Syria-sly, Folks

These geopolitical strategies and predictions are interesting enough, until considering all the possible ramifications and permutations give even the most astute observer a ginormous headache. But no matter, we are apparently going to pimp-slap Syria, even though it will definitely jack oil prices up on a precarious world economy, and has enormous chances for flaring into a serious regional conflict.

Everyone should be able to agree that Bashar Assad is a turd of a human being, following closely in the bloody footprints of his old man. The Alawite regime in Syria is overwhelmingly outnumbered by a Sunni population, and like Saddam Hussein, can only hold power by the most ruthless of means, since they don't actually represent any real constituency other than themselves.

But the trick here -- and this is where Obama and the would-be humanitarians need to pay close attention -- there are no good guys here. Americans hear "rebels" and they think of George Washington's ragtag bunch at Valley Forge, or valiant "freedom fighters" striving for Good in the cruel face of ineffable evil. Or they think of Star Wars.

But all indications of the Syrian rebels are of loose militias of jihadist animals -- one cell was busted in May in Turkey with a couple kilos of sarin gas. Whether or not Assad actually used sarin, it appears that the rebels would be more than happy to give it a spin as well, should the opportunity present itself.

(And not to play devil's advocate for horrible forms of weaponry, but why precisely is sarin so much worse than, say, cluster bombs? Either one seems like a pretty miserable way to go. The idea that the use of cluster bombs is somehow acceptable or moral because we "deeply regret" the civilians and children who come across unexploded bomblets is pretty monstrous in itself.)

So there are no good guys in this, and we have a consistent recent history of going into places we know nothing about, blundering through and fucking things up. If Obama thinks this might be his Kosovo, a quick in-and-out six weeks of air sorties followed by a peacekeeping camp of Burger Kings and workout gyms, he's almost definitely wrong, to the extent that you could bet serious money on it.

Remember when the Arab Spring was a thing? Good times. How's all that turning out now? The problem is that we know nothing about these countries, or how their people feel about us, or how the best move for us is to stay the hell out of their shit altogether for a while. Yes, Russia and China will step in and reap the rewards -- and the headaches. Let them, they'll learn soon enough.

In fact, this has all the makings of a serious clusterfuck -- Iran will almost definitely do something in response, probably send Hezbollah over the Lebanese or Syrian border to provoke Israel to jump in. Not to mention that Russia and China have registered their vehement disagreement, so a supporting UN resolution will be practically impossible.

Hegemonists will respond -- rightly to some extent -- that it shouldn't matter what asshole governments think if we're trying to do the right thing, the humanitarian thing. And no, we don't let Putin or anyone else dictate our foreign policy for us.

But we also don't (in theory, anyway) go rushing into military action if the risks outweigh the potential benefits. And here, as we finally wind down and limp away from two costly, ill-conceived wars, as the world economy is precipitously positioned, there is almost zero upside and massive potential downside with this.

So of course we'll do it. We can't help ourselves, and more importantly, we haven't yet internalized that the world is no longer unipolar like we'd prefer, but apolar, with no clear single sphere of influence, just large competing interests, all ultimately at the service of transnational merchant princes with no particular loyalties.

Cleo (1995-2013)

Four months ago, I had not one but two cats that were eighteen years of age. You may recall that we had to put Shadow down in May, but Cleo seemed like she'd hit 20 for sure (the pic at right was taken at the end March, just five months ago). And yet, mere weeks after Shadow was gone, Cleo began declining, first slowly, then all at once.

It would make for better copy to say that Shadow and Cleo were like some couple that had been married for 70 years or so, and one just couldn't live without each other. It happens to human couples, and probably to animal couples as well. But except for Shadow's final year, as she started wearing down, she and Cleo rarely interacted, and usually negatively when they did cross paths; both in fact were loners as far as other cats were concerned, although both were also very needy when it came to people.

More practically, if one needs a proximal cause other than the basic fact that Cleo was very old, we went out of town for a few days right after the 4th of July, and returned to a fairly nasty slab leak. While everything's fixable, we have to redo the kitchen and one of the bedrooms, just drywall and flooring, but disruptive enough to where the cats couldn't come into the house for a couple weeks while we were tearing out walls and floors and running dehydrators. (We have a covered, locked porch where they sleep at night regardless, so these are not outdoor cats.)

