* the recovery package is part of a Democratic conspiracy to "direct" funding away from Republican districts, so Democratic districts can "suck up" all federal funds. Bachmann doesn't think this will work because, as she put it, "We're running out of rich people in this country."

We're running out of... WTF? Would that be rich people like Bernie Madoff? Or rich people like Ken Lay? Or Bernie Ebbers? Or Allan Stanford? Or Dennis Kozlowski? I can afford to run out of people like them. Michelle Bachmann! The gift of crazy that keeps on giving!

Michelle Bachmann - The Crazy Strikes Again! - The Washington Monthly

I started out modest by signing with a line or an "X". Occasionally I would do last name first. After a couple of months, I became bolder. I wrote goofy shit, drew pictures, etc. Here's a list of some of my favorite signatures over the past few months:

I AM NOT KINGPIN
I STOLE THIS
FUCK OFF
FUCK YOU
WALMART SUCKS
CALL ME
CROTCHY CROTCHINGTON
MY BALLS ITCH
911
I'M A CRIMINAL
THANKS FOR THE STUFF

Today I went the extra mile. When it came time to sign my name, a thought popped in my head. I should draw a picture. But what picture should I draw? I smirked as something completely juvenile came to me. This is a rough drawing of the signature that I provided:

HHAJAJajajahahah

gold star

Made me laugh on a conference call

Thank you for making me spray my keyboard.

When Your Credit Card Signature Fun Backfires

The essence of the problem is this: Rich people used to set their own norms. For example, if one rich person wanted to use the company helicopter to aerate the ponds on his properties, and the other rich people on his board of directors thought this a sensible thing to do, then he could go ahead and do it without any serious repercussions.

Really David? That's what you think the problem is? How about this. When people do stupid shit like that on their own dime, they're considered eccentric. When they do it on MY DIME, I'm going to get pissed off about it. You would think this guy would be smart enough to make such a simple connection, but no, and that's why he's now the dumbest SOB at the NYT.

Ward Three Morality - or David Brooks is the dumbest SOB at the NYT because he doesn't have Bill Kristol to kick around anymore

All in all, the centrists’ insistence on comforting the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted will, if reflected in the final bill, lead to substantially lower employment and substantially more suffering.

Nobel prize winning economist says, "Hey, you're screwing this up." You think it might, maybe, be a good idea to pay attention.

Op-Ed Columnist - The Destructive Center - NYTimes.com

Jello wrote:

Disney's net income falls 32%

We knew it would be ugly. Now we're starting to see just how hard the economic meltdown is hitting showbiz.

Disney kicked off what's likely to be a grim earnings season in the media sector by posting on Tuesday a 32% drop in net income for the first quarter. Overall revenue slumped 8% to $9.6 billion, and net income was $845 million.

Can anyone... put this in context? Has it ever gotten this bad this fast other than the slide towards the depression?

Sure, it has NEVER gotten this bad this fast across the entire economy. See the job crash chart I posted earlier for comparisons in the last 20 years. But no, the last time we saw anything like this was 1930. Governments are already falling (Iceland has completely collapsed) and this is going to continue.

And since this hasn't been made clear, this event is in the process of changing the entire world. As one of the other posts note, this is having effects on Putin's control of Russia, and I would watch very closely to see what other governments crash and burn.

Things that would not surprise me in the next 5 years.
1) AQ Khan has been released in Pakistan, some idiot in Pakistan will get their hands on a nuke and use it on India (fizzle or successful won't matter, it's still a very big, very messy BOOM) with a final death toll on the sub-continent in the area of 20-50 million in the ensuing war.
2) GM fails, Chrysler follows less than 6 weeks later, 3 million people lose their jobs. No one is aware of it because they can't afford cable TV and broadcast channels have gone digital so no one is able to watch TV. Radio doesn't mention it except to blame Obama for it.
3) France explodes in full revolt. They don't know how to do things half way, the fifth republic falls, and god only knows what happens next.

RE: Disney's net income falls 32% - Entertainment News, Entertainment Industry & the Economy, Media - Variety

This is what the economy falling off a cliff looks like. The red line is the dot bomb, the blue line is the post Gulf War 1 recession. This is going to be incomprehensibly ugly, and there is no way in hell we're going to "tax cut" our way out of this one.

I said this over a year ago, welcome to 1929.

The Gavel � Blog Archive � What 3.6 Million Jobs Lost Over 13 Months Looks Like

Two senior British judges accused the United States on Wednesday of threatening to end intelligence cooperation if Britain released evidence about the alleged torture of a Guantanamo detainee.

Really?

UK judges accuse U.S. over Guantanamo case | International | Reuters

Al Gore and the likes still have not realized the obvious about the earthquakes in Southern California. Their scientific observations should recognize that when you have that many people living on the edge of a land mass that said land mass is going to crack and fall into the ocean.

Where herein we discover why morons should not be allowed near the intertubes...

Daily Express | Comments

The Action Americans Need

By Barack Obama
Thursday, February 5, 2009; Page A17

I can't remember the last time I saw a sitting President do this. This isn't a "Let's do a press conference, let's do a... This is going straight to the people in a way that anyone reading will get the message in his own words. This is different from the way the prior administration treated the press like a steno pool, expecting them to regurgitate and paraphrase. Interesting...

Barack Obama - The Action Americans Need - washingtonpost.com

The Mormon church has revealed in a campaign filing that the church spent nearly $190,000 to help pass Proposition 8, the November ballot measure that banned gay marriage in California.

Oops. Problem. Churches are barred from taking active roles in political campaigns as part of their maintaining tax exempts status. Spending this kind of money would seem to be in opposition to that.

Mormons admit larger role in California's Prop. 8 campaign