Is 2008 freaking over yet?

So I’ve been whittling New Year's Eve afternoon away watching the Brut Sun Bowl live from El Paso, Texas on CBS, possibly the shittiest bowl game in the history of bowl games mind you, and I’ve been endlessly amused by the steady stream of commercials running for Brut, the game’s corporate sponsor, all of which center around the product slogan, “Brut, The Essence of Man.” The theme of my favorite spot thusfar was one that essentially insinuated that vegetarians and vegans are queers and real, pussy-crushing men only eat steaks and wear Brut.

Taking all of this into consideration, who do you think the people who run the Brut Sun Bowl would choose for the halftime entertainment for such a testosterone-laden sports extravaganza? Why, The Village People, naturally, singing YMCA in all of their homo glory on a big gay stage erected, no pun intended, on the 50 yard line.

I suppose that Wham and Culture Club were booked for the day.

Which gets me to this...Happy New Year to you all. And to all I wish you a great 2009. My 2008 is likely to end in spectacular failure, which is only fitting I suppose, as I have a feeling that I'll be exposed as a jackass for starting a fast in the middle of the holiday season. I have a feeling that after three days of subsisting on nothing more than lemon juice, water, maple syrup and cayenne pepper, I'll cave tonight at the first whiff of booze and grilled red meats. I'm gonna try to hold out, but frankly, I don't have a lot of confidence in myself. I guess I'll just start the whole thing over again on Jan. 2nd if I do. Besides, how the fuck can I possibly make it through a bowl game involving the 2008 LSU football team without having a drink? (And yes, I'm predicting they'll get an ass-whupping from Georgia Tech in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl tonight) How utterly stupid of me!

So again, have a great night. And be safe. If you plan on drinking, be especially safe, and please don't drive. But in the event that you do, and you happen to get pulled over by a cop, here's a pretty handy-dandy field guide to commit to memory in regards to how you should act.

See you all in 2009! Geaux Tigers! I leave you with my favorite image from 2008, along with my favorite song of 2008, The Way We Move by Inner Party System...

About that child recently born in Alaska...

For once, can't I just have a few days of peace and quiet?

All I wanted was to spend some time during the holiday break off of the Internet reading books, watching movies, doing whatever, mainly not really thinking very hard about Jack-shit, a few days completely devoid of blog-browsing, email, RSS feeds, news reports, etc., and then suddenly an obstetric wind blows out of Alaska and my inbox is immediately bombarded with emails from right-wingers calling me a coward and douchebag and a million other things because I haven't come forth to admit that I was wrong about Sarah Palin not being the mother of Trig. So, with that all said, allow me to make a brief statement so that I can maybe stop the flow of retarded emails coming my way.

I still do not believe that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig.

Period.

And yes, I have questioned my sanity in all of this. Multiple times.

Why do I still feel this way in the wake of the birth of Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston? Because the whole thing, and by "whole thing" I'm talking about the nonsensical series of events that took place from the time Palin announced the pregnancy in her seventh month, something that shocked even her closest co-workers and family members at the time, to the strange lack of photographic evidence of a pregnancy by a high profile individual living in the 21st century, to the the kooky-ass trip to Dallas and back after she had begun leaking amniotic fluid, I could go on and on and on, but my point is as it always has been...None of it makes any semblance of sense to me.

I have tried, desperately tried, to make all of this seem plausible, and I just can't. I've put aside philosophical differences and looked at it all objectively, too many fucking times, and I've always come to the same conclusion...something is seriously amiss here. I'm not sure what the answer is, and frankly now that she's been sent packing back to Alaska and isn't the proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency any longer I don't really care to spend much more time trying to figure it all out, but I'm 99.9% convinced that Sarah Palin did not birth a child in April of 2008. The possibility that the child was Bristol's was a hypothesis, albeit a popular one, and nothing more. If you'll recall, Bristol had been pulled from school and virtually disappeared from the local scene for months prior to the birth due to "mono," one of the more classic covers for hiding a teenage pregnancy throughout history. It made sense. Thus, a hypothesis was formed by many that this scenario perhaps provided an answer to the riddle.

About a half hour ago, just before I put down The Dirt and sat down to start writing this, I went back and reviewed all of the odd circumstances surrounding the Trig thing one more time. I guess you can say that I was beginning to have some doubt, which is only natural I suppose, but upon reviewing everything AGAIN, it just...I can't...IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE!

So again, I don't know what the answer is, and really, I'm way over caring about it very much at this point, save for maybe being granted a small slice of personal vindication, but I can't seem to make all of the pieces of the puzzle fit inside my mind, even when I try to forcefully jam them into place, so there'll be no admission of being wrong coming from this end of the Internet spectrum today.

I do, however, wish Bristol well. She and the other Palin kids, along with the Johnstons and a few others, are the victims of holding winning tickets, or I suppose losing tickets might be a more apt description, in some sort of bizarro life lottery, where the rabid ambitions of another have caused their lives to be propped up and placed under the harsh microscope of scrutiny as the standard of wholesome "real" American goodness. May they all find peace, happiness and some sense of normalcy in 2009 and many years to come.

Now, can I please get back to chilling the fuck out for a little while?

Scattered thoughts 12/29/08

-Well, well, well...I was gonna stay dark until 2009 just because I could, but last night I became sort of overcome with the blog munchies so to speak and just couldn't help myself from digging around in the Internet cupboard. Anyway, since I went and broke the seal, I guess I'll pop in here and there over the next few days.

I've been intentionally trying to tune out completely over the last week or so, something I think that I've done pretty damn well, to the point that I feel sort of intellectually out of shape or something, like a runner who takes a week off and then struggles to do his usual routine. Sitting here now, I can barely construct a sentence. It's kind of cool.

What have I been doing? Certainly you're dying to know, right? Well, lots of nothing, basically. Well, no, that's not true, I mean, we're always doing something right? I guess what I mean is that I haven't been doing anything except whatever I felt like doing in the moment, and that has generally involved nothing involving the exertion of any sort of effort. I've laid around splayed out on the sofa reading, watching old movies, eating whatever I felt like eating at the time, consuming various types of liquor, attending some sporting events, etc., you know, the usual shit people do during the holidays. I'm in the middle of the third of five books I had hoped to read over the holidays, The Dirt is its title, its the autobiography of the band Motley Crue, and it's a total trainwreck. I can't seem to put it down.

-Hey everybody! Did you catch this "Thank You America" ad that the auto industry ran a few days ago in USA Today and The Wall Street Journal thanking all of us for handing over billions of dollars for them to wipe their fat asses with?

(click to enlarge)


I think that Mark Cuban summed up exactly how I feel about this pretty well in a post on his blog...

Lets see, is there anything more idiotic than spending more than 100k dollars on a full page ad “thanks for letting me waste your money ” ad ? Does it make it worse that its a business publication where the readers might just recognize the stupidity of wasting money on ad dollars that doesn’t even try to sell the product ? How does it make the next unemployed Chrysler worker feel that their entire year’s salary just went for a single, ridiculous ad ?

For those in Detroit who have never operated a lemonade stand, or any other business, the way profits are generated is by making products at a price people want to buy them for, and then producing them, with all costs allocated, for less than you are selling them for. It’s not apparent that this is a principle that Detroit understands.

And while you are at it, when you spend marketing money, spend it to sell cars, not on Bullshit ads that accomplish nothing.

-A NY Times story that ran a few days ago about the recruitment of a high school football player in Texas named Jamarkus McFarland contained this gem...

McFarland made four official visits during his recruitment — to Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana State and Southern California.

Of the four universities, L.S.U. made the worst impression. After the Tigers lost to Georgia, 52-38, on Oct. 25, McFarland, his mother and his grandmother attended a catered meal at the home of Tigers Coach Les Miles.

“He was very dry,” Adams (his mother) said of Miles.

Adams was further turned off by L.S.U., she said, when she saw hostesses sitting on the laps of recruits.

And what exactly is so repulsive with having a cute Cajun girl sitting on your lap when you're 18 years old? Enjoy the barrel of coked-out monkeys that is Norman, Oklahoma Jamarkus.

-In another of chapter in their on-going series of articles on the financial crisis, the New York Times delved into America's addiction to Chinese goods and money...

