Ben Bernanke Wants To Maintain Fed's Secrecy—I Mean, "Independence."

Ben Bernanke promises to tell lies, big lies, and nothing but lies, so help him Alan Greenspan.

Last night I watched Bernanke on the Record on PBS, which originally aired over the summer. At one point during the Q&A session with the audience, the chairman of the Federal Reserve said the following:

“The independence of the Fed is extraordinarily important. If the Congress or the Administration were to begin to interfere with our monetary policy decisions, then the markets would say, ‘Well, wait a minute, is there going to be more inflation because of political reasons? Is there going to be more inflation because the government wants the Fed to print money in order to pay for the deficit?’ So it’s incredibly important that the Fed maintain its independence. I think we will. I think we need to be very vigilant and make sure that there isn’t any bill or any other effort made by anyone to take away that independence and we’re going to do our best to maintain it because it is so critical for the stability of our economy.”

It all makes sense now. Under the circumstances, Bernanke is saying that Congress shouldn’t be allowed to pressure the Fed into making reckless monetary decisions because the Fed is already doing that all by itself. This entire decade has been one giant Fed-driven clusterfuck of easy credit and corporate excess. Public and private debt has skyrocketed over the last ten years as America and Americans have spent themselves into financial oblivion. And what’s Bernanke’s solution? More spending! That’s right. Not just by the government. No. The Keynesian stimulus package signed into law in February wasn’t enough. Bernanke and Barack Obama want you to spend your money, or what’s left of it. That’s why interest rates are around zero at the moment. Obama, Bernanke, and Geithner are trying to fabricate a seller’s market where there isn’t (or shouldn’t be) one. Can you think of a worse economic strategy than having interest rates at 0% in a nation of debtors while the government is burning the midnight oil at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving to pay for two wars, the stimulus, a scandalously large military budget, etc.?

Despite Bernanke’s protestations, those favoring Fed transparency earned a small victory last week when the Paul-Grayson amendment was approved by the House Financial Services Committee, tacking it on to H.R. 3996—a gigantic banking regulation bill in the works in the House of Representatives. The amendment:

• Removes the blanket restrictions on GAO audits of the Fed

• Allows audit of every item on the Fed's balance sheet, all credit facilities, all securities purchase programs, etc.

• Retains limited audit exemption on unreleased transcripts and minutes

• Sets 180-day time lag before details of Fed's market actions may be released

• States that nothing in the amendment shall be construed as interference in or dictation of monetary policy by Congress or the GAO

As you can see, the Paul-Grayson amendment specifically states that neither Congress nor the Government Accountability Office shall interfere in monetary policy (which is kind of too bad since I don’t think Congress or the GAO could do any worse of a job than the Fed is doing now).

Mike Shedlock sums up the situation thus:

“The measure, cosponsored by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), authorizes the Government Accountability Office to conduct a wide-ranging audit of the Fed’s opaque deals with foreign central banks and major U.S. financial institutions. The Fed has never had a real audit in its history and little is known of what it does with the trillions of dollars at its disposal.”

Speaking of Alan Grayson and the Federal Reserve’s “opaque deals with foreign central banks,” this classic clip came to mind. In it, Grayson asks Bernanke which European central banks got $500 million of U.S. taxpayer money and at one point laughs in the chairman’s face.



Go get ‘em, Alan and Ron.

- Max

In America, Israel Always Gets Free Pass

The first rule of the American media’s Middle East “reporting.”

During her recent interview with Barbara Walters, Sarah Palin said this about the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories:

“I disagree with the Obama administration on that,” Palin told Walters. “I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don't think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.”

In other words, if you’re a Palestinian who’s been evicted or whose home has been razed by Israeli bulldozers in violation of international law to make way for some Jewish settlers, too fucking bad for you. The population of Israel is going to grow, and after all, they’re people. Palin’s answer is very disturbing, and its rabid, pro-settler rhetoric goes beyond even the usual Israel-friendly shtick from American conservatives. But while Palin’s rhetoric is unusual in that it seems to give blanket approval to all Israeli settlements, the fact is, her answer basically reflects the actual policy of the United States government on this issue. Unsurprisingly, nobody in the American media has batted an eyelash at this statement, or even reported on it, for that matter.

When it comes to reporting Israel-Palestine issues, the American press is absolutely atrocious. Thus, it is not surprising that most Americans have no substantive understanding of the issues at hand, Sarah Palin included.

For example, a vast majority of Americans have no idea that in its assault on Gaza late last year and early this year, Israel used chemical warfare in the form of white phosphorus bombs. Officially, the conflict was called the Gaza War, but the casualty figures indicate that “war” might not be an appropriate term. The following statistics are from B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group. Their findings were consistent with other organizations such as Amnesty International.

Gaza “War” casualties

Israelis: 13 (3 civilians)

Gazans: 1,387 (773 civilians)

These numbers don’t suggest a war. They indicate a mass slaughter. In this massacre, Israeli soldiers killed almost as many Israeli soldiers (four), as their enemy did (six). The pretext for the Israeli assault was a regular culprit: Hezbollah rocket attacks into Israeli territory. The official story of the American mainstream media outlets was that these were completely unprovoked violations of a ceasefire reached between Hamas and Israel on June 19^th 2008, and that Hamas bore responsibility for the subsequent exchange of fire over the next several months. But in fact it was the Israeli Defense Forces who broke the six-month truce on no less than seven occasions back between June 20^th and June 26^th alone, according to a United Nations report. (CNN also, in a brief moment of actual reporting, confirmed this at the time.) That report was recently condemned by the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 344-36, which means that 344 representatives would rather stick their fingers in their ears than hear what an independent commission had to say on the subject. Take a look at what Republican representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who wrote the resolution, said about Israeli actions:

“Even in the fog of war, it is clear that Israel took every reasonable measure to minimize the risk of civilian casualties. It is clear that Israel had every right and duty to defend its citizens from the onslaught of rocket and mortar attacks from Hamas and other militants in Gaza.”

