just who the fuck voted for her, anyway?!?!?!?!?!?!

the fact that michelle bachmann needs an extra "n" at the end of her last name should tell you everything you need to know. okay, i exaggerate. this should tell you everything you need to know about michelle bachmann. she is bugfuck, apeshit insane. she uses already discarded pieces of legislation to argue that stalin is in the building. and the discarded pieces? they didn't even call for what she said they did.

here's what the new serve america act does do: it gives federal funding status to a slew of already existing community service programs (or new ones some goddamned do-gooder dreams up), and also awards increased pell grants for anyone who completes these programs that can be used to pay for college or student loans. it also reinforces rules about what programs do and don't qualify. basically, any program that engages in politics, supports a for-profit company or union, or is religious instruction does not qualify. if you're program is receiving funds under this bill, it can't have any of those goals, and the volunteers can't do any of those things while they're supposed to be doing community service. last, it sets rules for school districts that would like funding as a "youth engagement zone": at least 90% of students must be in a service program, and the high school has to have some "service learning" as a part of the mandatory curriculum. did we save the statue of vladimir lenin? i think we're gonna need it.

it does not stipulate that you can't attend church, work for a union, or tell mccain supporters he fathered a black baby. you just have to do those things on your own fucking time. maybe the problem bachmann has with the bill is that the people in her district don't have any of their own time anymore, what with all their foreclosures. or maybe she thinks that if public schools taught kids to give a shit about someone else for a change, they might not demand tax cuts when they're voting age. why is it that actually teaching americans to care about other americans has mixed republican support, but just about full democratic support? doesn't that say something about how different the parties are, ralph?

and here's what michelle rails about the most- the stuff that got yanked! the bill, originally, would have just looked into whether making some form of community service for young adults mandatory would improve the country. the original version also would have required the government "look into" (read: we'll get back to you when jfk's assassination reports are declassified) creating a 4-year, college-level institution for educating people for public sector jobs. the fact that we would even talk about requiring kids to give a shit about something besides the coolness of their own sneakers (i'm sorry, athletic shoes) and what color their ipods should be is a sign that castro's mind-control experiment has finally succeeded.

why is it that every single action by a government that aims to make this a better place to live is some sort of communist plot? whether it's flouride in the water, social security, the minimum wage, and now some additional government support for teaching young people the value of actually giving a shit. why is banning smoking from public places some sort of outrage? i don't see a right to tobacco anywhere in the constitution. i don't see a right to demand every single dollar your boss paid you in dollars that only have value because the government says so in the fucking bill of rights. but then again, i'm one of those pointy-headed intellectuals whose actually bothered to read the damn thing.

shut the fuck up about your fucking bonuses

disclosure: i got laid off on february 27, 2009. i was shocked. the operations manager was very sad, and the partner in charge of my department was sad, and the department director was very sad. i was a good employee, founded our company's sustainability team, trained employees in sustainability, was promoted, was working towards something. everyone was very clear that i had done nothing wrong, didn't deserve to be laid off, but "salaries had to brought in-line with billing". and someone making $75k when it's not all billable hours is going to be pushed out of the lifeboat eventually.

but the horsefuckers who brought AIG down? they're supposed to get bonuses. that means they got to keep their jobs. these people literally brought down the world's largest insurance company and the world's financial systems with it, AND THEY'RE STILL EMPLOYED. and getting bonuses. because their contracts say so.

the UAW had a contract with the car companies, but i seem to remember that being recently renegotiated for the sake of people keeping their jobs. people who built the cars they were told to, and did their jobs. THEY had to renegotiate their contracts to keep their jobs. but the mother-pimpers at AIG? well, renegotiating a contract is out of the question. in fact, to hear larry (you think CHICKS can't do math?) summers tell it, actually forcing these fuckers to renegotiate these contracts that award these asscracks bonuses for failing might bring down the rule of law.