In March 2005, a low-key Princeton economist who had become a Federal Reserve governor coined a novel theory to explain the growing tendency of Americans to borrow from foreigners, particularly the Chinese, to finance their heavy spending.

The problem, he said, was not that Americans spend too much, but that foreigners save too much. The Chinese have piled up so much excess savings that they lend money to the United States at low rates, underwriting American consumption.

By itself, money from China is not a bad thing. As American officials like to note, it speaks to the attractiveness of the United States as a destination for foreign investment. In the 19th century, the United States built its railroads with capital borrowed from the British.

In the past decade, China arguably enabled an American boom. Low-cost Chinese goods helped keep a lid on inflation, while the flood of Chinese investment helped the government finance mortgages and a public debt of close to $11 trillion.

But Americans did not use the lower-cost money afforded by Chinese investment to build a 21st-century equivalent of the railroads. Instead, the government engaged in a costly war in Iraq, and consumers used loose credit to buy sport utility vehicles and larger homes. Banks and investors, eagerly seeking higher interest rates in this easy-money environment, created risky new securities like collateralized debt obligations.

“Nobody wanted to get off this drug,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who pushed legislation to punish China by imposing stiff tariffs. “Their drug was an endless line of customers for made-in-China products. Our drug was the Chinese products and cash.”

Mr. Graham said he understood the addiction: he was speaking by phone from a Wal-Mart store in Anderson, S.C., where he was Christmas shopping in aisles lined with items from China.

Sobering, no?

-The Times had an interesting piece on New York Giants running back Brandon Jacobs on Christmas Eve that delved into his growing up in Napoleonville, Louisiana. I remember seeing Jacobs run for like 300 yards against my former high school when he was a junior. He was like 6'4'', 245 lbs or something, almost the same size he is now. Dude was a man amongst boys. It was ridiculous.

-Last night at about 3am I went out for a cheeseburger. I wasn't really all that hungry or craving a cheeseburger or anything, it's just that I decided earlier in the day that I was gonna do another extended fast/cleanse again, so I figured that I should indulge one last time before clamping down on the gluttony. As I took my last bite, I savored it as I haven't savored a bite of food in I can't remember how long, as it dawned on me that it'd be the last bite of solid food that I'd have for two weeks. This is gonna suck a thousand gorilla dicks, but something I feel I need to do.

Now excuse me while I run out for maple syrup and organic lemons.

Chip Saltsman, wannabe head of the Republican party, embraces the good ole days, sends out "Barack the Magic Negro" holiday ecards to RNC members

Way to go fellas! Way to open up that big ole circus tent of inclusion that is the modern Republican party and put aside the sins of the past and move forward into a new era of American history, eh. I gotta hand it to you boys, you guys certainly "get it." Enjoy your own little special corner of irrelevancy deeply woven into the tapestry of 21st century American life, as it's obvious to me that this is exactly what you're shooting for when one of your party leaders sends out this to members of the Republican National Committee for Christmas...



Newt Gingrich, the one member of the party establishment who seems capable of new ideas and a forward thinking worldview, was predictably appalled...

“This is so inappropriate that it should disqualify any Republican National Committee candidate who would use it,” Newt Gingrich, a Republican former House speaker, said in an e-mail message. Referring to Mr. Obama, Mr. Gingrich said, “There are no grounds for demeaning him or for using racist descriptions.”

What a bunch of fucking neanderthal idiots.

Picture of the day

I'm not sure what this says about me as a human being, but this photo of a hysterically dejected Tony Romo on the turf in Philly holding his stupid head in his stupid hands in the midst of a fantastically shitteous defeat makes me positively giddy. So giddy in fact, that just looking at it almost makes me forget about the Saints losing another game by a field goal AND Drew Brees' falling 16 yards short of breaking Marino's single season passing yardage record...



Romo also passed out in the shower after the game. Pussy.

My last hope remaining for the 2008 Cowboys is that someone makes another "How Bout Dem Cowboys" video like this hilarious one from 2007...



In other news...how the hell are y'all doing out there?!?!

A note from your humble editor

We here at Cajun Boy in the City would like to take a moment to wish you all a very Happy/Merry whatever it is that you celebrate at this time of year. Even if you choose to do nothing more than sit in your doublewide snorting crushed Vicodin while masturbating to your VHS collection of Osmond family holiday specials, we sincerely hope that you are happy/merry in doing it.

With that said, we'll be going offline for the next couple of days. We're gonna chill out a bit, maybe try to make a dent in that haunting pile of books we've been meaning to read, eat and drink ourselves silly in a total festival of gluttony, and revel in the company of people that we love. That is, of course, unless Bristol Palin gives birth to second coming of Jesus Christ on Christmas Day, in which case we may feel compelled to pop in for a hot minute.

For now, we'll leave you with our favorite scene from our favorite Christmas movie of all time. "Merry Christmas, shitter was full" is one of our favorite lines from any movie, ever. We'll be filled with envy till our dying day that we're not the ones credited with conceiving it. But hey, we'll always have "cunty simpleton" and "bat-shit crazy, fake baby birthing church lady" under our belts, and that ain't too shabby!



Y'all be good and safe and warm.

"Last Christmas" by George Michael or Wham or something

This song has been my favorite Christmas song for years but I don't think I'd ever seen a video for it until tonight, and it's balls-out hilarious. It's soooo 80s in every way. And look...it's pre-George Michael coming out of the closet, so it's filled with hilariously fake flirtation with a human being equipped with a vagina! The best is at the 3:00 mark when he's chasing her through the snow and he's so painfully running like, well, either like a girl or a flaming lady-boy, take your pick. It brought serious laughter tears to my eyes. Enjoy...

Malcolm Gladwell on Charlie Rose

I just got around to watching Friday's episode of Charlie Rose's show on the magic DVR machine earlier tonight. One of his guests was Malcolm Gladwell, an always interesting interview subject, and this one in which he discusses his new book on success and the things that determine it was no exception. One of the more interesting personal tidbits disclosed by Gladwell in the interview is that he writes from swanky Manhattan restaurants like Pastis in the Meatpacking District, rather than work from home or Starbucks, the favored away-from-home work locale of many members of New York City's literary peasantry. I'm sure the waitstaff at the restaurants where he comes in and camps out for hours at a single table must fucking love him!

Anyway, here's the interview...

A Depression-era Christmas story to warm even the coldest heart

This piece by a guy named Ted Gup appeared on the op-ed page of Monday's NY Times. I liked it very, very much...

In the weeks just before Christmas of 1933 — 75 years ago — a mysterious offer appeared in The Repository, the daily newspaper here. It was addressed to all who were suffering in that other winter of discontent known as the Great Depression. The bleakest of holiday seasons was upon them, and the offer promised modest relief to those willing to write in and speak of their struggles. In return, the donor, a “Mr. B. Virdot,” pledged to provide a check to the neediest to tide them over the holidays.

Not surprisingly, hundreds of letters for Mr. B. Virdot poured into general delivery in Canton — even though there was no person of that name in the city of 105,000. A week later, checks, most for as little as $5, started to arrive at homes around Canton. They were signed by “B. Virdot.”

The gift made The Repository’s front page on Dec. 18, 1933. The headline read: “Man Who Felt Depression’s Sting to Help 75 Unfortunate Families: Anonymous Giver, Known Only as ‘B. Virdot,’ Posts $750 to Spread Christmas Cheer.” The story said the faceless donor was “a Canton man who was toppled from a large fortune to practically nothing” but who had returned to prosperity and now wanted to give a Christmas present to “75 deserving fellow townsmen.” The gifts were to go to men and women who might otherwise “hesitate to knock at charity’s door for aid.”

Down through the decades, the identity of the benefactor remained a mystery. Three prosperous generations later, the whole affair was consigned to a footnote in Canton’s history. But to me, the story had always served as an example of how selfless Americans reach out to one another in hard times. I can’t even remember the first time I heard about Mr. B. Virdot, but I knew the tale well.

Then, this past summer, my mother handed me a battered old black suitcase that had been gathering dust in her attic. I flipped open the twin latches and found a mass of letters, all dated December 1933. There were also 150 canceled checks signed by “B. Virdot,” and a tiny black bank book with $760 in deposits.

