Wait, What??

If I go outside and find out that my Honda has morphed into a unicorn that is farting eyeballs, I guess I won't be too surprised.


(A translation of the lyrics)

(H/T)

Dear Republicans: This Mess Is On You

Do you remember back eleven or twelve years ago? The national debt was gone as an issue. The "debt clocks" were running backwards. There was a budget surplus of over $200 billion. There was actually talk that the national debt might even be fully paid off.

So what happened?

First, the Bush tax cuts.

Second, the Bush Administration began two wars with absolutely no attempt to pay for them. That was nearly unprecedented in American history. Wars were deficit generators, but there was some attempt to raise revenue to offset it. Not this time, Bush prided himself on keeping taxes low. Dick Cheney declared that "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."

Third, Bush rammed through a large expansion of Medicare, again, with no moves to pay for it.

Fourth, the recession. While recessions happen, the Bush Administration and the Federal Reserve turned their back on the risky behaviors of the banksters.*

What we have are four direct causes of the current massive budget deficits, of which , 3.5 can be laid at the feet of the Republican party. But when you point this out to conservatives, they bleat about "we can't look back". They claim that only they know how to fix it, which is sort of like taking advice on building construction from the arsonists who burned down the previous building.

This is on you, conservatives. You guys pushed through the laws to ramp up the Federal debt. You guys advocated for and got the banks and financial institutions deregulated. You guys pushed through the wholesale scrapping of the Glass-Steagell controls.

All of those things not only brought about the current mess, they largely benefited the rich at the expense of everyone else. Yet any discussion of how we got here and any suggestions to reverse the things that brought about this mess, other than increased Medicare spending, are met with howls of outrage from you guys.

Why is anyone listening to you?

____________________________
* This whole mess will repeat itself because the Obama Administration refuses to hold those thieves accountable.

What Are the Policy Differences Between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama?

There are only two that come to mind: Same-sex marriage and pollution regulation, and I'm not so sure about environmental regulation. When ol' Willard M. Romney was running for office in Massachusetts,he was well to the left of Obama. Romney signed a bill that made permanent the Brady Bill gun controls in Massachusetts. Romney signed universal health care into law in Massachusetts. Obama is willing to gut Medicare and Social Security. Obama has been and continues to be willing to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

As far as I can see, Obama's message to the base of the Democratic party next year is "vote for me, because the Republicans would be worse."

I personally prefer enemies over friends who shiv me in the back at every opportunity. At this point in time, if the Republicans have the good sense to nominate someone like Jon Huntsman next year, I'm going to sit on my hands.

Conservative Statist Republicans

They are so concerned about government intrusion that they want to facilitate it.

A last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses, some committee members suggested. By a 7-16 vote, the panel rejected an amendment that would have clarified that only IP addresses must be stored.

They are taking a page from ramming through the "USA Patriot Act" and naming it in such a way to make it harder to oppose it. But one thing we learned from that law was that the FBI will use all powers granted for one thing for everything else.

Funny thing: You'd think that those teabagging Republicans would not be in favor of anything that makes it easier for the government to monitor what people do.

But you would be so wrong.

I'm not even going to riff on the point that the change in the law was quietly pushed for by the George W. Obama Justice Department. For when it comes to expanding the power of the government to spy on its citizens, ol' Torturer Dick has nothing on President Romney Obama.

(H/T)

Caturday

Gracie and Jake take their ease, at separate times, on the couch:

Jake and a friend. She loves animals; Jake is the only cat that doesn't run and hide at the prospect of attention from a child. But even this level of closeness was too much for him, for he jumped down and went under the kitchen table a few seconds after this photo was shot.

Hewlett-Packard Probook Piece of Shit Laptop

I own one. It's a "ProBook 4510" and I am here to tell the world that it is a piece of shit.

First, less than a year after I bought it, one of the mouse buttons stopped working. Fine, it was still under warranty. I sent it back to HP's repair center and, if the documentation for the repair was to be believed, they replaced the entire top of the laptop. Which includes the keyboard.

So now, well under a year since that, the letters "R" and "O" are acting funky. A lot of the time, they work. Smetimes (as in "just nw"), they don't.

Tell me, HP, please: How the fuck do you get away with selling such pieces of shit? Hw do yu sleep at night, knowing that you have sold computers that are about as duable as something made by Ronco?

Crimus, the problems with the "O" key are bad enough. But lose the "R" key and what I write will read like it was witten for the priest in "The Princess Bride."

So it looks as though, for the duration, I'll be packing another keybard with me wherever I go.

And so, to the manufacturing engineers and executives at HP: May you all have boils inside your anus.

The Christian Exception For Mass Murders

As in "just because the guy says he's a Christian is no reason to tar Christianity." Of course, if the killer is a Muslim, then the rules change.

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Conservatives see persecution all around them, yet they project their fears onto liberals and then lambaste them for it.

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Firefox 5: Is This Usual?

Apparently Firefox 5 is out or soon will be and then each new version of Firefox will release every two months or so.

What the hell? Frankly, I'm happy with FF3 and I plan to stick with it as long as possible.

Is It Against Federal Law to Hope That John Boehner and Eric Cantor Die In a Fire?

What really pissed me off was Boehner's comment that "the President wants a blank check."

That is a willful disregard about how the entire fucking budget process works. Do I really need to explain how budgets are passed? Maybe I should, because it seems clear that the goddamn Republicans don't understand it, but I'm just too tired, too cranky and too motherfucking angry about this.

Where were these cocksucking conservatives when George W. Bush repeatedly got raises to the debt limit? And did they completely forget the slogan of their 2008 presidential campaign: "Country First"??

May they all die in slow fires (unless it is against Federal law to do so).

Airline Robbery

The taxes that you, as travelers, were required to pay taxes as a part of your airline tickets, are now being pocketed by the airlines.

It is exactly as though a state stopped collecting sales tax, but the businesses kept charging shoppers sales tax. Peple would not stand for that for a femtosecond. But the airline business is run by pirates who spend their days figuring out how to screw over their customers, so this bit of fuckery is no big surprise.