Anyhoo, spending the better part of a month straight out back, with strange machines running in the house, people coming and going, etc., might just have been disruptive enough to give poor Cleo a shove. I really don't know. I know that when we found her eighteen years ago almost to the day, she was a scrawny, starving kitten, days or maybe hours away from death. Chances are if we hadn't found her when we did, she would wandered back out to the field, to die of thirst or be grabbed by one of the hawks that cruise through regularly looking for unwary mice.

So you do what you can, and they get a pretty good run, our animal friends. But we miss them all the same.

Capitalism Y'all

I think most of us can agree one at least one thing -- when you attempt to underpin an essential economic principle with observations from the staged talk show of a woman who actively pimps her children for a living, you've lost, and hard. It's hard to imagine the sort of soulless fuck who attempts to intellectually square the nonsense of a creature like Kris Jenner with the philosophy of Adam Smith, but here you have it -- people who will reach for literally anything to justify their biases.

I have no wish, good or bad, regarding Kris Jenner or her skeevy, starfucking progeny, save that they get actual jobs producing something useful.

Tipping Point

Catching up a little further on the musings of the past week, Ed has an interesting post about the most likely pivot point of the current malaise. As most observers might surmise, there's no single proximal cause or event, rather a pattern of things that have pushed circumstances to their current state.

But if you had to pick a Number One, you could do worse than choosing the Rubinization of the economy that took place under the Clinton administration. (Be sure to keep that in mind when you're "choosing" Hillary! over Rand Paul in a few years.) Sure, NAFTA screwed the labor pooch sufficiently so as to generate that gentle sucking sound (per Ross Perot) you still hear almost a full generation later.

But the selling-out and ritual buttfucking of the working class was a multi-episode series, as they say in the entertainment parlance, and Bob Rubin's human centipede act with Citibank and the rest of the Wall Street rentiers was on a par with, say, the penultimate episode of the Sopranos, where major bodies drop but the main character still stands, bloodied but unbowed, and the viewer is still not 100% sure how things will resolve.

Stop and Frisk

Obviously there are grand racial implications to the whole "stop and frisk" deal, but stupidly, I persist in asking the (I believe) rather obvious question -- in what place and time precisely is it considered acceptable for police to randomly detain and manhandle passersby? Historians should ask and answer the question of when exactly we became a subservient cage of captive hamsters, each awaiting our eventual fate, but hoping that said fate befell every other hamster first?

And here we thought it was Giuliani that was the only "small man in search of a balcony."

Quit Parade

So Dave has dialed back to one-a-week, and now TBogg is apparently checking out, at least for the time being. Too bad, but ultimately it happens to everyone who decides to tie on the butcher's apron and set about the gruesome work of cleaving offal from meat. After some time, everything looks like roadkill, and there's only so many ways you can cook roadkill.

I don't know if it means anything or nothing, if it's a signal that "blogging," whatever that means, has (let's say) an attenuated utility at this point, in this vaunted era of twittardery and daily outrages and not thinking or talking through much of anything. For the record, I don't believe that that is the case; I think there remains a sizable audience for thoughtful commiseration, for whom 140 characters doesn't quite cut it.

So folks are welcome to come here or go there or whatever's clever. Reading the "please don't go" comments in anyone's GBCW missive is a lot like listening to someone bemoan the cancellation of their favorite teevee show, or the breakup of their favorite group. As if there aren't plenty more of each out there, of comparable or even greater talent and vitality. (In fact, since the past-due dismantlement of the networks and record companies, there's more great stuff than ever. There's also more shit than ever. As always, it's up to you, Tonstant Weader, to discern which from which.)

Asking people to stay on in any line of work -- especially the creative line -- is an invitation to eventual crushing disappointment. You know what the Beatles or Zeppelin would have been like if they'd pressed on? They'd have sucked; they'd have lamely cadged slivers of mediocrity on the remnants of past greatness. Perhaps nowhere else do the laws of diminishing returns (or expectations) have such impact.

Perhaps in some cases, walking away is also a tacit acknowledgement of the facts of the game -- that the writer, who presumably seeks at least some measure of legitimacy and/or efficacy, is basically the Ultimate Salmon, swimming against the impossible current of abject ignorance. For the political blogger, it's impossible to ignore that in the aggregate, politicians generally reflect their constituencies.