My mother, Virginia, had always known the secret: the donor was her father, Samuel J. Stone. The fictitious moniker was a blend of his daughters’ names — Barbara, Virginia and Dorothy. But Mother had never told me, and when she handed me the suitcase she had no idea what was in it — “some old papers,” she said. The suitcase had passed into her possession shortly after the death of my grandmother Minna in 2005.

Mr. Gup goes on to tell share some of the stories of despair he read in the letters that were written to his generous grandfather. It's all kind of an amazing story. Read the whole piece here...

Hard Times, a Helping Hand

Picture of the day

A reader named Jason in Lafayette, La sent this in after he tried to post an ad on Craigslist. Check out the first word the site's spam security mechanism asked for...



Wigger? Are you serious? Maybe I need to call my buddy Craig Newmark about this?

South Park's "The Spirit of Christmas," aka Jesus vs. Frosty and Jesus vs. Santa Claus, the pilot episodes that led to the series

Long before South Park ever hit the air on Comedy Central, Trey Parker and Matt Stone made two short animated pilot episodes of the series that revolved around Christmas themes. The first was "Jesus vs. Frosty" and the second was "Jesus vs. Santa." I've heard personally in conversations with people within "the industry" about how they were emailed around as electronic Christmas cards quite a bit in the Hollywood circles for years before the series was eventually picked up and became the cultural phenomenon it is today. I also vaguely recall George Clooney saying in an interview that he handed out "Jesus vs. Santa" DVDs to friends as a gift before the show ever hit the air. So I figured that I'd share them here in the event any of you have never seen them, as they're both quite funny, not to mention how interesting it is to see how the characters developed over time.

The first one is the "Jesus vs. Frosty" episode. The production value is kinda poor, the footage is grainy, and I was shocked to see that Cartman was originally Kenny! It's kind of odd.



In the Jesus vs. Frosty episode, the characters more closely resemble their present forms, and the production value is much better. Enjoy...

Quote of the day

Here's the really bad news: the full impact of the financial crisis in New York has yet to be felt.

The dirty secret of Empire State budgeting is that New York City depends disproportionately on Wall Street for its budget and New York State depends on New York City.

In the last four months, the financial landscape has changed dramatically. Investment banks that have been the engine of the city's tax revenue for decades have disappeared entirely or morphed into restricted new entities. According to E.J. McMahon, my colleague at the Manhattan Institute, between 1980 and 2007 the securities industry's share of wages in the state rocketed from 3 percent to 18 percent, with the average Wall Street salary and bonus rising to $379,000. Wall Street revenues made up 20 percent of the state's budget. So the 40,000 local jobs lost in the financial sector are only the beginning. We're not facing a cyclical downturn; we're facing a fundamental alteration of the facts of financial life in New York. And the 20 percent unemployment in some upstate counties will not help ease the squeeze.

-John Avlon

I've written about this in the past but am too lazy to search for posts on the subject now, but here's the gist of it in a nutshell...I believe that New York is facing its own reckoning in the very near future, and the city will be dramatically altered in mind-blowing ways, for better or for worse, but my gut tells me it'll be for the better. Perhaps now the rapid Disneyfication of the place will slow down or even stop, rents will be affordable again for the middle class, which is something that will bring back in so many of the creative types that have been systematically pushed out, and part of its soul, part of what made it such a magical and romantic place for so long will be restored. Then again, there could be a breakdown in basic city services and chaos could ensue. It could be like the days of Taxi Driver and Midnight Cowboy all over again. Either way, it'll be interesting to watch it all play out.

Did George W. Bush's misguided attempts to help the poor ignite the financial crisis fuse?

One of the more interesting things I've read lately was a story that ran on the front page of Sunday's New York Times regarding President Bush and his role in the U.S. housing clusterfuck that sparked the current worldwide financial crisis. I've often said on this here blog and in private conversations that I don't believe that Bush, unlike what many seem to believe, is an evil man who did things in office out of some deep-seeded desire to do shitty things. Not at all. What I do believe is that he is at heart a good man who really tried to do things as President that he thought were going to help people the people of this country. It just so happened that most of the decisions he made along the way were spectacularly wrong, and that he surrounded himself with an inner circle of people who were either ill-prepared for their jobs, or did their jobs with the interests of the country at large on the back burner to the interests of their personal ideologies, and he remained fiercely loyal to these people, despite their glaring gross incompetence. Loyalty, it seems, is an admirable trait in a pet, but in a president, not so much.

Anyway, this article sort of backs up that notion. An excerpt...

From his earliest days in office, Mr. Bush paired his belief that Americans do best when they own their own home with his conviction that markets do best when let alone.

He pushed hard to expand homeownership, especially among minorities, an initiative that dovetailed with his ambition to expand the Republican tent — and with the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.

Mr. Bush did foresee the danger posed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage finance giants. The president spent years pushing a recalcitrant Congress to toughen regulation of the companies, but was unwilling to compromise when his former Treasury secretary wanted to cut a deal. And the regulator Mr. Bush chose to oversee them — an old prep school buddy — pronounced the companies sound even as they headed toward insolvency.

As early as 2006, top advisers to Mr. Bush dismissed warnings from people inside and outside the White House that housing prices were inflated and that a foreclosure crisis was looming. And when the economy deteriorated, Mr. Bush and his team misdiagnosed the reasons and scope of the downturn; as recently as February, for example, Mr. Bush was still calling it a “rough patch.”

The result was a series of piecemeal policy prescriptions that lagged behind the escalating crisis.

“There is no question we did not recognize the severity of the problems,” said Al Hubbard, Mr. Bush’s former chief economics adviser, who left the White House in December 2007. “Had we, we would have attacked them.”

Looking back, Keith B. Hennessey, Mr. Bush’s current chief economics adviser, says he and his colleagues did the best they could “with the information we had at the time.” But Mr. Hennessey did say he regretted that the administration did not pay more heed to the dangers of easy lending practices. And both Mr. Paulson and his predecessor, John W. Snow, say the housing push went too far.

“The Bush administration took a lot of pride that homeownership had reached historic highs,” Mr. Snow said in an interview. “But what we forgot in the process was that it has to be done in the context of people being able to afford their house. We now realize there was a high cost.”

For much of the Bush presidency, the White House was preoccupied by terrorism and war; on the economic front, its pressing concerns were cutting taxes and privatizing Social Security. The housing market was a bright spot: ever-rising home values kept the economy humming, as owners drew down on their equity to buy consumer goods and pack their children off to college.

But for much of Mr. Bush’s tenure, government statistics show, incomes for most families remained relatively stagnant while housing prices skyrocketed. That put homeownership increasingly out of reach for first-time buyers.

So Mr. Bush had to, in his words, “use the mighty muscle of the federal government” to meet his goal. He proposed affordable housing tax incentives. He insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meet ambitious new goals for low-income lending.

Concerned that down payments were a barrier, Mr. Bush persuaded Congress to spend up to $200 million a year to help first-time buyers with down payments and closing costs.

The president also leaned on mortgage brokers and lenders to devise their own innovations. “Corporate America,” he said, “has a responsibility to work to make America a compassionate place.”

And corporate America, eyeing a lucrative market, delivered in ways Mr. Bush might not have expected, with a proliferation of too-good-to-be-true teaser rates and interest-only loans that were sold to investors in a loosely regulated environment.

“This administration made decisions that allowed the free market to operate as a barroom brawl instead of a prize fight,” said L. William Seidman, who advised Republican presidents and led the savings and loan bailout in the 1990s. “To make the market work well, you have to have a lot of rules.”

But Mr. Bush populated the financial system’s alphabet soup of oversight agencies with people who, like him, wanted fewer rules, not more.

Read the entire piece here...