so let me explain this to these fucking pathetic excuses for human scum. the only reason you're still employed is so you can clean up the mess you made. that's it. that's your only use. and when you're done cleaning up the catastrofuck you helped created, your ass is going to be canned. either AIG will say so long, fuckers, or people will show up at your office with pitchforks and torches. SO SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT YOUR FUCKING BONUSES. you should be working for free right now, and constantly begging the rest of us (you know, the little people whose 401ks and IRAs you destroyed) for our forgiveness. SO SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT YOUR FUCKING BONUSES. the only thing you've earned is a one-way ticket to the Sahara Desert. you didn't even care about the welfare of the company you worked for. SO SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT YOUR BONUSES. other people are worried about keeping a roof above their heads since they don't have jobs. other people are moving in with their parents. other people can no longer see a doctor since they don't have jobs and can't afford COBRA. SO SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT YOUR BONUSES. going without millions of dollars you didn't earn isn't socialism. it's just desserts.

please, let the door hit your ass on the way out

doghouse riley has been doing this more than amazing retrospective of the "bush" "administration", and its "governance". i wish i could surpass this. i wish i could express my searing hatred of this "man" and all the shit he has covered this nation in as well as doghouse riley does. hell, i wish i could tell stories about lawn care as well as doghouse does.

and to chris matthews: i'm not disagreeing with you- but i saw all this in 2000, and in 2001 (even on september 12), and in 2002, especially in 2003, and so on. did i have access to information about him that you didn't? is there some reason you decided to become blinded by his manly landing on aircraft carrier, while some of us perceived that this photo op was the whole reason bush decided we should invade iraq? were his jokes on the 2000 campaign plane so fucking hysterical that you felt guilty criticizing him until fucking 2008? when it's too late to even impeach him. finally growing a pair mid-2008 doesn't excuse castrating yourself for 7-1/2 years, asshat.

and to all of you dipshits who voted for this dirty, motherfucking whore to polluters, warmongers, defence contractors, dishonest foreigners, anti-woman zealots, theocrats, cronies, and anybody else who sucks and fucks others over; to all of you who voted for him in 2000 or especially in 2004- are you happy? wtf is wrong with you? how could you look around, even way back in 2004, and think we were doin' okay, or even a heckuva job? did you really need the federal government forcing terri schiavo to keep breathing and destruction in yet another major american city to start giving a shit? question the guy? wonder if maybe brains might just be a minor qualification for the fucking job? shut the fuck up about history judging him- what you really mean is that george w bush will only look like a good president when the people who actually remember him are dead.

in praise of partisanship

jack, i love you. i really do. but why the fuck do you want our nation's two parties to work together? exactly what have democrats gotten for cooperating with republicans? remember the almost fucking unaminous vote to invade afghanistan? remember no child left behind? remember fucking invading iraq? remember medicare prescription benefits? remember the goddamned patriot act? remember its reauthorization? remember giving amnesty to telecoms that helped bush break the motherfucking fourth amendment? remember yanking habeus corpus with the military commissions act? remember allowing torture with the same goddamned bill? remember continually reauthorizing money to fund the occupation of iraq? remember when pelosi said impeachment was off the table? what HAVEN'T the democrats not handed to republicans on a fucking platter in the desperate, self-loathing quest to get republicans' respect? the only thing the democrats really managed to kill during the last eight years was privatizing social security. oh, and some really fucked up rightwing nutjobs didn't get federal judgeships (didn't bother republicans when they did it to clinton's nominees, i might add). can you name anything else? can you name ANYTHING else that democrats howled and screamed NO! to, and republicans backed down? well?!?!?!?!?

yes, i voted for obama. yes, i hope he can really "reach across" that aisle. but what are republicans going to offer him? what do republicans ever give in return? they don't fully fund education deform, they could give a fuck about congressional oversight of the powers in the patriot act. they give nothing in return but false promises and their repeated contempt. everything democrats gave into during bush's term has turned to shit. so fuck working with republicans. it's time for them to shut up- we tried their ideas, and their ideas are shit. so democrats don't want to deal them anymore. boo fucking hoo. cry me a goddamned river.

the beatings will continue until morale improves

which is pretty much israel's attitude. this guy on al jazeera literally just says, well sure they're suffering, but so what? we've had to put up with bombs that haven't killed anyone in over 6 months, so they should've been starved and frozen and dehydrated to the point that they need medical attention that gaza doesn't have medical supplies for. hey arabs, suck on that!

