclear crisis is really disappointing.”

Sharkey's Enforcers

is "to protect and serve" becoming just another ugly face of obama's "transparency in government"?

coronal mass ejection

of course the giant nuclear furnace we are orbiting has nothing to do with global warming

Sharkey's Gang

vdh notices a pattern:

"...Whether Strauss-Kahn or Weiner or Gore (or "U2 not W2" Bono or Geithner or Marie Obamanette or Fannie Frank or Schwarzenegger or Edwards or..., ad nauseam, ed.), the common denominator is arrogance and a sense of exemption from the rules and protocols...

...Collectively, they represent a self-appointed... global elite that oversees, (sanctimoniously) lectures about... the ethical responsibilities of the redistributive state..."

previously, isaiah noticed a similar pattern...

Plessy & Ferguson

instapundit linked to this - i'll link to this:

The arbitrary separation of citizens on the basis of race while they are on a public highway is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution. It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds.

If evils will result from the commingling of the two races upon public highways established for the benefit of all, they will be infinitely less than those that will surely come from state legislation regulating the enjoyment of civil rights upon the basis of race.