Get a brain, morans! #Amercia

CNBC, Donald Trump, and the willful self-dumbering of America (cont'd) #BRAWNDO

"Perhaps citing, as I clearly stated on air, an unconfirmed report from a conservative website was not the most conventional method to elicit a response from the loquacious Mr. Trump."

True. Next time just give him the mic and let him talk, since the journalism thing is apparently too much work for you.

On a related note, since Trump has chosen to double down on the brain-dead birther thing, the building in Chicago formerly named after him will henceforth be known as Rostenkowski Tower, or more colloquially, The Rosty.
~

Who's ready to belly up to the idiot bar today? Aha!! Here comes a regular... #BRAWNDO #idiotbar #herecomesaregular

latticeofcoincidence.brawndo? #BRAWNDO

News item: A U.S. Commerce Department official is warning of possible "unintended and unforeseen consequences" of domain name expansion, The National Law Journal reports. The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers approved the upcoming expansion. The group will accept applications for registration of almost any word in any language as a generic top-level domain name, such as dot-computer or dot-furniture.

Could be dot-smiff's time to shine.
~

On the agenda for next week: putting Brawndo on the crops

Pinellas County Commission votes to stop putting fluoride in water supply

"Fluoride is a toxic substance," said tea party activist Tony Caso of Palm Harbor. "This is all part of an agenda that's being pushed forth by the so-called globalists in our government and the world government to keep the people stupid so they don't realize what's going on."

He added: "This is the U.S. of A, not the Soviet Socialist Republic."

Which of these idiots looks more prezzzdential?

For my money, it's Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.

~



~

Can Republicans read newspapers?, Or, I don't think anybody expected that Tea Partiers could do something catastrophically stupid

Crain's: How a federal default would hit Chicago and Illinois

A downgrade of the federal government's AAA credit rating "would likely lead ratings agencies to downgrade every state," an Illinois Office of Management and Budget spokeswoman said in a statement. "This action would add hundreds of millions of dollars in interest costs to bonds we sell in the future. Money we desperately need in our state to educate our students, ensure public safety and protect our seniors would now be used to pay interest costs..."

If there is some kind of default next week, the market reaction would no doubt be furious: Credit markets might quickly grind to a halt, much as they did after the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. plunged the world into financial crisis three years ago, at least until Congress and the White House finally come to terms...

Bottom line, the market's behavior indicates that investors just don't believe Washington is stupid enough to let the government default and plunge the economy into full-tilt recession. At worst, they assume that an actual default would spur action without further delay.

The economic damage and political fallout "would be too much for even the Tea partiers to let that go on for too long," said Justin Hoogendoorn, fixed-income strategist in the Chicago office of BMO Capital Markets, a Bank of Montreal unit. "I don't think anybody in the bond market expects that to happen." (Based on what, exactly? - Ed.)
~

Surprise! Snarky Fox retort is fullas#i+

Shocking that the senior vice president of "news" editorial at Fox just makes up s#i+ off the top of his head

The study’s authors continued, “These effects increased incrementally with increasing levels of exposure (Fox Noise as radioactive waste ~ Ed.) and all were statistically significant. The effect was also not simply a function of partisan bias, as people who voted Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to have such misinformation than those who did not watch it — though by a lesser margin than those who voted Republican.”

Asked for comment on the study, Fox News seemingly dismissed the findings. In a statement, Michael Clemente, who is the senior vice president of news editorial for the network, said: “The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ‘Students Who Study The Least’ and being the ‘Best Party School’ – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with.”

Mr. Clemente oversees every hour of objective news programming on Fox News (so he works, like, never? ~ Ed.), which is by far the nation’s most popular cable news channel.

For the record, the Princeton Review says the University of Maryland ranks among the “Best Northeastern Colleges.” It was No. 19 on the Review’s list of “Best Party Schools.”

If you believe a lie often enough, you're probably a Fox News viewer

Fox News makes you dumb (though if you're tuning in regularly, you were probably pretty dumb to begin with). And Fox News led the cable news ratings for 100 months in a row as of April 2010. And the skill most richly rewarded by our electoral system is the ability to raise YOOOOGE amounts of money to go on TV with commercials that are totally fullas#i+.

Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that:

~ most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely)
~ most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points)
~ the economy is getting worse (26 points)
~ most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points)
~ the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points)
~ their own income taxes have gone up (14 points)
~ the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points)
~ when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points)
~ and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points)

These effects increased incrementally with increasing levels of exposure and all were statistically significant. The effect was also not simply a function of partisan bias, as people who voted Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to have such misinformation than those who did not watch it--though by a lesser margin than those who voted Republican.