You can try to convince yourself that it's the fault of gerrymandering, a lazy or complicit media, money buying power, etc. And you'd be right. But at the end of the day, it comes down to dipshits being easily baited into voting against themselves. And no quantity of tilts against windmills will change that.

So you press on for the folks who do pay attention, who give a shit about something besides the tips of their noses. But they're fewer and farther between, and there are always more distractions. After all, there's probably another season of Duck Dynasty or some such gearing up right this here second.

(Not that I'm necessarily high-minded in my choice of entertainment -- the only reason I bother to watch The Newsroom is that I would absolutely wreck Olivia Munn.)

Anyway, hang in there, I have more to yap about in the near future, and should at least make the 10th anniversary of The Hammer come 1/1/15, which is closer than it might appear tonight. We have things to discuss, to disparage, to defame and decry, and as a famous cartoon character once said, I have not yet begun to fart. Or fight. Whatever. The Ultimate Salmon swims on, despite the odds.

Slave System

So let's see if we understand this correctly:  six months after Johnny Manziel supposedly got (depending on whether you believe the NCAA's story or not) either $7500 or a "five-figure flat fee" to sign a couple hundred helmets for an autograph broker who turned them around for larger dollars.

Scandalous, right? After all, this kid has a free scholarship to an elite post-secondary educational institution, and instead of playing for pure honor and fresh air and sunshine, per the NCAA's bylaws, he's got the stones to accept a handful of cash from some swag merchant. Meanwhile, the schools shovel in a metric fuckton of cashola on these kids' backs. Per the link, Texas A&M (Manziel's school) had about $92.5M in revenue in 2008, well before Manziel even got there.

NCAA's own revenue links from just last year shows the revenue breakdown. Not a goddamned dime goes to the players, and if Manziel or anyone else blows their knee out in their next game, you think the NCAA is going to help them out? Nope, they make plenty of money screwing these kids over for every little thing they do, to ensure that all the money goes to broadcasting and selling jerseys.

Put it this way:  who do you think makes more money from selling Johnny Manziel jerseys, the NCAA, Texas A&M, or Manziel himself? Which of those entities do you think should make the most money from selling those items? Do you think it's at all fair that Manziel makes somewhere between diddly and squat from the pimping of his own name, while others rake in millions? Well, if your answers were along the lines of "Manziel; Manziel; no," then you are at serious odds with the NCAA, sporto.

Someone should do a cost-benefit analysis of pushing a student-athlete through some bullshit communications degree, versus the revenue accrued from selling that kid's swag and pocketing every dime of profit. Every player is a crapshoot, but I promise you that in the aggregate, the schools and the NCAA make money, and the athlete, whether his body withstands the punishment or not, makes dick.

The Great Unwinding

The question of when the Fed stops handing money to rentier kajillionaires to prop up the smoke-and-mirrors casino economy (instead of to working people who would -- I shit you not, podna -- spend the money instead of hoarding it, buy things instead of making book) is less about the when and more about how hard it will hit the peons when it happens.

Since the Masters of the Universe assume that all unrich people are another, dumber form of life who were just too fucking stoopid to get out of their own way, the one thing they can agree upon with zero discussion is that their own bottom line should not be affected by so much as a tenth of a penny or a hundredth of a percentage point. After all, it's hard goddamn work to pick the right parents and diddle spreadsheets and knock off American companies, so get bent, dummies who work with your hands and backs!

In other words, they were more than happy to cause this mess on the backs of the proles, so it stands to reason that they'll be equally jake with letting us take the hit when the house of financial cards finally collapses (again). Because they know you won't do jack shit about it, you'll either sit home and grumble or Get Out And Vote like it actually means anything. And then go back to the weekly freak show of sex dungeons and sharknados and gropey mayors.

Which might be the most sensible response; again, aside from keeping an eye on higher ground for when the shit does come down, there's not much you can do. Get out of debt if you can, learn to grow your own food regardless, learn a new skill or refine an existing one, so at least you can barter for sex and gasoline. Other than that, they own your ass, you know it and they know it.

