The Republic of Dogs

How convenient:

President Obama will propose freezing non-security discretionary government spending for the next three years, a sweeping plan to attempt deficit reduction that will save taxpayers $250 billion over 10 years.

When the administration releases its budget next week, the discretionary spending for government agencies from Health and Human Services to the Department of Treasury will be frozen at its 2010 level in fiscal years 2011, 2012 and 2013.

I hope everyone’s enjoying the 10% unemployment, because if this is the plan then it’s going to be around for a good long while…which should work out spectacularly for the Democrats in 2012.

Here’s what the Dems are accomplishing:

• Ensuring the ongoing economic pain of the middle and working-classes that make up their core constituencies;
• Freaking out over a single election and thereby signaling their own weakness and sprinkling blood in shark-infested waters;
• Validating the rhetorical framework of “big gubmint is the problem” that the Republicans will use to beat the crap out of them in 2012.

…and when America its first female President, it will be Sarah Palin, and the Baby Jesus will cry.  Forever.

And in case you weren’t already throwing up a little in your mouth, there’s this:

Exempted from the freeze would be Pentagon funding, and the budgets for Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.

"We do need to reflect the fact that we remain at war," the official said, noting the president was able to win several battles on cutting Pentagon spending.

Yeah.  Because with defense-related categories making up 58% of discretionary federal spending, there’s obviously no point in looking at any of those budgets.

-1. “Wise Up” by Aimee Mann (1999, we should’ve listened)

0.  “Don’t Tell Me” by Madonna (2000, back when she still rocked)

1. “Save Me” by Remy Zero (2001, a fairly terrible year for me that ended up being a fairly terrible year for America)
2. “On The Low” by Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions (2002, no social commentary here, this is just a seriously awesome song)
3. “Absence of Redemption” by Chas Smith (2003, the occupation of Iraq)
4. “Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back)” by Eamon (2004, a profoundly awful song which I proudly dedicate to both my ex-boyfriend and George W. Bush)
5. “No Way Back” by Foo Fighters (2005, George Bush begins his second term)
6. “Not Ready to Make Nice” by the Dixie Chicks (2006, Dear Republicans: Suck. on. this.)
7. “None Shall Pass” by Aesop Rock (2007, nicely captures how I was feeling that year.)
8. “American Boy” by Estelle and featuring Kanye West back before he lost his damn mind. (2008, wasn’t the election exciting? Now everyone will like us again!  Or something.)
9. “Air and Simple Gifts” written by John Williams and performed by Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill, Gabriela Montero and Itzhak Perlman at the inauguration of President Barack Obama (January 20, 2009, which is starting to look like the high point of Obama’s presidency, unfortunately.)
10. “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas (2009, just a fun song.  We could use some “just fun”.)

That last one is from me to you.  I hope tonight is a good night, and tomorrow just gets better and better.  Happy New Year, my friends!

“It wasn’t a holly jolly Christmas that year…for many were killed!”

Unicorns and rainbows and ponies and butterflies!

Click the “Cornify” button and you too can…do whatever the hell I’m doing here.

Is that a packet of PETN in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

As seen in these photos, the alleged bomb consisted of a packet of powder sewn into the briefs of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian. Al Qaeda took credit Monday for the attempted bombing, boasted of its ability to overcome U.S. intelligence and airport security, and promised new attacks.

The first photo, to the left, shows the slightly charred and singed underpants with the bomb packet still in place. All photos include a ruler to provide scale.

***

It is a six-inch long packet of the high explosive chemical called PETN, less than a half cup in volume, weighing about 80 grams

However, experts noted that this measurement was conducted in “gay.com inches”; 1 gay.com inch is equal to approximately 0.6 standard inches, so the bomb was actually just under 4 inches long.  With a defective detonator. 

Get ready to be required to remove your underwear and send them through the x-ray machine right behind your your laptop at airport security.  We’ll be lucky if TSA doesn’t place a size restriction on our dicks to be sure that no dick big enough to carry a bomb is allowed on an airplane.

So…ordinary people thwarted a known god-botherer with a bomb taped to his dick – a guy who walked right past the “security” mechanisms of our blundering, incompetent and extremely expensive Department of Homeland Security.  After listening to the ensuing commentary from Serious People in media and government, I can only assume that we will find ourselves stuck in another Freedom Quagmire (do they have flowers and candy to shower us with in Yemen?) within a year or two. All in all, it’s the perfect story to end this craptacular decade while providing a grim reminder of just how little has changed.

I’m so fucking sick of the Middle East and Al Qaeda and all the rest of these assholes with their various angry sky-father-related grievances, and I really really wish our government would stop whacking at these hornet nests with sticks and then demanding trillions of dollars to fight the resulting 100%-predictable swarm of angry hornets.  

More hope and change statist corporatism:

This week, Biden was at it again, hosting a roundtable on enforcing copyright infringement cases. Who was invited? Top names from the government, including Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Biden, and Espinel, along with the heads of NBC, Sony Pictures, Warner Music Group, and HarperCollins.

Oh, did I mention that the guest list also included the heads of the MPAA and RIAA, top execs from News Corp., Universal Music, Walt Disney, and Viacom?