The Reckoning

Scattered thoughts 12/22/08

-I'm a still trying to wrap my brain around the Palin family and the people they "pal around" with in the wake of the Cock Gangsta's mom being arrested for dealing Oxycontin. I mean, could this all be any more bizarre? Who ARE these people?! And I always blew off the notion bandied about by some that maybe Trig was the spawn of a Sherry Johnston/Track Palin coupling, but I always blew that off without even giving much thought because it seemed so totally preposterous. But now...not so much. The fact that it was reported in the National Enquirer that Track was a virtual slave to the drug for two years, a reporting that was never denied or challenged by the Palins or the lawyers working for the RNC mind you, coupled with the fact that Johnston may have been the town's supplier...WHOA...just, whoa! Now it begins to actually make a little bit of sense, that this theory isn't actually all that implausible ...junkie runs out of money and is desperate for his fix...dealer is middle-aged and lonely and makes a barter offer...sex for drugs...she gets knocked up...Sarah and Todd get wind of it late in the game, thus the need for her to suddenly pop up and claim to be in her seventh month of pregnancy. Oh god, it's all so fucking sordid, I feel so dirty just thinking about it. But you know what? If there was nothing shady going on here, there'd be nothing to hide, and the Palins could have put all of this crazy speculation to bed a long time ago, but they never did. No medical records, no birth certificate, no DNA tests, nothing. But on the other hand, you've got oodles and oodles of odd circumstances, happenings that defy all logic and reason, and some downright impossible "truths." It's just all too unbelievable.

Try as I might to figure it all out, I don't know what the fuck the real story is here and my brain is exhausted from pondering the various icky possibilities, but I've not wavered at all from one fundamental core belief, which is this...Sarah Palin did not birth that child. But I wouldn't be surprised one bit if the truth turned out to be something above and beyond even the wackiest of theories. What is it that they say about truth and fiction?

-Why the hell was Sean Payton running out the clock at the end of the game against the Lions yesterday?! We Saints fans don't give a damn about sportsmanship! Fuck Detroit! We wanted Drew to keep airing it out to set himself up better to break Marino's record against the Panthers next week! C'mon Payton, if you can't get us to the playoffs at least let us fans revel in having one of our own break one the league's more prestigious records!

- I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I feel about this whole business of Gov. Paterson appointing Caroline Kennedy. It seems like I sway back and forth just about every day. One day I think about how it'd be a great, symbolic gesture by appointing this heir to an American political aristocracy to the post, someone who seems like a solid individual that'd make for a competent and incorruptible public servant, but then the next day I catch myself and I think, "wait a minute...this is total horseshit!" I think about how she has no governmental experience under her belt at all, about how her main qualification is merely being a Kennedy, and about how once you strip away the fact that she's a Kennedy, she's essentially just a rich, middle-aged Manhattan society housewife. Surely, she's not fit to hold this office.

But then the other day I thought of how the Senate is filled with old white men who keep getting re-elected by the people of their respective states but probably can't get through a day without members of their staff wiping their shitty asses for them. Hell, some of them look as though they could actually drop dead on the floor of the United States Senate. Take Robert Byrd for instance. I dare anyone to watch the clip below and try to tell me that this person is fit to hold any elected office within our federal government. Yet, here he is, old as fuck and looking every bit the part, and he's the man third in line to assume the presidency. Thanks a lot West Virginia. Is there no one in your state more qualified than a walking fucking corpse? That's right folks, if something were to happen to the president, the vice-president, and the Speaker of the House, meet your new President of the United States of America...



-Did Bristol pop that kid out yet? She's two days late now, no?

- I saw The Wrestler on Saturday night. Whoa. Talk about a swift kick to the gut. Wow. That movie somehow manages to be simultaneously uplifting and depressing as fuck at the same time. Mickey Rourke was, as everyone under the sun has already said, unbelievable. Was he on the juice for this role? He had to be, right? Dude was huge and pretty ripped, and he's like, 60 or something. But his face, oh his face, my word, it just oozes dull pain. And holy shit does Marisa Tomei ever look good naked! Wow. Even the Bruce Springsteen song in the credits was stellar, and I'm no fan of the man they call "The Boss." See it. It's a very good story told very well.

-Speaking of Senate appointments, I'm amused by the frenzy the right-wingers have themselves whipped into over the fact that Rahm Emanuel talked to Blago about Obama's open Senate seat. Well, no fucking shit?!?! Boy, that's a real shocker there isn't it? You mean to tell me that the chief aide to the President of the United States would actually talk to the governor who was set to appoint his successor to the US Senate? Unbelievable! He's definitely guilty of something by mere proxy, right? Send him to prison and impeach that negro pronto!

-I got a message earlier tonight from a reader in Alaska saying she was in a Target store and that Sarah Palin was in there doing some shopping. She even sent me a picture of America's Sweetheart inside the store. This got me to thinking...should I be happy or sad about the fact that I've become synonymous with Sarah Palin in the minds of a many people? I can't figure it out on my own.

She and I should just get it over with and have sex, shouldn't we?

"Little Person" (The song playing during the closing credits of Synecdoche, New York)

Written by Jon Brion and Charlie Kaufman, performed by Deanna Story. Great song.

Quote of the day III

Wasilla is Alaska's Meth Capital, so kudos to Sherry Johnston for shaking it up with prescription pills instead of the crystal.

This is a sad and not-at-all entertaining story of broke-ass bored trashy people in a miserable unhealthy little sprawling town using and selling drugs to briefly escape the dull pain of their shitty lives, and it would not be news that the mother of a high school dropout who's marrying some idiot girl he impregnated was arrested for using drugs except that at some point we were all instructed to admire these exalted Real Americans. The Republicans were sort of right, these people are representative of America's small towns, and that is why as a whole we decided to elect the smart, educated, well-off urbanite aspirational black couple from Chicago instead of the angry Vietnam veteran and the scary PTA moron-bitch with the fucked-up family.

Now, in Barack Obama's New America, these white trash hillbillies will be rounded up and sent to work in "Green Jobs" Internment Camps, or something.

-Alex Pareene

Levi's Mom adheres to rules of addiction for small town real American values people established by Rush Limbaugh, Lord of the Stupid

From the ADN...

Little additional information was available Friday on the case as authorities remained unusually tight-lipped about details. But Palmer court records listed her scheduled court date and a troopers spokeswoman said in a release late Friday afternoon that the charges "are in relation to the drug oxycontin."

She was arrested around noon Thursday by troopers serving a search warrant in an undercover drug investigation. A standard press released issued by troopers said Johnston was arrested on six felony counts: second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance -- generally manufacturing or delivering drugs -- as well as fourth-degree misconduct involving controlled substances, or possession.

Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters wouldn't say Friday if there were other potential defendants involved.

Normally, troopers file charging documents in court to back up arrests. Clerks at the Palmer courthouse said they hadn't seen any filings, and none had to be filed until the hearing.

The Palmer District Attorney's office prosecutes drug cases. Palmer District Attorney Roman Kalytiak said he was aware of the arrest, but he also had not seen any reports or charging documents.

Kalytiak said the standard protocol for drug arrests is that law enforcement officials observe one drug buy, then get a warrant that permits them to record conversations and document more buys.

"I'd imagine standard protocol was followed," the district attorney said.

A spokesman for Gov. Palin on Thursday said the arrest was "not a state government matter" and no comment or interviews on the topic would be forthcoming.

Well, at least she was doing something that's at least a bit of a step up in class from crystal meth. El Rushbo would be proud!

And hey, how this for a wacky/crazy/weird coincidence?! Remember how the National Enquirer reported earlier this year that Sarah Palin's son Track was hooked on Oxycontin for two years?

The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that Sarah's oldest son, Track, was addicted to the power drug OxyContin for nearly the past two years, snorting it, eating it, smoking it and even injecting it. And as Track, 19, heads to Iraq as part of the U.S. armed forces, Sarah and her husband Todd were powerless to stop his wild antics.

That would be like, CRAAAAZY if Sherry Johnston turned out to be his supplier all that time, wouldn't it? Chew on that one for a bit.

Quote of the day II

Near the end of “Seven Pounds” a carefully laminated piece of paper appears, on which someone has written, “DO NOT TOUCH THE JELLYFISH.” I wouldn’t dream of it, and I’ll take the message as a warning not to divulge the astonishing things that happen, not all of them involving aquatic creatures.

Frankly, though, I don’t see how any review could really spoil what may be among the most transcendently, eye-poppingly, call-your-friend-ranting-in-the-middle-of-the-night-just-to-go-over-it-one-more-time crazily awful motion pictures ever made. I would tell you to go out and see it for yourself, but you might take that as a recommendation rather than a plea for corroboration. Did I really see what I thought I saw?