The Idealistic Cynic (or The Cynical Idealist)

I've been going through a bit of a dry spell lately as far as posting, and there are plenty of reasons for that -- job; family; small to medium contingencies popping up; the usual life stuff. Another big reason is the conscious decision I made back in the spring to work on my music books (and possibly another political Hammer book at the end of this year, time and interest permitting).

But I think this post of Dave's (and btw, sorry to hear that Dave's checking out; he's one of the better ones out there) encapsulates why I've made that conscious decision as well as anything. People are what they are; bozo politicians are more often than not reflections of their constituencies (or enough of them to get into office). And while snarking on stupidity and its many practitioners is still fun and gratifying, at the end of the day it has the outcome of peanut-gallery guff, it changes little to nothing. It's cathartic for me, and hopefully entertaining for you. But that's about it.

Not that I'm stopping or anything; as we head into yet another round of midterm foolishness, no doubt moar and bettar morans will scuttle out from behind the faux-wood paneling in the GOP's crazy-aunt basement. And dickless Democrats will squawk and piddle about it, but in the end do fuck-all. The names and details change, but the results are generally the same, and there's not a damned thing any of us can do about any of it. But for me the energy these days is with the music and the music books, not because it's exactly a profitable venture for me as yet, but because it's entirely within my control.

In nearly nine years of steady blogging(!), preceded by about six years of forum activity and boisterous commentary and interaction, there are definitely days or weeks where I feel like I've said most or all of what I have the ability and capacity to say. It becomes a pattern of diminishing returns, attenuated only by my willingness and ability to bring in, absorb, and process more information, and regurgitate it usefully.

That was not too huge of a challenge when I read mostly non-fiction over the last decade; the process of reading-analysis-writing fortunately goes fairly quickly for me at this point. But most of my non-fiction reading recently is short form. I probably read 50-55 books last year, but at least 80% of those were fiction, especially crime fiction. I don't know why; as they say, it is what it is.

Political observation is and always will be fascinating to me on some level, because to me it represents a confluence of interesting disciplines -- history, culture, geopolitical strategy, sociology, and more. Approached honestly and diligently, it has endless possibilities to inform and even surprise on occasion.

But we are more of a Facebook/bumper sticker nation when it comes to political discussion anymore, and there's only so many gaggles of twittards one can read through and stomach. I see this in many of the other political bloggers I read regularly, so I get that it ain't just me. It can be very frustrating to take the time to inform oneself and analyze data, only to see decisions be ultimately be made by people who too ignorant and/or lazy to bother with all that, or by folks who are engaged enough to get informed, but not quite enough to take any meaningful action.

(Note:  Voting does not count as "meaningful action," it is in fact the bare minimum required of anyone who still thinks there might be a glimmer of a possibility that their voice in the wilderness might still count for something. But when the two parties, in practice if not in rhetoric, are much more alike than different, then it matters less and less.)

As America gets more and more fat, broke, crazy, and violent, and tries to deal with its compromised role on a groaning, cluttered planet that is only becoming more so, all we can do is hope to hang on, while looking out for higher ground.
 

Happy Birthday, Tom Brady

Just a friendly reminder that the game that kicked off Brady's ascension into the NFL elite was decided by probably the single biggest bullshit call in the entire history of the league. If it had happened against any team other than the Raiders it would have been acknowledged long ago.

At least the Patsies might finally start to see a little karma this season, with the lack of a #1 receiver and their Hernandez / Gronkowski / Tebow trifecta of fail. Have a good one, champ.

America the Lootiful; Or, Detroit Hock City

The estimable Charlie LeDuff has news for all y'alls looking at Detroit's tribulations and having your SMH moment at "those people":

So Detroit files for bankruptcy. What does this mean? Pay close attention because it may be coming to you soon, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia. In 2011, Moody’s calculated the unfunded liabilities for Illinois’ three largest state-run pension plans to be $133 billion. (It is expected to be even larger this year.) That’s the size of six Detroit bankruptcies — give or take a few hundred million.

Of Detroit’s debt of at least $18 billion, about $7 billion is secured by collateral like casino revenues and utility taxes. That means creditors — big banks — will get paid. Of the remaining $11 billion or so in unsecured debt, about $9 billion is owed to retirees and current municipal workers, people like firefighters and police officers. These debts come in the form of promised pension checks and health care benefits, all backed by a false, unsecured promise. These are the people who are likely to lose out.