here's the deal. i'm about 80% sure that israel is going to demand that hamas be removed (or step down) from power. that's probably the goal. hamas getting elected to power in the last elections was the spark for this latest round of battleship. remember the world's reaction? aid money dried up, and israel decided to not hand over tax and customs money that even rightfully belonged to palestine, on the grounds that there's no way the dirty arabs would actually spend it on government. even though that was hamas' strong suit and the reason palestinians picked them in the elections. so mahmoud abbas tried to negotiate a compromise. but hamas felt it had been screwed, and maybe it had, and it wanted what it had won in the election, even if the rest of the world had no intention of letting them have it. so hamas took gaza and fatah took the west bank and the bush administration tried, at least for the cameras, to look like it would reward the good dog. but if you lock someone in a closet and tell them they're not getting food or water or a light bulb until they decide to give the closet to someone else, that shit out of luck soul will start figuring out how to get out of the closet to teach you some fucking manners.

but israel is going to insist on the removal of hamas from power, and total control of palestine for a party that lost the last round of elections. all because the poor saps actually thought a democratic election would be respected. what were they thinking? that palestinian elections were for palestine's benefit? only tikkun thinks that. israel has reserved for itself the right (based on what, i don't know- certainly not international law), to decide that palestinians picked wrong, according to israel's interests. israel is not even going to pretend, in that white man's burden way, to be acting in palestinians' interests when it decides who their leaders will be. which i could respect, if israel didn't act like it has the right to decide who will eat and drink water and get heating fuel and medical supplies based on how they voted. because when you do things that cause deaths to civilian populations because of their political choices, there's a word for that.

this bears saying, maybe even on american television once in a while: there is a group of people in that region, maybe even more than one, that is on its knees at the edge of an existential cliff. but it's not the israelis. and i'd appreciate it if marty peretz could get that thru his george bush cocksucking head. i am actually finally old enough to say that i've seen this before, whether it was late 2000's intifada, or the 2006 war in lebanon. the aerial bombardment and ground troops thing doesn't work. neither, for that matter do katyushas or qassams. but i think (assume) both parties know that by now. i think they're doing this because deep down, the governments (internationally recognized and otherwise) of that region know what the long term solution is, but it involves decisions that can be called political suicide. in the case of yitzahk rabin, it was putting an "assassinate me" sign on his back. you think arafat and abbas didn't learn something from that? you really think anyone from any country is going to take that kind of risk now? then you deserve the stupidity of the talking heads.

the new low

what dicks. really? you're looking out for tax payers and saving america's auto industry? because it seems to this mere mortal that you're screwing these people (not necessarily in this order):
1- the taxpayers
2- the people who make america's cars
3- the auto industry in general

first of all, maybe the uaw could have caved. but i really don't want to live in a country where a union can be put over a barrel and sodomized with an open umbrella. and how the uaw can now suddenly just agree to shit without a member vote is way past me. it might just be that, instead, the republicans just don't fucking know how unions work.

but here's why these fucktards are screwing us, them, and the cars. they're screwing the taxpayers because a $14 billion loan is alot fucking better than the billions of dollars we'll have to pay in umemployment, food stamps, and medicaid. remember- it's not just the autoworkers. it's everyone who sells the autoworkers shit. it's their grocery stores, their hardware stores, their mortgage institutions, everyfuckingbody. that's alot more unemployed people at a time when anyone with working neurons in the u.s. government wants to desperately keep the jobs that george bush hasn't yet flushed down a toilet with his blow.

the human scumbuckets are also screwing the autoworkers. i love how these anti-centralized economy dickwads are now setting wage caps. call me crazy, but we haven't done that for private sector employees since nixon's price setting. these southern dixies have decided that this is truly the best moment to make belonging to a union useless. it relieves the pressure on the manufacturers in their states (mostly foreign car companies, mind you) to raise wages. manufacturers, i might add, that these mule-raping cross burners were more than happy to woo to their jurisdictions with so much cash (in the form of tax benefits, mostly) it was like toyota was a stripper and richard shelby was howard stern.

