NYPD: Sneaky Fucks

Clever. Clever, but a little bit dickish, too. NYPD tells drunks to camp out with OccupyWallstreet.

Justin Elliot at Salon:

The NYPD is reportedly telling drunks to hang out in Zuccotti Park, apparently as a way to undermine the credibility of Occupy Wall Street.

Harry Siegel reports:

But while officers may be in a no-win situation, at the mercy of orders carried on shifting political winds and locked into conflict with a so-far almost entirely non-violent protest movement eager to frame the force as a symbol of the oppressive system they’re fighting, the NYPD seems to have crossed a line in recent days, as the park has taken on a darker tone with unsteady and unstable types suddenly seeming to emerge from the woodwork. Two different drunks I spoke with last week told me they’d been encouraged to “take it to Zuccotti” by officers who’d found them drinking in other parks, and members of the community affairs working group related several similar stories they’d heard while talking with intoxicated or aggressive new arrivals.

…

“He’s got a right to express himself, you’ve got a right to express yourself,” I heard three cops repeat in recent days, using nearly identical language, when asked to intervene with troublemakers inside the park, including a clearly disturbed man screaming and singing wildly at 3 a.m. for the second straight night.

Dude. I knew Bloomberg & crew were assholes, but this boils down to a very sneaky attempt to paint the Occupiers as substance abusing indigents looking for handouts, which is NOT what OccupyWallstreet is about. The Occupiers are protesting economic injustice and the total ass-raping perpetuated by the 1% on the other 99% of us. Actually it does occur to me that there would be considerably fewer homeless folks in NY and elsewhere had our Galtian Overlords on Wallstreet not blown up the fucking economy in 2008.

In Which Little Tommy Friedman Makes Sense

Gasp! The horror, the horror! Thomas Friedman is not insane:

But, then, what happened to us? Our financial industry has grown so large and rich it has corrupted our real institutions through political donations. As Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, bluntly said in a 2009 radio interview, despite having caused this crisis, these same financial firms “are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they, frankly, own the place.”

Our Congress today is a forum for legalized bribery. One consumer group using information from Opensecrets.org calculates that the financial services industry, including real estate, spent $2.3 billion on federal campaign contributions from 1990 to 2010, which was more than the health care, energy, defense, agriculture and transportation industries combined. Why are there 61 members on the House Committee on Financial Services? So many congressmen want to be in a position to sell votes to Wall Street.

We can’t afford this any longer. We need to focus on four reforms that don’t require new bureaucracies to implement. 1) If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big and needs to be broken up. We can’t risk another trillion-dollar bailout. 2) If your bank’s deposits are federally insured by U.S. taxpayers, you can’t do any proprietary trading with those deposits — period. 3) Derivatives have to be traded on transparent exchanges where we can see if another A.I.G. is building up enormous risk. 4) Finally, an idea from the blogosphere: U.S. congressmen should have to dress like Nascar drivers and wear the logos of all the banks, investment banks, insurance companies and real estate firms that they’re taking money from. The public needs to know.

And he's cleaned up his egregious mixing of metaphors! Zwounds! What comes next?

Blog ad algorithms are not clever.

Look at the title of the video and the ad to the right.

Republicans are bad at math

-370,000 < 0 < ANY POSITIVE FUCKING NUMBER

The GOP apparently does not understand simple arithmetic. From ThinkProgress: REPORT: House GOP’s ‘Job Creating’ Spending Cuts Destroyed 370,000 Jobs.

The FBI may be retarded, or at least not wise in the use of taxpayer funds...

Apparently the FBI thinks Juggalos are analogous to the Crips, Bloods and Aryan Brotherhood. Spencer Ackerman brings us the grasping our heads in disbelief gory details here.

The FBI considers the fans of shticky rap group Insane Clown Posse to represent a threat on par with the Crips, Bloods, and Aryan Brotherhood, according to its annual report on gang activity.

You might think Insane Clown Posse’s people — known as the Juggalos — are just a group of face-painting teenagers who wonder how magnets work. Not so, says the FBI’s 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment. To the feds, Juggalos are a “loosely-organized hybrid gang” that are “forming more organized subsets and engaging in more gang-like criminal activity.”

Consult page 22 of the FBI’s brand-new annual report on gang activity nationwide. (.PDF) Listed in the same breath as street gangs with ties to murderous Mexican drug cartels is the Juggalo threat.

