We’re really going to miss these guys after the next few months.
I don’t know about you, but my initial political understanding of the world was shaped largely by my slavishly reading late-60s and early-70s MAD Magazine. (Personally, I think that I could have done way worse for early instruction about how the world works.) It’s only appropriate, then, that I now turn to its competitor Cracked — the dot-com for which has become an unexpectedly interesting and entertaining website (and not one for kids) — for a better understanding of interpersonal relations.
David Wong, writer of John Dies at the End, wrote “5 Ways You’re Accidentally Making Everyone Hate You” in Cracked.com and I think that most people I know in the Orange County blogosphere (and politicosphere) should read it — some should more than others — if for nothing more than the laughs. Oh no, Dear Reader, of course I’m not talking about you personally. Still — read it. Soon.
How do I entice you to read it? I guess I can start with his introduction:
Have you recently had friends, co-workers, or strangers suddenly get pissed off at you for what seemed like no reason at all? Maybe you told yourself that they were overreacting or being too sensitive, or that they had no right to be angry when you clearly didn’t mean to do whatever you did (and in fact aren’t even sure what it was). If you’re a socially inept type like me, I bet you’ve had this happen within the last month.
Well, I’m here to help. Fortunately, I am the nation’s foremost expert on social missteps, with more than 30 years of experience in the field (some of you know me as the best-selling author of I Couldn’t Help But Notice Your Father’s Corpse Had a Boner: The Psychology of the Socially Awkward Man, MacMillan, 2008), and I have found that the answer to “Why is everyone suddenly mad at me?” is usually one of the following.
And then he lists some. I’ll just give you one more taste, from Wong’s second-to-last entry on his list of 5, of how he sets up the problem:
All you did was email your boss with a simple question or idle thought, and she jumped down your throat! What a bitch!
Then, later that night, you popped into your buddy’s house unannounced, and like one minute later he’s all acting annoyed, opening the door and saying, “Well, good to see you!” like he’s ushering you out! What a dick!
Or maybe you’re on the other end of the situation in the first entry — you messaged an acquaintance with a “happy birthday” and you got cold, dead silence in return. But you know they ain’t no goddamned introvert, they talk to a hundred people a day! What a hell-shitting cockhitler!
So what is the problem he’s introducing here? Click that link up there to find out! Meanwhile, this is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about this, or anything else you’d like, within — let’s make it slightly more careful than normal bounds of decorum.
I’ll start it off this week: here’s something from the Weekly’s older and more respectable cousin in New York: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/03/jury_finds_occu.php,
Jury Finds Occupy Wall Street Protester Innocent After Video Contradicts Police Testimony [Updated: VIDEO]
Go read the rest — especially if you appreciate (and miss) real alternative journalism.
Another instance of how social justice movement’s participants are treated :
http://mynorthwest.com/11/2215396/Attorney-Prosecutors-propagate-fear-among-social-justice-movement
In keeping with the theme of this week’s Open Thread, I know that someone out there is really going to appreciate this:
http://www.vulture.com/2013/02/every-celebrity-ever-mocked-on-south-park-over-16-seasons.html
I will definitely check out this link. The humor is right up my alley! Did you know that Rainn Wilson (pictured above) founded soulpancake.com? Its full of funny and inspirational stories and he has a youtube channel by the same name. Have an uber funny weekend and if you cannot find anything to laugh about…DANCE! — or both.
I don’t know, but this seems kind of important:
Am I the only one creeped out by this kid???
No — but the family invites you to laugh at her and them all the way to the bank.
“the family invites you to laugh at her and them all the way to the bank”…….. Hmmmmmmmm
Is it Jewish family?
Breaking news, everyone: Asshole anti-Semitic bigot is still asshole anti-Semitic bigot!
No more of your comments will be approved on this story, Stalinslav. You’ve had your say.
OK, the one that I just trashed did make me laugh, Stalinslav. But regretfully I must turn down your kind offer.
“Sequester” doesn’t seem like the correct term for this circumstance. To sequester seems to me to infer that you are setting aside or apart something that you already have.
The funds were never “in hand.” So how could they have been set aside? We were going to borrow the money from the Chi-coms.
skally, we have a fiat currency. We don’t need to provide government bonds (i.e., allow investors to borrow) /at all/ if we don’t want to. We do so largely for the benefit of investors, including the Chinese, who want a safe place to park their money and earn their interest. So yes, the funds are “in hand,” and we are not “borrowing those funds” in other than a fanciful sense.
But you’re right: technically the correct term isn’t “sequester,” but “sequestration.”
Au contrer mes ami – we DO need to keep borrowing in order to keep the house of cards standing for a while longer.
Do you know what “fiat currency” means? If we borrow, it’s to ward off devaluation/inflation, not because it’s necessary for us to obtain others’ money before we spend it.
*Ben Bernanke can print however much currency he wants. He can also lend it, trade it, send it or tear it up anytime he wants. He can create low interest bonds to sell to cities, states or foreign powers. He can create no interest loans for first time home buyers. He can even send his brother in law of ton of it to keep in his garage! Meanwhile, Jamie Dimond and Blankfein play cards in that special room at the World Bank……gosh…..it is special to be America!
“…To sequester seems to me to infer that…”
DON’T use infer when you mean imply!