- A. O. Scott, saving from spending a penny to see Will Smith's new movie.

Quote of the day

Something to watch for, my gambling friends: The Saints are done. They're out. But you know who's still breathing? Drew Brees. He's thrown for 4,332 yards this season. The only member of the 5,000 Club? Dan Marino, with 5,084 yards in '84. With Brees needing just 668 passing yards to join the 5,000 Club and 753 yards to pass Marino (literally and figuratively), he has been given the Christmas gift of the lowly Lions this Sunday. (FYI: The Lions' secondary is so bad it's had FOUR interceptions this season.) Then the Saints finish the season with a home game against the Panthers that might mean nothing to Carolina because its playoff seed could get decided this Sunday night.

Can you expect Brees and Sean Payton to say, "Screw it," and air it out these next two weeks?

(Yes. Yes you can.)

-Bill Simmons

On the eve of the day she is due to give birth, Bristol Palin's mother-in-law busted for running a meth lab out of her kitchen or something

Seriously, you just can't make this shit up. I'm assuming the drug involved is crystal meth due to the "manufacturing" aspect of the charges against her, coupled with the fact that Wasilla is the meth capital of the known universe. Boy, that's some good ole real American Wasilla family values right there, ain't it? From the ADN...

A 42-year-old Wasilla woman was arrested Thursday at her home by Alaska State Troopers with a search warrant in an undercover drug investigation. Sherry L. Johnston was charged with six felony counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance.

Johnston is the mother of Levi Johnston, the Wasilla 18-year-old who received international attention in September when Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, announced their teenage daughter was pregnant and he was the father. Bristol Palin, 18, is due on Saturday, according to a recent interview with the governor's father, Chuck Heath.

Troopers served the warrant at Johnston's home at the "conclusion of an undercover narcotics investigation," said a statement issued Thursday by the troopers as part of the normal daily summary of activity around the state.

Troopers charged Johnston with second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance -- generally manufacturing or delivering drugs -- as well as fourth-degree misconduct involving controlled substances, or possession.

When asked about the arrest, Palin's spokesman, Bill McAllister, issued the following statement by e-mail: "This is not a state government matter. Therefore the governor's communications staff will not be providing comment or scheduling interview opportunities."

Oh boy. I'm sure that I'll have more to say on this later, but I just woke up and still haven't thrown water in my face or had a cup of coffee or snorted a pile of cocaine or been sucked off by the random dude I woke up next to, you know, all the things that we city-dwelling non-real Americans do each day, and it's impeding my ability to process all of this. But boy, why do I have a feeling that suddenly there is a new head of the state troopers in Alaska that Sarah Palin will not be pleased with. And thanks to the 100 of you or so who sent emails to me on this already today.

Quote of the day

A major problem with current “political analysis” is that there’s no need to analyze something that’s obvious to everyone. American national politics is a vulgar, transparent, and stupid drama. You can read a few news wires regularly and understand every major politician’s short- and long-term intentions. This is why most of our Wonkette posts are composed of bad/filthy jokes, because it’s the only way to write about this shit secondhand without coming off as utterly patronizing to you, the reader. It would be insulting to you for us to legitimize the horror that is American politics under the guise of “expert analysis” with such backwash as, “From experience, we can deduce that Obama picked someone with popular evangelical views so as to appeal to evangelicals, which would be symbolic of unity.”

You really don’t have to be smart, at all, to understand this within five seconds of hearing the original news. It is obvious. Most of this day-to-day maneuvering is obvious. Sometimes you can even write the “analysis” before hearing the political news, because the political news will be primitive, because national politicians assume you are extremely fucking stupid. Calling the selection of Rick Warren an example of “Obama’s deft manipulation of the politics of symbolism” is a catastrophe of American journalism.

-Jim Newell

In case there was any doubt in your mind as to which state was the most corrupt...

Step off bitches! We win...

(click to enlarge)

(via Yglesias)

Scattered thoughts 12/18/08

-To start, I have two points to make about one thought here, so bear with me...The holidays are traditionally a time when the airwaves of America are barraged with ads for jewelry companies. Typically, I find these ads gag-inducing (don't get me fucking started!), but there is one airing this holiday season that I like A LOT, as in I like it so much that if I can hear it from another room I will stop whatever I'm doing to run over and watch it, again and again and again. Perhaps you've seen it? It's an ad for DeBeers, the diamond company, it's one of their "A Diamond is Forever" ads, and it features a young couple walking through a park who happen to walk past this adorable elderly couple also strolling through the park while holding hands. As they pass, the female half of the younger couple looks back at the adorable elderly couple and smiles. All the while, an acoustic guitar cover of Ben E. King's "Stand By Me" plays softly in the background.

I love this fucking commercial. It gets to me. It touches me in some place almost carnal, deep inside the soul. Allow me to qualify just how much this commercial gets to me...I haven't been in a traditional, committed relationship in a very long time, largely due to the fact that not only do I have no problem whatsoever with being alone, in fact, I like being alone an awful lot. Now whatever you do, don't get "alone" confused with "lonely," as I am many, many things, but lonely is not one of them, and one of the greatest misconceptions in life is the idea that if you are alone, then you must be lonely. Totally fucking untrue. Some of us relish doing whatever the fuck we want, whenever we want, however we want to do it, without having to check with a significant other before doing it. Some of us also, and I warn you that this may sound a little shocking and perhaps a wee bit arrogant, prefer existing inside of own minds from time to time more then we do existing in the presence of other human beings. There, I said it. It's just the way it is. Now, with all of that said, I tell you all of this because I'm building toward a larger point, which is...

This commercial makes me ache to be in a relationship each and every time I see it. If I had ovaries, they would begin to swell the moment the music in the commercial began to play. Yes, I like it that much.

Now, here's where I would normally embed a YouTube clip of the commercial to share it with the world, so that everyone could enjoy it with me in all of its ovary-swelling splendor, but I can't do that, which leads me to the other original point I wanted to make about this.

The backwards-thinking pricks at DeBeers have apparently refused to allow the clip to be placed on YouTube or Vimeo or any other video sharing service. I searched every-fucking-where conceivable for it to no avail. Wanna hear what's worse and borderline retarded? They have it up for viewing on their website. I dug around on the site to see how to attain it for use and guess what? The fucks want $1500 for the privilege of using their commercial. Here all along I thought that the whole purpose of advertising was to get your product in front of eyeballs?! Isn't that why every ad agency and corporation under the sun spends ungodly amounts of time, money, and effort dreaming up viral marketing campaigns, because you spread your company brand quickly and cheaply over the internet via blogs like this one, where it would be seen by thousands of eyeballs over the course of a few days, and it would cost nothing more than the production costs to shoot the commercial.

The jewelry business. What a bunch of fucking idiots. Enjoy the 1980s boys! Feel free to come and join us in the 21st century whenever you're ready. And as badly as I want to share this ad with others, I'm not linking to it for people to see merely on principal. Get you heads out of your fucking asses, assholes.

-I’ve come to the realization that I have many girls named “Ashley” in my life. I’m not sure what this means exactly, perhaps it’s some sort of indictment against my character, but it’s getting to the point of being truly ridiculous. Sure, a couple of them spell their names a little differently from the traditional spelling of the name, one spells it “Ashli” while another spells it “Ashlee,” but it all equates to me having nine different phone numbers in my phone saved under some variation of that name. I’m thinking I may have to get rid of a couple of them just because. That many Ashleys in one person’s life can’t be a good thing, can it? I mean, they’re all cute and pretty, I don’t think I’ve ever met a girl named Ashley who wasn’t cute and pretty, which kind of gets in to my whole theory about people evolving into the names that their parents give them, but they are kinda ditzy. If I were going to write a character who was a ditzy young girl, Ashley would be one of the first names to spring to mine when it came time for naming said character.

Incidentally, my friend Pete Schmidt wrote a song called "Ashley" a while back, and I once even knew a guy named Ashley through the Internet, he used to comment on this here blog in fact, but he died.

-I think I may kick off 2009 by fasting for 10 days or so, as I did previously. My mind and body could use the detox. I do the Master Cleanse. It's awesome. One of the best things I've ever done for myself. I highly recommend it.