Seriously. What the fuck?

They may not go down in history, but they'll go down on your sister...

Art, dude.

So, I think this is art:



and I am going to order a framed poster of it. 1940s Public domain health posters as 21st century wall hangings? I think so.

Pat Buchanan is a Racist Piece of Shit

From Cranky McWhiterson's new book:

"If Mac Donald’s statistics are accurate, 49 of every 50 muggings and murders in New York are the work of minorities. That might explain why black folks have trouble getting a cab. Every New York cabby must know the odds, should he pick up a man of color at night."

And he's still on TV every week. Fucker.

The Dude Occupies Wall Street.

The Dude above is Jeff Dowd, actual radical dude from way back. And he points out that some new economic shit is coming to light.

From Slate (please do not consider this a retraction of my sentiments about Slate's awfulness posted below): Occupy Wall Street: What Would Lebowski Do?

Noam Chomsky in Dewey Square for #OccupyBoston Saturday 10/22

Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT, a generally well-informed and spoken man, will be speaking in Dewey Square in Boston at the #OccupyBoston protests on Saturday 10/22 at 6PM. I believe I'll go and hear what he has to say.

Now We Laugh!

Michelle Bachmman's entire NH campaign staff quits.

Perhaps they took some smart pills?

Sweet Jesus God is that a Shitload of Money or What?

$74,000,000,000,000.

Crooks and Liars tells us the Bank of America is trying to stick taxpayers with $74 Trillion in possible debt. Story here.

This move paves the way for another TARP-style shakedown of taxpayers, this time to save depositors. No Congressman would dare vote against that. This move is Machiavellian, and just plain evil.

Seventy five trillion dollars looks like this as a number: $75,000, 000, 000, 000. It's a big number. According to this article: total 2007 wealth for the entire country (everyone) was a bit under $66 Trillion (also a shitload of fucking money). Now, it's something like 48 or 49 trillion. So, if the derivatives BoA is trying to move into FDIC insured accounts ever go south, we'll be on the hook for %150 of the total wealth in this country and for 500% of U.S. GDP.

What the fuck?

Hooray!

Obama decides to live up to a campaign promise! We're actually pulling the troops from Iraq!

Why the fuck were we there anyway?
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V

Oh yeah, this guy and his pals...

The Rev. Will Now Take Appointments

Indeed. Now a full fledged minister of righteousness and raditude, I am available for all of you ministerial needs in the Metaphysical Church of the Rockn'Roll Lifestyle ( and others ).

Noam Chomsky in Dewey Square for #OccupyBoston

Noam Chomsky will speak in Dewey Square on Saturday. I think I'll go.

Herman Cain is Either Very Stupid, or he Thinks Everyone Else Is

From Time:

In at least one column, Cain seemed to condemn a proposal that is now a pillar of his highly touted 9-9-9 tax plan. On November 12, 2010, Cain wrote a column about rumors that Democrats would propose a consumption tax called a VAT. “The worst idea is a proposed national sales tax,” Cain wrote. A 9% national sales tax is now one of Cain’s three nines.

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/10/16/in-herman-cains-writings-a-startling-lack-of-foresight/#ixzz1bAFD2ptx

He was against it before he was for it. Maybe get back at that pizza gig?

What the fuck is a task chair?

This:

Task chairs are commonly used in conjunction with office desks. These chairs are generally quite basic in design and created specifically to be used by many different users. For this reason, task chairs are often used in college classrooms, particularly in those with computer labs. They are also often used in public areas, such as in the computer area of the public library, or when several employees share a single workstation.

Task chairs are a flexible option for use in offices, because they are adjustable in many ways. Some less expensive task chairs may only be able to adjust up or down in order to accommodate users of various heights. This is usually accomplished by pushing a lever located beneath the seat.

By pushing the lever when no one is seated in the chair, the seat comes up. To lower the seat, the user simply puts pressure on the seat while pushing the lever. This is often accomplished by simply sitting on the seat.

As always, knowing is half the battle.

My Mayor is an Asshole With No Grasp of History

Boston Mayor Tom Manino, asshat:

“We will tolerate demonstrations, we will tolerate expressions of free speech, but when it comes to civil disobedience we have a real issue with that, that is why we moved in last night,” Menino said.

“Civil disobedience doesn’t work for Boston; it doesn’t work for anyone,” he added.