And of course, all of these costs are driven by the exorbitant "health" "care" racket. All those public service workers, people who were dumb enough to trust the promises of the system, don't have to be screwed over. But they will. It's just business. And it will be reiterated, many times, many ways, in many cities around the country. Stay tuned, more fun times are ahead.

Ownership Society

Let's see if by chance anything at all unrelated to royal babies or Anthony Weiner's cock might be happening in this crazy planet of ours, shall we? Maybe there's a reason we're hearing about those things instead of these things:

Apparently the slithering evil that is Halliburton continues its unholy bargain with the Elder Gods of R'lyeh, in that they have admitted to incompetence and the destruction of evidence that may very well have cost 11 men their lives and poisoned the Gulf of Mexico for years to come, yet pay a whopping $200,000 fine for all that. They may yet take a hit in civil court, but we're talking about a company that routinely pulls down $7bn in revenues quarterly.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh CheneyCthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn, indeed.

Kids, are you up on all the latest super-awesome oil-extraction technologies? If you love 'murka, then you are down with fracking and tar sands like Lindsay Lohan chasing a dime bag of bathtub crank. Ah, except for the fact that tar sands EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) is usually 25-50% of conventional oil EROEI, which may not be a dealbreaker, but is still substantially less than ideal. That and the problematic issue of the breakeven costs of tar sands range at $65-70/bbl for in situ (steam) and $90-100/bbl for mining.

IOW, the promises of petroleum plenitude for all are belied by the fact that those methods are only cost-effective at higher price ranges -- that is, if there's a scarcity. So either there's a scarcity or there isn't.

Also, too, the small problem of increasing environmental issues. Yeah, who'da thunk something would go south with injecting pressurized steam into substrata in order to melt and steam tar out of the topsoil. Jesus H. Christ, how could anything possibly go wrong there?

Which brings us to fracking, and as always, the day any of its bought-and-paid-for proponents agree to have it done in their backyards, with their water tables and aquifers, then I guess we can all be okey-doke about all that. Till then how 'bout them crickets you hear?

All of these things are just parts of a greater looming environmental issue, as the oceans acidify and fishing stocks continue their decline, at faster and faster rates. But we got what we paid for, which was "cheap" oil, without the bother of innovating truly renewable technologies. The U.S. government dumped half a billion dollars into Solyndra, while the Chinese gov't poured over $30bn into the same tech, and all we could do when Solyndra inevitably failed (in no small part due to health insurance costs, like every other American industry these days, held hostage to the most pernicious racket of all) was hold our dicks and scream about sociamalism.

And hey, speaking of which, how about the "revelation" that the parasitic financial class is manipulating commodities prices? You're shocked, right? The real issue here is not that Goldman Sachs jacks up the price of a can of Coke by a tenth of a cent by scooting tons of aluminum from warehouse to warehouse, but that they make billions of dollars by not producing a fucking thing.

Seriously, when I say that this is parasitism, I fucking well mean it. These people do not produce a goddamned thing, they simply broker and hedge and take bets and game the system. Because it's their system, you're just forced to participate in it, bunky. They own it all, and they rent the people who make laws and policy, and fuck you in the neck if you have a problem with any of that.

Investing used to mean that you participated in the creation of wealth and value, by collaborating in a financial endeavor that produced an item that a mass of human beings would want to buy. An innovation, an invention, a new item or service. Read any "get rich" volume from the uniquely American cult of "self-improvement" books. One thing they will all tell you is that you need to analyze and profile who you expect your customer base to be, and then to provide them with something of value.

Take my own example that I've undertaken this year -- I've played guitar at a decent skill level for a couple of decades now, and taught at various times throughout, so I constructed tabs, wrote text, and created books for people wanting to improve their game. The market will ultimately decide whether or not those things add value to the desires of the customer base.

But the bottom line is, for better or worse, I created something. I didn't hoard a vital commodity in order to leverage prices and game the system, and then skim a commission off the top. That is the Tony Soprano approach to economics, I don't care what these leeches try to rationalize this bullshit with. They're nothing but thieves and vipers. Instead of innovating and creating, people get rich these days simply by making book, taking bets, gaming systems for their own benefit at the expense of the unrich.