-Speaking of Ashleys, I was asked by one of them earlier today if I went to the Guest of a Guest holiday party. She must have been at least the tenth person to pose that question to me in the past 24 hours. What, was there some dude who resembled me there or something to make people think that I was there? Did some "tall and squarely built" man drop his pants and dip his balls into the punch bowl and did everyone then uniformly guess, "well that must be the one they call Cajun Boy?" No, in case anyone else was wondering, I was not there. For the record, I tend not to make a habit of showing up at parties that I didn't get invited to.

-I haven't been really shitfaced in quite a while. It's getting to be about that time again. I guess I should do that prior to the detox, right?

UPDATE:It dawned on me that there were a couple of things that I wanted to mention when I wrote this earlier, but forgot, so I'll add them now.

-Everyone seems to be up in arms about Obama selecting Rick Warren to deliver a prayer at the inaugural. They say he's pandering to the right, and frankly, he is. This brings to mind something I remember hearing Rush Limbaugh say on his radio show years ago, which was this...as a politician, whether you're on the left or the right, you will NEVER win the affection of the fringes of the other party. Period. So you might as well just write them off and do your thing and try to avoid pissing off your own supporters. In other words, Obama should've just invited Reverend Wright instead to deliver the prayer. And frankly, I'm more pissed about Aretha Franklin. She fucking sucks. And every time I see her I immediately think of chronic flatulence. For what it's worth, I also hear that she's a prick. So there.

-I saw Doubt and Frost/Nixon over the weekend. Both films are adapted from stage plays, stage plays that I saw when they ran on Broadway and happened to love, and was worried that the film versions would disappoint. They did not. They were both so very excellent. In the case of Frost/Nixon I'd even go so far to say that the movie version was better than the play. And Doubt's climatic scene with Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman is one for the ages. Cherry Jones and Brian F. O'Byrne did it well on stage, Streep and Hoffman do it just as well on screen. But really, could anyone expect anything less?

-I caved and allowed someone to post a link to the DeBeers diamond ad. It's in the comments.

Picture of the day II

Presented without comment...


(via WhatCrisciLikes)

Ok, I lied, I have to comment...a photo of Camilla Parker Bowles posing with a any ole horse alone would be funny, what with all the comparisons to to her and equines and all, but a photo of Camilla Parker Bowles and this horse, what with the gums flared and the wide eyes and all, is fucking hilarious.

All I want for Christmas is a bat-shit crazy, fake baby birthing church lady Sarah Palin pinup calendar!

Stop snickering asshole. You know you want one too!


(via Marc Ambinder)

Cat and a box, part II

Hey, remember "Box Cat," the adorable pussy who was almost irrationally determined to hurl himself through a box on the floor that he didn't seem to have any business trying to hurl himself through? Well guess what? He's back baby!



Many of my favorite cat videos, "Box cat" included among them, have come to me by way of my friend Lindsay at Videogum, who combs through every murky corner of YouTube looking for funny cat videos in the same manner in which I imagine crusty old prospectors combed the mountains of the western frontier in the 1800s in search of gold nuggets. I can almost see her sitting at her laptop wearing a cowboy hat, chewing on a piece of straw, swigging whiskey straight from the bottle, yelling "there's cute kitties in them thar hills!" So to Lindsay, I issue a heartfelt thank you. You've made 2008 a great year for the Internet!

Quote of the day

The job requires him to work unnoticed, even in plain view, so Jon Favreau settles into a wooden chair at a busy Starbucks in the center of Penn Quarter. Deadline looms, and he needs to write at least half a page by the end of the day. As the espresso machines whir, Favreau opens his laptop, calls up a document titled "rough draft of inaugural" and goes to work on the most anticipated speech of Barack Obama's life.

Favreau believes he will transition well if he focuses exclusively on writing, which is why he has buried himself in the inaugural address. He moves while he writes to avoid becoming stale -- from the Starbucks, to his windowless transition office, to his new, one-bedroom condo, where the only furniture in place is a blow-up mattress on the hardwood floor. He sometimes writes until 2 or 3 a.m., fueled by double espresso shots and Red Bull. When deadline nears, a speech consumes him until he works 16-hour days and forgets to call home, do his laundry or pay his bills. He calls it "crashing."

-Eli Saslow in a Washington Post story on Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau. Dude is writing the inauguration speech at Starbucks. Suddenly I don't feel so weird about all the hours I've killed pounding my keyboard in their stores.

Picture of the day

Obama introducing his choice to be Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, a moment that inspired someone to email me with this comment...

As if the manufactured logo for "The office of the president elect" wasn't good enough, above the seal stood The Talker in Chief Elect and another elected talker stupid enough to wear a bolo tie and a cowboy hat to a formal press conference, with glasses none the less. If you are going to wear a hat indoors at a press conference at least have the sense to get your vision laser corrected so that you don't have to wear glasses with the outfit -- it let's people know that your mind is going soft. OR if this is going to be a normal get-up in the future wear prescription sunglasses with the rest of your costume that would look really good.

This event adds to the steaming pile of losers that the man who has done nothing has associated himself...Imagine Obama and Salazar before the press conference...What kind of person get's elected POTUS, and doesn't have the sense to look at Salazar's costume and say, "Were you planning on standing next to me when you wear that outfit? I'm not running a circus! Go change into something normal!"

But alas, our cigarette smoking president elect from the cover of Men's Health is indeed running a circus.

All this time and I had no idea Ann Coulter read my blog.

Lil' Gordon Ramsey is not pleased with the food in his school cafeteria

It saddens me to report that this is the last of the "Lil' Gordon" series. Who will be the next shout-y celebrity to be hilariously lampooned by a child? Dr. Phil? Oh oh oh, I know...Jim Cramer! Somebody make this happen stat!

The mystery of the perfect Showcase Showdown bid solved!

Remember that video I posted the other day of the contestant on The Price is Right who guessed the exact amount of his Showcase Showdown right on the nose, which had a lot of people wondering "WTF?" Well, my friend Mike, otherwise known as the Midwesterner in NYC, did some poking around and actually came up with some answers! He writes...

Drew's reaction (or lack of a reaction) to a man guessing the exact price of a showcase, the first time this has happened since the early 1970's and only the second time ever, leads one to think that something was amiss.

So, I looked into it. My search led me to this Price is Right website. After reading through thirteen pages I found that, basically, a poster named "Ted" admits he was in the audience that day and was feeding the contestant the answers. In fact, earlier in the show this same contestant hit an exact bid on contestants row while taking "Ted's" advice. "Ted," apparently has been in the audience numerous times and has actually been on the show twice. He states that the prizes are often recycled and he has memorized the retail prices. He admits it is not fool proof because the prices often fluctuate from show to show, but that day, they did not. I should add after reading through thirteen pages, everyone on that website seems to know "Ted" and no one doubts his story.

Drew Carey noticed this happening. After the odd bid (and knowing that was the correct answer) the show stopped for 45 minutes. Carey and the producers gathered on stage, it is assumed, on how to proceed considering this contestant was fed a perfect answer. Apparently they decided there was not much that could be done considering people shout from the audience all the time. So, they started taping again; Drew reads the exact bid and in the process, as we see, does very little to hide his contempt -- creating a truly odd television moment -- considering he felt the contestant cheated, or, at the very least, had some knowledgeable help.

So there's your answer...some fuckstick/obsessed fan in the audience fed him the answer. And here I've been thinking for years that contestants who relied on the audience for bid advice were idiots. I'll be damned!

Todd and Gwen Graves, founders of the Baton Rouge based Raising Cane's chicken finger empire, appear on Fox's "Secret Millionaire"

I don't watch "reality TV" very often. I tend to loathe it actually. But every now and then something that isn't total dung comes along and makes it onto the airwaves, and it appears that Fox's philanthropic Secret Millionaire is one such show.