Or that top Obama advisor and confidante Valeria Jarrett was in attendance? Or that the head of the FBI and Secret Service were there? Or that the event billed itself "the first of its kind, and will bring together all of the stakeholders to discuss ways to combat piracy in this rapidly changing technological age," but didn’t manage to invite any public interest groups or academics?

***

"We were extremely disappointed to learn of the White House meeting to be held later today on the issue of intellectual property and ‘piracy," said PK’s Gigi Sohn. "It is unclear why three cabinet officers, several subcabinet officers, the directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service are needed to tend to the worries of the big media companies, particularly the motion picture industry which is completing a year in which it will set box-office records.

***

The RIAA enjoyed the meeting. CEO Mitch Bainwol praised "this unprecedented gathering of senior officials" and called it "a further reflection of this Administration’s recognition of the importance of copyright protections to generating and preserving American jobs."

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!  “American jobs”!  I’m laughing so I won’t break down sobbing!  The Obama Administration: Donkey-punching the American people every fucking day.

In marginally-related news from the totalitarian hellscape of Europe, where socialist islamofascist cheese-eating homosexual beaurocrats use the heavy hand of the State to engage in dictatorial antics like “acting in the best interest of the citizens who elected them”:

Sarkozy wants to pump nearly US$7 billion into development of national broadband networks, with the money to be raised from a bond issue called the grand emprunt ("big loan"). The emprunt is a stimulus plan designed to boost the French economy as it pulls out of the worldwide economic crisis. Most of the money will be raised through a bond issue, but the rest will come from large institutions (think: banks) that were bailed out by the French government over the last year and are now repaying their debts.

Other countries like Spain and Finland are aiming for a national baseline of 1Mbps to all households over the next year or two; France wants faster speeds, but over a longer timeframe. And 100Mbps, while it sounds fast now, won’t be particularly quick in a decade. The good news, though, is that the only way to reach such speeds in France is probably through fiber (Europe not generally having a real robust cable infrastructure), and fiber is easily capable of speed upgrades.

Governments across the world are now explicitly recognizing the value of broadband as a public utility that should be available to all citizens. Spain and Finland are using a "universal service" funding model to subsidize more expensive locations, while countries like Australia are taking a "we’ll build it ourselves" approach to a national fiber backbone. The UK is encouraging incumbent last-mile operator OpenReach to roll out "open access" fiber. As for the US, the government has done little to date apart from funding some school and library Internet access, though that may change at least a bit when the first National Broadband Plan is rolled out early in 2010.

So, while Joe Biden’s stupid ass is busy instructing the FBI and Secret Service to enforce the business models of our corporate overlords, the poor oppressed citizens of Old Yurp are getting broadband at LAN speeds (with all the business opportunities that will become possible with universal LAN-speed broadband).  And when we’re all hobos, we can access the internet at the library!  Thank God we all know that America Is The Greatest Nation On Earth, or we might start to think it sort of sucks.

I wish all of you – my readers, friends old and new, my family and loved ones – a holiday season filled with every light and every love.  May you hear the wild, ancient song carried on the winds of this cold black night, and rejoice!

Noel

by Anne Porter

When snow is shaken
From the balsam trees
And they're cut down
And brought into our houses 

When clustered sparks
Of many-colored fire
Appear at night
In ordinary windows 

We hear and sing
The customary carols 

They bring us ragged miracles
And hay and candles
And flowering weeds of poetry
That are loved all the more
Because they are so common 

But there are carols
That carry phrases
Of the haunting music
Of the other world
A music wild and dangerous
As a prophet's message 

Or the fresh truth of children
Who though they come to us
From our own bodies
Are altogether new
With their small limbs
And birdlike voices 

They look at us
With their clear eyes
And ask the piercing questions
God alone can answer.

Blue Girl has done it again!  No, I don’t mean she’s mailing out boxes of play-doh cookies packed in wads of cash.  I would never encourage such antics.  No, she and Neddie Jingo have recorded another fantastic Christmas song, a form of Blue Girl antics that I heartily endorse and encourage.  Go listen to it!  NOW!!

Seriously, Tim Geithner must have nads the size of asteroids:

What about housing? There seems to be universal dissatisfaction with the process for helping people who are facing foreclosure.
We were very careful from the beginning—but the qualifications get lost—to say that we are going to focus the bulk of the financial force on bringing interest rates and mortgage rates down to cushion the fall in housing prices and help stabilize home values, which will feed into people’s basic sense of financial stability.?[We tried to make clear] that what we’d do to prevent foreclosure would be very targeted and limited. We wouldn’t try to keep people in homes they couldn’t fundamentally afford. While we thought we’d lowered expectations, we’re still being hung for letting expectations get ahead of policy.

And yet!  Still a giant crybaby.  If you think you’re getting hung now, wait until you see what the pitchfork-wielding hoards do to you!

So, the Obama administration supports legalizing prescription drug re-importation, unless there’s legislation on the floor of the Senate that would legalize prescription drug re-importation, in which case they oppose it, but once that legislation is no longer in play, they support it again…just in time for the next election!