YOU infer that they’re setting something aside; THEY imply it.
I think I figured out why the uppity ups in the Catholic Church won’t prosecute the priests who molest kids…it’s because the uppity ups are guilty too. It’s a whole club of molestors starting at the top…trickling down to the bottom. If the uppity ups punish the bottom feeders — the bottom feeders will blow the whistle on them and the whole deck of cards will come crashing down!
….. oh, …… that’s just “brilliant” …..
Louis CK has weighed in on this question, in yet another thought-provoking video:
Louis is my hero. He always tells it like it is and doesn’t care who gets pissed off. Priests shitting Bibles….I knew it!
FAGGOT MOLESTING PREISTS…..Right up there with kikes, niggers, chinks, faggots (not of the cloth)….Come on you guys. You are pushing the limits of hypocrisy with this kind of thing. Asteroids wiping out the Crystal Cathedral etc….
I remain stunned that Skally is not incensed, but maybe as long as he gets a TAX FREE stadium for our student athletes (AHHHEM Rich kids from all over OC) to play in, he’ll let it pass????
BTW, I think the most under realized source of income for the SPRINGERS downtown push is supporting MD. $$$$$$$.
We need to name Gus’s water drop.
Soaker? Grubby? Grabby? Drippy? Wetsy?
Well, that should be up to Rick Erkeneff, who, as we learned at Gus’ memorial service, is the surfer, Surfrider member, graphic artist, and new member (with Gus’ help) of the South Coast Water District Board, who created the drop.
There’s a problem there though. Most of us including me see the drop as evil and representing Poseidon. His view is more complicated – it could be evil greedy Poseidon, or it could just as well represent you and me as we utilize all our shrewdness fighting back.
Drip Wad.
*Pope who? Italian, French or African? Under 50….without facial hair. Wears red well…….white and gold too! Looks good in a skirt. Is that smoke coming out of that chimney?
http://www.santaanazoo.org/
2-3: Zoo Birthday Party: 11am – 2pm | All-Zoo party with miniature train displays, music, games and fun. | General Public-FREE with price of admission; FOSAZ Members-FREE.
Nice day to visit the Zoo, go ahead, you know you wnat to go to the zoo.
Like.
“Do you know what “fiat currency” means?”
How does it feel to be a condesending asshole and be WRONG at the same time?
I don’t know, skally, how does it feel? Sounds unpleasant. You have my sympathies.
The fact is that, as with the debt limit itself, borrowing money to support our currency is not actually necessary. It’s an alternative to devaluation. Selling bonds helps investors who want the safe harbor; currency devaluation, being inflationary, hurts them. So guess which we do?
Actually, we do BOTH – QE tends to be inflationary & it is monetizing the debt, which is not a good thing – we are taking it from both ends and shortly this house of cards will fall.
So, how soon do you take off for northeastern San Bernardino County?
Have you checked the inflation rate? Outside of medical, school, and food, it’s pretty low.
So you are okay with the Fed keeping interest rates artificially low in order for the federal government being able to pay the interest on our debt – regardless of the effect on every pension plan in the nation being drastically underfunded and pushing cities to bankruptcy … ?
That’s a loaded question. Let me unpack it.
(1) No, I’m not OK with the Fed generally, though I don’t see an alternative to it. (For one thing, it tends to focus on fighting inflation to the exclusion of its other task: promoting employment.)
(2) “Artificially low” — I’m not sure what you mean, but I’m certainly not going to grant that they are “artificially” low. You know, the entire financial system is “artificial”; your presumption that there’s some “natural” level for rates is perplexing. You think that recession should “naturally” be deeper and unemployment higher? Well, then I guess the relative economic recovery is “artificial” to you.
(3) “In order to pay the interest on our debt”: I’m in favor of minting a sextillion-dollar platinum coin (because I favor sextillion education in our schools) and would consider (or at least pretend to) reining in the bond market altogether if it bothers you that much. But perhaps you should speak to your fellow investors before you see that we “pay the interest on our debt” as the problem here.
(4) There are problems with pension funds (like: corporations keep raiding them and leaving the public to cover their debt once they commit painless suicide through bankruptcy) and with bankrupting municipalities — but they’re not due to what you raise. They’re due, in great part, to the sort of problems depicted in this video: funds are being sucked out of the economy and in effect hoarded by the wealthy, while most of us (collectively) haven’t see our real income improve since roughly 1979. Watch the video again, skally: it depicts a pathological change to our economy. You are certainly smart enough to figure out what happens when so much money is concentrated in so few hands — in a political system that runs largely on advertising, media access, and lobbying.
I win – by the “Diamond Rule” – any time Diamond bloviates past 100 words you know that he is blowing smoke up your a$$.
Oh, look, skally is making common clause with Gustavo. How precious!
Joe Nation, a former Bay Area Democratic state assemblyman now a pension expert at Stanford University, said the (unfunded liability) numbers are based on the predicted investment rate of return of 7.5 percent a year – Moody’s has a problem with that, he wrote, “Moody’s would be much more conservative, tying that rate to returns on corporate bonds, currently about 4 percent annually. As a result, Moody’s would show significantly greater current liabilities.” – read gigantic unfounded liabilities.