I sought out the show on Hulu after getting a few emails from readers saying that the series' second episode featured Todd and Gwen Graves of Baton Rouge, founders of Raising Cane's. I love Raising Cane's. I'd give a reach-around for Caniac Box right about now in fact, but that's neither here nor there. In the episode in question, they get sent to live in a FEMA trailer in Buras, the south Louisiana town where the eye of Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005, posing as an ordinary couple just there to do volunteer work. When you get past the cheesy ass theatrical techniques that Fox employs to ratchet up the drama, tactics that have become the hallmarks of all things slapped with the Fox label, the show makes for pretty compelling television. And yeah, I cried, sobbed like a small child who'd lost a puppy in fact. Whether or not the show touches you the same way it did me is debatable, after all, I do have some pretty strong emotional ties to the area featured in this episode. So yeah, here it is, enjoy...



A side note...The South Plaquemines High football team was featured in the show, a school and team whose struggles were chronicled by Jere Longman in a series of reports for the New York Times. Just in case you're interested.

Dipshit Wall Street bankers sodomize world economy sans lube or condom, still collect ridiculous bonus pay

From Thursday's New York Times...

For Dow Kim, 2006 was a very good year. While his salary at Merrill Lynch was $350,000, his total compensation was 100 times that — $35 million.

The difference between the two amounts was his bonus, a rich reward for the robust earnings made by the traders he oversaw in Merrill’s mortgage business.

Mr. Kim’s colleagues, not only at his level, but far down the ranks, also pocketed large paychecks. In all, Merrill handed out $5 billion to $6 billion in bonuses that year. A 20-something analyst with a base salary of $130,000 collected a bonus of $250,000. And a 30-something trader with a $180,000 salary got $5 million.

But Merrill’s record earnings in 2006 — $7.5 billion — turned out to be a mirage. The company has since lost three times that amount, largely because the mortgage investments that supposedly had powered some of those profits plunged in value.

Unlike the earnings, however, the bonuses have not been reversed.

As regulators and shareholders sift through the rubble of the financial crisis, questions are being asked about what role lavish bonuses played in the debacle. Scrutiny over pay is intensifying as banks like Merrill prepare to dole out bonuses even after they have had to be propped up with billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. While bonuses are expected to be half of what they were a year ago, some bankers could still collect millions of dollars.

Critics say bonuses never should have been so big in the first place, because they were based on ephemeral earnings. These people contend that Wall Street’s pay structure, in which bonuses are based on short-term profits, encouraged employees to act like gamblers at a casino — and let them collect their winnings while the roulette wheel was still spinning.

If that's not enough to make you vomit, there's something seriously wrong with you. But if not, read the whole article. It's disgusting. Totally fucking disgusting.

Let me add one more thing here...I've read A LOT regarding the financial crisis that we find ourselves all currently mired in. I've done so with an open mind in an honest attempt to figure out exactly what went wrong and who is most to blame, and I've come to the conclusion that the single greatest contributor to all of this was the deregulation of Wall Street in the early part of this century that was spearheaded by Phil "America is a nation of whiners" Gramm, much more so than Barney Frank or Nancy Pelosi or ACORN or whatever other fucking Bogey man people like to point the finger of blame at. It was deregulation that sparked all of these innovative little paper scams with mortgages dreamed up by banker fucks in an effort to attain obscene levels of wealth. Period. I don't think, at this point, that I can be convinced otherwise. All of these schemes, the "credit default swaps," the "alt-As" and "option ARMs," all sprang from fucksticks looking to make fat bonus checks. Period.

But hey, that's good ole American capitalism, right? God for-fucking-bid we take a step back for a second to objectively evaluate and criticize the system, because that's just un-American, that's just plain ole pinko socialism, or even better, that's just faggotism.

Fuck you.

It's time to get mad, and I mean really fucking mad. I'm saying that it's almost about the time that Americans need to get off of their fat fucking asses and start storming business and governmental institutions with torches and pitchforks in hand. All of this was all fun and games for so long, but it's not anymore, because it's personal now. Like when I used to write the "Diary of a Fake Goldman Trader" on Dealbreaker, it was all "hahaha bankers are fucking douchebags," but now it's different, now people are getting really, really fucked hard, and it's time all of this came to an end.

Right here. Right now. ENOUGH!

In which I tie my nostalgia for Mid-South Wrestling to my anticipation for seeing The Wrestler

When I was a kid growing up in Louisiana, I loved professional wrestling. And when I say loved, I mean really loved it. From the time that I was seven until the time that I was twelve or thirteen or so, my world came to a grinding halt every Saturday afternoon at 3:00PM, because that was when something called Mid-South Wrestling aired (on Channel 26 out of New Orleans if memory serves correct) on television.

Many of those weekends were spent with my Dad, Grandpa, uncles, cousins and brothers at something we referred to simply as, "the camp," which was essentially a old shack of a house that sat on stilts in a marshy area near Theriot, Louisiana. It was only accessible by boat, about a 45 minute boat ride from the boat landing at that, and though it did have electricity, "the camp" didn't have running water, so we'd have to go outside with a five gallon bucket, fill it up with water from the bayou, and pour it into the toilet each time any of us needed to flush it. That was probably my least favorite aspect of life at "the camp."

We'd usually all arrive late in the afternoon on Friday, maybe fish for crabs or catfish or something off the wharf for a couple of hours before turning in for the night, and then wake up at the ass-crack of dawn on Saturday morning to hunt or fish whatever it was we were going to hunt or fish on that particular weekend, something that often depended on what was in season at the time. Sometimes we'd just go fishing, other times we'd hunt ducks. Etc. Regardless of what was on the testosterone-filled agenda (appearances by the women of the family were shockingly rare), we'd generally make our way back to the camp around 1pm, just in time for a lunch of sandwiches and Zapps potato chips, and after lunch the elders would often retreat to the sleeping quarters to take naps. It was around this time that me and the other members of the younger generation would gather around and watch Mid-South Wrestling on the barely visible feed we were able to get through the rabbit ears on the television set. We'd argue, place bets on matches occasionally, talk about something we read about so-and-so in a wrestling magazine, you know, stuff kids do when they watch wrestling. It was all so fantastically fine.

And then there was that famous, or perhaps infamous, report by John Stossel on 20/20 that aired in '85 or so, a report that exposed wrestling to be fake, something that, at the time, I think that I was sort of coming around to figuring out, even though it wasn't as overtly fake as it is now, but just didn't want to believe. I was devastated. Crushed. I felt like a piece of me had died. I'm sure that I cried. I mean, I felt that my heart had been ripped out. And from about that time on, I never watched wrestling again.

That is until a few weeks ago, when I discovered that a recently-made friend in New York was a huge fan of professional wrestling. I should say that this guy doesn't fit the profile you might imagine your typical wrestling fan to be...he's certainly no redneck by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, he's a highly successful manager of rock bands, quite an urbane, worldly guy. But he spoke passionately about wrestling, about how its pageantry and complex narratives combined with the incredible feats of athleticism on display in the "sport" made for compelling entertainment. When I visited his apartment for the first time I even noticed that his bookshelf was filled with books on wrestling. In short, he changed my perspective on it, so I decided to give it another try. I decided to watch an episode of WWE's Monday Night Raw with a completely open mind, with the thought that I was watching it for pure entertainment and not as a sport, just as I would a stage play, a movie, or a soap opera.

And what do you know, I actually derived great pleasure from it. I found myself pulling for certain wrestlers even though I knew it was scripted, just as I do when I watch a movie and find myself pulling for one of the characters. I suppose I just needed to watch wrestling with the suspension of belief, something I'd honestly never taken the time to do since the 20/20 expose. And with that, I've sort of become a fan again.

My telling you all of this leads to this point...I'm really, really looking forward to seeing The Wrestler starring Mickey Rourke. I caught the trailer recently and it hit me in the gut. This looks like a truly great film...



A quick side story about Mickey Rourke...a couple of years ago, I met this girl. We went out a couple of times, then one day I invited her over to order in some food and watch a movie at my place. So it's like, one in the morning, we're watching this movie, kinda cuddling on the sofa, and her phone keeps going off with text messages.

"You need to get that," I ask. "Don't mind me, it's cool if you need to respond to someone."

"Nah," she replied. "It's Mickey Rourke. I met him a few weeks ago in Miami and I made the mistake of giving him my number. He's fucking insane."

I lost interest in that girl rapidly after that night. I think it had something to do with the fact that she gave her number to Mickey Rourke, or maybe it had more to do with my being interested in someone that Mickey Rourke was also interested in, but either way, it just made me feel kinda icky.