and the auto industry. now, as someone who doesn't own a car- which is a truly stupid thing to do in new york fucking city, i tolerate the auto industry because i've been able to drive a toyota prius once. and i drove around on business for three fucking days and went through maybe a 1/4 tank of gas. i liked that (btw, don't go for the full tank option when you have a hybrid- just get the option to only refill what you burned- and ALWAYS get the loss/damage waiver. that's another story). i don't understand our national desire to fucking drive everywhere, or to live in neighborhoods where that's the only option. that's always struck me as a sign of a true dumbass. but u.s. automakers do employ a shitload of people who i'd like to keep on their payrolls instead of on the dole. dealerships also employ a shitload of people. as well as the people who supply u.s. cars' parts. as well as everyone who does something for autoworkers that make union wages. and general clark may be right- maybe we should keep people manufacturing at u.s. owned plants- plants we may need during wartime. i don't know if our use of auto plants to make ww2 war shit can be redone for today's war shit. what i do know is that before the gm plant in janesville, wisconsin, closed, the people who worked there were proud of what they did. they were proud to own gm cars. in fact, old-time janesville residents made a point of owning gm cars. they were proud to work for a u.s. automaker. not because they hated japanese people, but because they were proud of what america could do. with the exception of homes, i don't know of any other manufactured product that people are so proud to make.

the u.s. auto industry doesn't have to die just because some senate republicans would like to help the foreign manufacturers currently working in their home states (until some other state lures them away). the auto industry had just secured some useful concessions from the uaw, freeing itself from future retiree burdens. what we need to do is remind the u.s. auto industry that if they're so near and dear to our hearts that we won't let them fail, then they need to feel the same for us. we need cars that emit less co2. we need cars that stop making smog. we need smaller cars. we need more buses. like the auto industry, we too are too big to fail. and it's u.s. automakers that would receive the help necessary to make the cars americans really need. i love hondas, but the u.s. government has no business giving honda money. that's for japan to do.

okay, maybe i'm being a little idealistic. maybe i have this idea in my head that u.s. automakers would be more interested in serving the general public than in manufacturing some highly profitable machine and creating consumer demand for it by convincing americans that they need tons of space and gadgets they'll never use. i know. but they're u.s. automakers- they fall under our jurisdiction. if we're going to be reminded that we need to help them out sporadically, we can remind them that they're supposed to act in america's interest, at least until the checks clear.

so they're collateral damage, right?

if you are related to these people, just go read something else. this will justifiably piss you off. but it needs to be said. so just keep browsing.

well, turns out we do body counts after all. they just have to be american bodies. will the military treat these people like the afghanis they killed in august? will we hear that this family was from the animal liberation front? will we hear that the number three is an inflated number, because the san diego locals aren't entirely reliable (or able to count)? will their deaths be tragic, but necessary for our freedoms?

no. the military will compensate the families, and maybe even spank the motherfucker who decided "fuck this shit" before ejecting to leave his plane to crash into civilians. the military will fall all over itself redressing this shit. first of all, because san diego is a major major military town. don't believe me? fuckin' go there. second, san diego is not a war zone, so alot of "journalists" will have access to the locals. third, and maybe most important, the locals speak the same language as the "journalists", and the viewers, and will most likely be the same skin color and religion as the "journalists" and the viewers. don't think that matters? then wtf rock have you been living under? the big one in australia? fuckin' figures.

this will be a goddamned tragedy that the military swears it will take all steps to prevent from ever, ever, happening again. everyone will go on about how sorry the pilot was that he might have hurt someone, and how this really cuts him up, and he can't sleep at night, and fucking so on. there will be no denials of a single goddamn detail, or a single goddamned denial of how fucked up it is that a military plane's pilot can just abandon an f-18 without first making sure it won't hit someone else. there will be no comparison to when the military purposely fires on civilian areas, killing dozens, and claiming it's all okay 'cause they got a few taliban, who had some nerve hiding somewhere difficult to just bomb without killing others. the military will not claim that fighting terrorists trumps your ability to live out the day in your own home. nope.

since no one, no one, else will call these deaths the proper u.s. military name for them, i will: they're collateral damage. freebies. gimmes. people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time (without even knowing it) and paid for it with their lives. people who had the nerve to think they were safe and deserved to be. people who thought staying out of trouble meant it wouldn't crash into the house. if only we really applied this definition, we might rethink how often we use it.