This is the system that they've bought and paid for, and contrary to popular plaint, that system is not at all broken, it's fixed. Keep that in mind at all times, when you're not distracted by the deliberate inanity of the corporate mockingbird.

Weiner? I Nearly Killed Her!

Carlos DangerAnthony Weiner's problem is not specifically that he's a sexting fool; his problem is that he is apparently a full-blown, mouth-breathing, window-licking, short-bus riding moron.

On the other hand, Carlos Danger. Now there's a pseudonym you can use to order pizza. Perhaps the best fake name since Ron Mexico.

The Universe Thinks I Deserve a Worsening

Dammit, how is it that I didn't know about this site? Nothing against Jeff Bridges or Ryan Reynolds, but R.I.P.D. looks DOA, and few things are better than funny bad reviews.

Stockholm Syndrome, Blah Style

I have no idea what to make of this weirdness. A black man in the heart of Dixie who flies the traitor bumwipe without apparent irony is most likely the even more retarded progeny of Alvin Greene. Don't know, don't care; this fool's self-loathing is probably sufficient punishment.

But I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it, a southern black man championing the confederacy and its symbols, and apparently even saying that slaves deserved to be enslaved (see the comments in the Gawker link). Something's deeply wrong with this guy; no one expects him to be Malcolm X, but jebus.

At the very least it's heartening to see that semi-literate bozos are allowed to intern for U.S. Senators too. Someone has to get Tim Scott his coffee.

Even Dave Chappelle would have had a hard time coming up with this guy.

Business Class

This bit of apologia may turn out to be the Rosetta Stone of the economic collapse, when all is said and done. Any manager who literally Joe Biden believes that all positive NPV projects should be accepted has pretty much cogitated him/herself out of a job.

Theoretically this is why a decent portfolio manager would also be running regression analyses on the full beta of the portfolio, not just grabbing at anything and everything that pulls a "positive" NPV when run through Excel. You don't need to pay someone six figures and stock options in that; you can pretty much train a chimp to push buttons.

Not only that, but sheesh, if we are talking about a "project" which doesn't actually produce anything, but is a credit default swap on a put option on a collection of tranched subprime mortgages that have been laundered through the wringer of endless mortgage rebuyers and robosigned bullshit, then you are no longer talking about economic production. You're talking about a bookmaking operation, a casino, one whose business model is predicated on having the government give it money at 0%, so's it can turn around and lend it to the peons at 3-30%, depending on your particular mode of interaction with the beast.

Don't ask why, if the gov't can lend money out at 0%, why it can't do microloans to individuals at that rate, thus allowing said individuals to put money directly back into the economy, while disempowering a parasite class of middlemen and spreadsheet grifters. What's left of this economy is based on usury and racketeering, pure and simple.

At this point, that applies to higher education probably more than anything else in the American system, aside from health care. If you have to go $100K or so into debt to secure an advanced degree and enhance your earning power, but the jobs aren't out there, so you're on the hook for 15-20 years instead of 5-10 -- like it used to be before tuitions went through the roof -- the bottom line is that that's a full decade or so where you are unable to spend into the economy. Trust me on this; if I wasn't making barely median wage and still facing about $60K in student-loan debt, I'd be spending my earnings, not hoarding it in the Caymans like the Scrooge McDucks who really run this banana stand.

Get back to obsessing over royal babies and Kanye West and man-bites-dog stories that have nothing to do with you. Go back to sleep.

Damage Control

Could the half-baked excuses offered by the seventh-century death cultists for shooting schoolgirls possibly be a sign that they're losing traction? Who knows. What's really something is the sheer balls this guy displays in his pretzel logic:

"If you were shot [by] Americans in a drone attack, would [the] world have ever heard updates on your medical status? … Would you were called to UN? Would a Malala day be announced?"

It goes without saying (or should) that incidents of indiscriminate drone bombing are horrific and despicable, and deserve the censure of decent human beings around the world, since their governments give far less than a shit what anyone thinks. But the attempt to morally equivocate that with the deliberate, systematic abuse and terrorizing of women and children is about as craven as it gets.