God's Hand

This was hilarious at 3 in the morning. Let's see if it stands the test of time...

Idiocracy! The network premiere - Comedy Central, Sunday 10pm Effete Snob Time, 9pm God's Time

If this doesn't make you want to watch it, you probably don't want to watch it.

Poll Results Non-Scientific (and extremely brain-dead)

{{{{DRUDGE POLL}}}} WHO WON THE FINAL PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE?...

MCCAIN
72% 129,087
OBAMA
26% 46,935
NEITHER
1% 2,213

Total Votes: 178,235

~

on perfecting the art of keeping people who have been foreclosed on and other undesirables away from the voting booth (cont'd)

Encouraging signs everywhere... but nobody has had the balls to establish a poll tax?

* In Colorado and New Mexico there are not enough voting booths or machines for Election Day.
* Students in Virginia are receiving probing questionnaires from voting officials falsely implying they don't have the right to vote there.
* In Ohio alone, more than 600,000 newly-registered voters are threatened with purging.
* There are reports of sometimes-illegal mass voter roll purges in Michigan, New Mexico, Florida, Georgia, Colorado and other states. Several states are even purging voter rolls of people who are "Bob" on driver's licenses and "Robert" on voter registration forms.
* Officials in Indiana are avoiding setting up polling places in areas of the state heavily populated by minorities.
* The Republican Party in Michigan planned to challenge the registrations of every voter whose home had been foreclosed on recently.
* ACORN, which has been held out as a bogeyman for voter fraud (though only 26 TOTAL cases of voter fraud were prosecuted nationwide from 2002 - 2005), has bad registration rates below the California Republican Party's and a lawsuit alleging fraud in 2004 was dismissed by a judge for lack of merit.
* And, of course, there are ongoing worries across the country about electronic voting machines.

they walk among us

News item: While 19% of the American public demonstrates a total lack of any cognitive function, they appear to go about their lives as usual.

RNC on global warming: behold the stupidity

GRITtv features ANP Report: Global Warming Heats Up RNC

The American News Project reports on the Republican Party and what its delegates think about global warming. Judging by those interviewed at the Convention it's no wonder that Sarah Palin, a global warming doubter, is stealing the show. The 2008 Republican Platform cautions “against the doomsday climate change scenarios peddled by the aficionados of centralized command-and-control government.” Even though presidential candidate John McCain thinks that global warming is created, in part, by humans, his running mate, Sarah Palin, disagrees. And her record on the environment in general is dismal. The Independent reports that she, "has an environmental policy so toxic it would make the incumbent, George Bush, blush."

~

Why is Ohio massively brain-dead?

It is one of the biggest mysteries of modern times...

State/Pollster WAS NOW SWING
OH Rasmussen McCain +5 McCain +7 McCain +2
~

Sarah Palin's got electrolytes - it's what plants crave

The Nation on Sara Palin:

Mr. McCain has based his campaign on the idea that this is a dangerous world -- and that Barack Obama is too inexperienced to deal with it. He has also acknowledged that his advanced age -- he celebrated his 72nd birthday on August 29th -- makes his choice of vice-president unusually important. Now he has chosen as his running mate, on the basis of the most cursory vetting, a first-term governor of Alaska.
...
The political calculations behind Mr. McCain’s choice hardly look robust. Mrs. Palin is not quite the pork-busting reformer that her supporters claim. She may have become famous as the governor who finally killed the infamous “bridge to nowhere” -- the $220m bridge to the sparsely inhabited island of Gravina, Alaska. But she was in favour of the bridge before she was against it (and told local residents that they weren’t “nowhere to her”). As mayor of Wasilla, a metropolis of 9,000 people, she initiated annual trips to Washington, DC, to ask for more earmarks from the state’s congressional delegation, and employed Washington lobbyists to press for more funds for her town.
...
The moose in the room, of course, is her lack of experience. When Geraldine Ferraro was picked as Walter Mondale’s running-mate, she had served in the House for three terms. Even the hapless Dan Quayle, George Bush senior’s sidekick, had served in the House and Senate for 12 years. Mrs Palin, who has been the governor of a state with a population of 670,000 for less than two years, is the most inexperienced candidate for a mainstream party in modern history.

Inexperienced and Bush-level incurious. She has no record of interest in foreign policy, let alone expertise. She once told an Alaskan magazine: “I’ve been so focused on state government; I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.” She obtained an American passport only last summer to visit Alaskan troops in Germany and Kuwait. This not only blunts Mr McCain’s most powerful criticism of Mr Obama. It also raises serious questions about the way he makes decisions.