However, I still can't wait to see this film.

Child born with human foot embedded inside of its brain

This is just beyond freaky. From the Denver Post...

The parents of Sam Esquibel know him only as a miracle baby.

The Colorado Springs infant survived surgery to remove what was believed to be a tumor when he was just 3 days old.

"The doctors said to us, 'This one is for the books,' " mom Tiffnie Esquibel said.

Inside the microscopic tumor was what looked like the formations of two feet, a hand and thigh.

"To find a perfectly formed structure (like this) is extremely unique, unusual, borderline unheard of," said Dr. Paul Grabb, the veteran pediatric neurosurgeon who performed the operation on Sam at Colorado Springs' Memorial Hospital for Children.

Two and half months later, Sam has mostly recovered. Now that the sutures have healed, the infant is scheduled for 25 sessions of physical therapy to improve use of the right side of his head and neck.

"You'd never know if he didn't have a scar there," his mom said.

Now here comes a picture of the tumor/foot...are you ready for the freak???

Three...

Two...

One...

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!



This looks like something on a brochure handed out by pro-lifers outside of anti-abortion clinics, doesn't it?

Lil' Gordon Ramsey goes to dinner with his parents

I can't get enough of this little potty-mouthed terror...

Picture of the day

When Barack Obama was a freshman at Occidental College in Los Angeles in the early 80s, he was approached by a young photographer named Lisa Jack to be the subject of some photos. Nothing ever became of the photos and Jack went on to become a psychiatrist. Years later, when she realized that the young man she photographed almost 30 years ago was on the verge of becoming president, Jack dug through her basement and found the film from her photoshoot. She then placed it in a safety deposit box until after the election so that it could not be used for political purposes. She has since released the photos to Time Magazine. An entire gallery from this roll of film can be viewed here.

Quote of the day

With the unmasking of Gov. Rod Blagojevich as a kleptocrat of Paraguayan proportion, Illinois now has a real chance—its first in more than a generation—to defeat Louisiana in the NCAA finals of American political corruption.

Illinois and Louisiana continue to have different styles of fraud—David Mamet vs. Walker Percy. Illinois' corruption culture tends to be mingy, pedestrian, and shameful. State legislators who sell their votes for $25 cash in an envelope (a scandal of the 1970s) do not tend toward braggadocio. When former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski was caught filching postage stamps from the House post office, he pleaded guilty and apologized for his crimes (and was pardoned by Bill Clinton).*

Louisiana's culture of corruption, by contrast, is flamboyant and shameless. Earl Long once said that Louisiana voters "don't want good government, they want good entertainment." He spent part of his last term in a mental hospital, where his wife had him committed after he took up with stripper Blaze Starr. When Sen. Allen Ellender died in office in 1972, Gov. Edwin Edwards didn't try to auction of his seat. He appointed his wife, Elaine, possibly to get her out of town. When Edwards ran for governor in 1983, he said of the incumbent, "If we don't get Dave Treen out of office, there won't be anything left to steal." (He also memorably said Treen was so slow it took him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.) Raised among figures like these, Louisianans tend to accept corruption as inevitable, to be somewhat proud of it, and to forgive it easily.

In recent years, however, Illinois and Louisiana seem to be copying each other. With Rod Blagojevich and his wife, Patricia—Lady Macbeth of Milwaukee Avenue—Illinois' corruption has gone carnival. And since Katrina, Louisianans seem to have lost their zest for the big heist. There's been no sympathy for those caught siphoning disaster funds. It's going to be a close contest again this year, but I'm betting on the Fighting Illini to claim the national championship.

-Jacob Weisberg

Some dude guesses the exact value of his showcase on The Price Is Right

Ok, this is just getting ridiculous. First there was the shaggy-haired kid who won everything under the sun against all odds a few weeks ago, and now this dude nails the exact amount of his showcase during the Showcase Showdown?!?! If I were a conspiracy theorist, which everyone knows I'm not, I might suggest that there's some Quiz Show-style rigging going on here. But, ugh, I guess he's just lucky, or something...


(via Will Leitch)

Barney the Bush family dog saves Christmas yet again

Barney also wins the Ryder Cup and every event in the Beijing Olympics. Titanic douche Michael Phelps makes another lame-ass cameo (dude get back into the fucking pool for Christ's sake!). Your tax dollars at work ladies and gentlemen...


(via Eric Spiegelman)

Christopher Hitchens is no fan of Christmas

From Slate.com...

The core objection, which I restate every December at about this time, is that for almost a whole month, the United States—a country constitutionally based on a separation between church and state—turns itself into the cultural and commercial equivalent of a one-party state.

As in such dismal banana republics, the dreary, sinister thing is that the official propaganda is inescapable. You go to a train station or an airport, and the image and the music of the Dear Leader are everywhere. You go to a more private place, such as a doctor's office or a store or a restaurant, and the identical tinny, maddening, repetitive ululations are to be heard. So, unless you are fortunate, are the same cheap and mass-produced images and pictures, from snowmen to cribs to reindeer. It becomes more than usually odious to switch on the radio and the television, because certain officially determined "themes" have been programmed into the system. Most objectionable of all, the fanatics force your children to observe the Dear Leader's birthday, and so (this being the especial hallmark of the totalitarian state) you cannot bar your own private door to the hectoring, incessant noise, but must have it literally brought home to you by your offspring. Time that is supposed to be devoted to education is devoted instead to the celebration of mythical events. Originally Christian, this devotional set-aside can now be joined by any other sectarian group with a plausible claim—Hanukkah or Kwanzaa—to a holy day that occurs near enough to the pagan winter solstice.

But I'd bet my left nut that Ole Hitch still partakes in all the holiday parties.

Madoff in 07: "In today's regulatory environment, it's virtually impossible to violate rules, & this is something that the public doesn't understand"

Well look what I found digging around on YouTube for something to watch while eating an All-American hero from the deli down the street...It's the biggest con man in the history of the world Bernie Madoff in 2007 pontificating about the wonderful ways of Wall Street! Listen in slack-jawed awe as Bernie explains how not corrupt Wall Street is and how anyone who thinks that it is is just an idiot alarmist who doesn't understand how the financial market's system of checks and balances works. So fuck you assholes!

To watch the thing now, knowing what we now know about him, is all kinds of surreal. Dude is totally in his element, confident, oozing wisdom, cool as the proverbial cucumber. After watching this it's easy to see how so many trusted this guy with all of their money. See for yourself...

Picture of the day

The other day I posted something on Twitter expressing mock shock that no one was showing any concern for the only real victim in the Bush/Iraqi journalist shoe throwing melee, White House spokesperson Dana Perino, who was reported to have been hit in the face with a microphone at the time...



Now the AP has released a photo showing Perino with a noticeable black eye, meaning that she did actually get whacked pretty good in the kerfuffle...



Now don't I just feel a dick.

Got a chronic farter in your life? Then get them the Flat-D chair pad for Christmas!

Every now and then comes a product whose time has certainly come. This is one of those times. Introducing the Flat-D, a flatulence muffler/deodorizing pad that fits perfectly on just about any chair...



How does it work? The product website explains it all...

The Flat-D Chair Pad is an activated charcoal cloth pad that is placed on your favorite chair. The user is virtually unaware of its presence because it is thin and comfortable. It is also inconspicuous to others viewing it. The black activated charcoal cloth pad is washable and reusable. Many users get several months of use out of it. When gas is expelled the pad absorbs the odor normally associated with the gassy discharge or fart. This flatulence filter thin cloth pad has high absorption of flatulence odor or flatus. It utilizes the highest grade of activated charcoal available to guard or protect you for your bloating or digestion needs.

And here's a glowing testimonial from Pat F. in Charleston, SC...

I simply love it. It makes me feel comfortable in the fact that I can make all the noise I want when no one else is in my office and have no fear that anyone walking in afterwards will confront any embarrassing, ill odors of any sort. And believe me … with all the medications I’m currently on and with all of the people who come in and out of my office, that is a great weight off of my shoulders.

So what are you waiting for Farty McFartin? Order yours online today!

http://www.flat-d.com/chairpadblack.html