We definitely need to get the hint already that drone-bombing, among other tactics, creates as many or more terrorists as it removes. That does not absolve these bastards, if we left tomorrow, would still routinely be violently subjugating the weak, and perpetuating their regressive, dead-end creed.

RIP, Tunch

Just saw the horrible news over at Cole's. So awful, so sad. Give your furry friends a hug, folks.

Getting Away With....

It's yet another one of those days where you find yourself mildly embarrassed for Florida, but not at all surprised. One could easily and rationally debate the murder charge against George Zimmerman, but the manslaughter charge seemed indisputable. Guess not; the (mini) jury always knows best, right? Only two people know what really took place that fateful night, and one of them is dead.

But hey, "everyone lost" (though, uh, some lost more than others, no?) and Zimmerman feels real bad about the whole thing, so it's all good then. There's perhaps some small consolation that Zimmerman will be looking over his shoulder for some time to come, until 'murka forgets about this and moves on to the next outrage du jour. And he'll probably get his ass sued, and might experience some challenges in obtaining decent employment.

Another dimension to this that's worth considering is the legitimacy of the "stand your ground" law, which seems to be (to say the least) applied rather irregularly. Not only is the notion of unqualified mall-cop yahoos like Zimmerman carrying weapons ridiculous, but that one can "stand" their "ground" in a public place, yet not in their own home.

Can't imagine why anyone might think there are racial undertones to all this, not to mention the fact that if Zimmerman had been black and Martin white, or if Martin had wrestled Zimmerman's gun away and accidentally shot Zimmerman, the outcomes would have been completely different -- and instantly resolved in either hypothetical; in fact, you'd have never heard about the case.

So protesters will protest, and a couple vandals will take advantage of the situation to steal and light fires (and perhaps get themselves shot in the process), and Florida's power structure and judicial system will do what it does, which is shrug its shoulders and say, "fuck you gonna do about it?"

Gravy Train

“I’ve considered it, because people have requested me considering it." -- Future U.S. SenatorPermanent punchline Sarah Palin

OK, we should know better than to throw chow to America's Concern Troll, but this now-annual flareup of mad cow disease, like political herpes, is still worth a jab of rhetorical Valtrex:

Really, Mark? Really?

Margaret Thatcher used to say, “I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.” So, thank you, Mark Begich, for making me and others exceptionally cheery today! Mark, after looking at your voting record I can see why you are looking for a distraction. You have voted FOR Obamacare, FOR massive tax increases, FOR carbon taxes which could cost Alaskans 21,000 jobs, AGAINST pro-life legislation, and there’s so much more. You even flip-flopped to oppose the nation’s balanced budget amendment. You agree with, and vote with, ultra-liberal Senators Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid approximately 90% of the time.

Setting aside the high-school girl zomg!srsly?! intro, corporate dogsbodies like Schumer and Reid are "ultra-liberal" only in comparison to unrepentant knuckle-draggers and obstructionists like -- well, like pretty much every do-nothing, glad-handing dipshit in the Republican side (and much of the Democratic side) of Congress.

And while it would serve Alaska and America just right to hand this dingbat a Senate seat, as punishment for not ignoring her enough to make her go away already, as noted yesterday, it's almost certainly not a concern:

Whatever you think of Palin, you have to give her this: She is a genius marketer of the “Sarah Palin” brand. She has turned herself into a celebrity. She is a well-compensated speaker, author and now, again, Fox News Channel political analyst.

And, to Nelson’s point above, Palin knows that the worst thing for that brand would be to return to the political arena as a candidate and lose.  To run would be to risk the  cachet and marketability she has built up in conservative circles. And Palin is plenty smart enough to know that.

And that's all there is to that. There is no there there, and never will be again. She'll never run for office again, preferring instead to pretend to be a rainmaker for unibrow backbenchers out in Gawwwd's country who otherwise would get laughed out of dog-catcher elections.

And when the audience for her ghost-written freedom/jebus/obamanazi/libruls stole Christmas doorstops finally dries updies in a tragic Hoveround pileup at the candy-corn Oreo display at the WalMart, then you might notice a distinct lack of shrillness, a bit less of the roofing-nails-on-chalkboard wail in the air.

Of course, by then an even bigger pain in the ass will have shown up, because that is how this country rolls.