Dude. Really? Gandhi anyone? Martin Luther King? Come on...

Drunk Lawmaker Arrested With Gun

From Think Progress: Tennessee Sponsor Of Guns In Bars Law Arrested For Driving Drunk With A Gun.

In what is almost too predictable to be true, the lead sponsor of a Tennessee law allowing handgun permit holders to bring guns into bars “has been arrested on charges of drunken driving and possession of a gun while under the influence.” Pulled over in Nashville, Tennessee late yesterday, state Rep. Curry Todd (R) “failed a roadside sobriety test and refused to take a breathalyzer. A loaded Smith & Wesson 38 Special was found in a holster stuffed between the driver seat and the center console.” A spokesman for the House Republican Caucus had no immediate comment on the arrest. Todd, incidentally, is the same official who compared pregnant illegal immigrants to “reproducing rats.”

Asshole!

Slate is awful.

Slate used to be somewhat shitty. The recent design changes have made it truly awful. Impossible to walk in that muck. No footing at all.

The Anachronism of the 99%

From Mike Konczal's fascinating analysis of the 99% movement:

Let’s bring up a favorite quote around here. Anthropologist David Graeber cites historian Moses Finley, who identified “the perennial revolutionary programme of antiquity, cancel debts and redistribute the land, the slogan of a peasantry, not of a working class.” And think through these cases. The overwhelming majority of these statements are actionable demands in the form of (i) free us from the bondage of these debts and (ii) give us a bare minimum to survive on in order to lead decent lives (or, in pre-Industrial terms, give us some land). In Finley’s terms, these are the demands of a peasantry, not a working class.

The actual ideology of modernity, broadly speaking, is absent. There isn’t the affluenza of Freddie’s worries, no demands for cheap gas, cheaper credit, giant houses, bigger electronics all under the cynical ”Ownership Society” banner. The demands are broadly health care, education and not to feel exploited at the high-level, and the desire to not live month-to-month on bills, food and rent and under less of the burden of debt at the practical level.

Fuck. Are we really descending back into a pre-industrial peasant mindset? Perhaps so. Fuck!

The assholes at Netflix wised up. Hooray!

From the NY Times: Netflix Abandons Qwikster foolishness.

Excellent.

Keep at it Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Boston, etc.

Some tunes for your troubles:

Rock on.

Sweet hypothetical space ghost! This grey-goo business is gnarly!

Grey Goo.

We are the 99%. Give us free money.

As Atrios has been saying for some time, why the fuck are we dicking around with bank bailouts and hopeless jobs bills and all that shit when what would really stimulate our economy now is FREE MONEY for those of us who aren't a bunch of rich assholes?

Alex Pareene at Salon also has a worthwhile suggestion for those who demand that the Occupy Wall Street movement specify its demands. What he's talking about boils down to Fuck the Banks, forgive our debts!

The problem with the proposal — basically “moral hazard” — is precisely the problem with the government’s de facto policy of not allowing the financial industry to collapse under the weight of its colossal greed. If you believe Americans should be taught “the hard way” not to live “beyond their means,” forcing credit card companies to take a haircut on the money they’re owed would certainly lead them to limit consumer debt-spending in the future. Banks would rather receive regular payments from fixed-rate mortgages than trick people into ARMs if they thought the government was likely to step in on behalf of borrowers rather than lenders. In other words, forcing the financial sector to feel the pain of the rest of us would help align our interests. It would no longer be profitable to rip us off if the government stepped in to halt the Great Rip-Off

Indeed, Mr. Pareene.

And for those of you who contend that the 99% of us that didn't bring the world to the brink of economic collapse in 2008 don't deserve free money, fuck you.

For our relevant listening pleasure:

Obey. Consume. Sleep.

The FBI: Fomenting Terror Plots since 2001

From Glenzilla:

The FBI has received substantial criticism over the past decade — much of it valid — but nobody can deny its record of excellence in thwarting its own Terrorist plots. Time and again, the FBI concocts a Terrorist attack, infiltrates Muslim communities in order to find recruits, persuades them to perpetrate the attack, supplies them with the money, weapons and know-how they need to carry it out — only to heroically jump in at the last moment, arrest the would-be perpetrators whom the FBI converted, and save a grateful nation from the plot manufactured by the FBI.

Read the whole thing.