Then again, what would you expect from... wait... that column appeared in The Economist. Sorry.

Is the John McCain campaign and future White House smarter than a 6th grader?

No.

Sixth-grader Joshua Popue offered the explanation most commonly being floated Friday both at the Irvine Avenue campus and in political circles: Somebody in the McCain campaign mistook Walter Reed Middle School for the military's troubled Walter Reed Army Medical Center when preparing the Republicans' high-tech video background wall.

"McCain messed up. He was talking about Walter Reed hospital, and he used our picture by mistake," said 11-year-old Joshua.

. . .

School officials were not amused, however.

Principal Donna Tobin declined to comment because she was too busy with the first week of instruction, aides said. Later, however, she issued a statement declaring that "permission to use the front of our school for the Republican National Convention was not given by our school nor is the use of our school's picture an endorsement of any party or view."

Speaking of running off and doing s#i+ without permission...

"Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song 'Barracuda' no longer be used to promote her image. The song 'Barracuda' was written in the late '70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The 'barracuda' represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there's irony in Republican strategists' choice to make use of it there."

cuz we believe in, like, freedom an' s#i+...

It started innocently enough: Qatar-based al-Jazeera decided it would film the locals in Golden, the home of Coors beer, as they watched the convention from a biker bar Wednesday night. This would allow al-Jazeera's viewers to see Bill Clinton and Joe Biden through the eyes of those in a small American town that could pass as a set for a Hollywood Western.

City leaders at first offered to host a pork-free barbecue for the Jazeera crew, then abandoned that plan when angry residents protested. But the Buffalo Rose, a 150-year-old saloon here catering to bikers, offered to let al-Jazeera broadcast from its bar.

The result: a sort of 21st-century shootout at the O.K. Corral on Wednesday night under the shadow of Lookout Mountain, where Buffalo Bill is buried.

Word spread that three rival biker gangs -- the Sons of Silence, the Banditos and the Hell's Angels -- declared a truce for the night so they could meet at the Buffalo Rose in a united protest against al-Jazeera. But the network stood its ground and set up its cameras.

Across the street from the bar, two dozen protesters under the watchful eye of a statue of Adolph Coors waved American flags, blew air horns and revved motorcycle engines. "Al Jazeera is terrorism," announced one sign. "Go home, Al Jazeera -- Voices for al Qaeda and bin Laden," proclaimed another. The protesters had shirts printed up for the occasion, saying "Buffalo Rose/Tokyo Rose" in English and Arabic, although they botched the Arabic translation.

One biker covered his T-shirt in thoughtful, handwritten messages, such as "Islam Sucks" and "Al-Jazeera: Anti-American Pond Scum."
. . .

The regulars at Buffalo Rose took the Qatari invasion, and the demonstration, in stride. "Al-Jazeera? Is he here? Where is he?" inquired Travis Henry, sipping a Bud Light. (Of course he was... Ed.)
. . .

The leader of this would-be terrorist cell: al-Jazeera's Josh Rushing, a Texas-born Marine veteran who wears blue jeans and cowboy boots. "I guess you could call it a mild jihad for the truth," said Rushing, sipping a latte. (Of course he was... Ed.) Wearily, he added, "This isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened."
. . .

City Manager Mike Bestor, before he rescinded his barbecue offer, called the al-Jazeera visit a way to "show Arab viewers what Americans are like." For better or worse, Golden seems to be doing just that...
~

Further Evidence of the Idiocrazation of America

Only 74% of "baseball fans" chose Hank Aaron as the greatest Brave of all-time. Eddie Mathews slighted as well. People are morans.

1) Who is the all-time greatest player in Braves history?
73.9% Hank Aaron (1954-1974):The most consistent player in MLB history. All-time RBI and total bases leader. 755 HRs.
7.2% Greg Maddux (1993-2003):Won four Cy Youngs in a row during mid-90s.
5.7% Chipper Jones (1993-present):One of the top three switch-hitters in MLB history.
4.9% Warren Spahn (1942-1964):Won 356 games with Braves.
3.2% John Smoltz (1988-present):Converted from ace starter to ace closer and back.
3.0% Dale Murphy (1976-1990):Back-to-back MVP seasons in 1982 and 1983.
0.7% Tom Glavine (1987-2002, 2008):Won 20 or more games five times with Atlanta.
0.6% Eddie Mathews (1952-1966):512 home runs rank him 20th all time.
0.4% Phil Niekro (1964-1983, 1987):Knuckleballer's 24-year career started and ended with the Braves.
0.2% Andruw Jones (1996-2007):Elite defensive outfielder hit 51 home runs in 2005.
~