How far is Ros-Lehtinen’s head up her ass that she can look at the official figures and conclude that “it is clear that Israel took every reasonable measure to minimize the risk of civilian casualties”? Let’s just say I think she’s in a pretty good position to give herself a very thorough colonoscopy.

Even if Hamas had in fact violated the ceasefire, would hapless rocket attacks warrant the killing of nearly 800 Palestinian civilians to Israel’s three in response? Israel certainly has a right to defend itself, but holy shit. That’s literally overkill. Sadly, this is par for the course. In any given conflict involving Israel and the Occupied Territories, we can always count on way higher casualty figures on the Palestinian side, guaranteed. And whatever short-term security Israel was able to obtain by the destruction of several Hamas outposts and a few hundred fighters, this will surely be offset by long lasting feelings of animosity by the thousands of Palestinians who were directly affected by actions of the Israeli Defense Forces. Alas, the shit-cycle will continue well into the future.

Of course, you rarely hear anything that even approaches a condemnation of Israeli crimes in the American media. Reports on Palestinian crimes are aplenty, that’s for sure, and with good reason. But to open a newspaper or to turn on cable news for reports about the ongoing conflict, is to be incessantly reminded that the Palestinians are basically a bunch of terrorists hell-bent on destroying the Jewish state, while Israel is unfailingly portrayed as a beacon for democracy in the Middle East simply defending itself against a crazed Palestinian menace. You know, one of the good guys.

Here’s a quick trivia question for you:

Which Middle Eastern country is presently in violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, rebuffs any calls for it to disclose the extent of its nuclear program, and outright refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which has been agreed to by 189 countries?

If you guessed Iran, you are wrong. The country described above is Israel.

Iran has been receiving a great deal of media attention for its fledgling nuclear program, which the country’s leadership claims is for civilian energy purposes only. This is undoubtedly a lie, but in terms of disclosure of nuclear activity, Israel’s record on this front is far worse than Iran’s. But again, you’d never know it if you get all of your foreign affairs information from the U.S. corporate media. News story after news story derides Iran for its lack of transparency about its nuclear program, questions whether it’s living up to its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, etc. Of course, the concern is warranted because it would not be in the world’s best interests if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons. However, the double standard here is amazing, yet nonetheless routine. Officially, Israel’s position on its alleged nuclear weapons is one of opacity, which means that they might have nukes, and they might not. Well, everyone knows that they do in fact have a couple of hundred nuclear weapons, but the Israeli leadership is not going to acknowledge this fact. As for inspections of suspected nuclear facilities and arsenals in the country, that prospect is not discussed by anyone in the West because it is literally an impossibility. It cannot even be mentioned in the mainstream media.

So not surprisingly, when Sarah Palin or anyone says outrageous things about how Israel should keep building illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, no one in the U.S. media really gives a fuck.

“Yesterday the Jerusalem municipality razed two Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, one in Isawiyah and one in Silwan. In both cases, local residents battled security forces.” (Haaretz, 11/19/09)

Nine hundred more units are planned for the East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo, which is regarded as illegal by the United Nations, the European Union, basically everyone except Israel and the U.S.

Like Palin said, the population of Israel is going to grow, and it’s becoming clearer by the day that the country is looking for more and more Lebensraum for its people, Arabs be damned. Just about every presidential administration since the 1970s has expressed concern over Israel settlement expansions into Palestinian territory, but none have done a whole lot to stop it. Like his predecessors, Obama has mildly condemned the land-grabs while giving a wink and a nudge to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government. Essentially, Obama has continued America’s official Israel/Palestine policy of enablement.

Change we can believe in my ass.

- Max

Canadian Grossly Underestimates Americans' Capacity For Selfishness

Now this is on the west coast, where people are supposedly very laid back. I think this speaks volumes about who Americans are, and that is a nation of selfish, self-serving, anti-social personalities. As Americans keep getting screwed over by their elected officials and the plutocrats on Wall Street, they are forced to compete with each other for the scraps of food that fall off the fat-cats’ dining table. Consequently, Americans are gradually learning to view their fellow citizens as adversaries who must be defeated. The hockey stick was intended for a little girl for shit's sake. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if Scott Niedermayer had thrown a job into that crowd? People would be dead.

- Max

Meep! When School Officials Go Fascist

School officials in Danvers have started a fire, and apparently don’t know how to put it out.

Here in the northeast, administrators at Danvers High School in Danvers, Massachusetts have been making headlines for their decision to ban the totally nonsensical, “meep” from use in the school. That’s right: meep. A “word” made popular by Beaker, the hapless assistant of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew on The Muppet Show.



Indeed, that’s how it is said.

Here’s the article from the Boston Herald:

Danvers High School is banning students from uttering the word “meep,” a trademark of Beaker from “The Muppet Show.”

The Salem News reported Principal Thomas Murray banned the word after school officials got wind of a student plan brewing on Facebook to stage a major disruption on school grounds using the “meep.”

WBZ-TV reported Murray informed students in an e-mail and phone message that police are monitoring the situation.

A call to police and a message and e-mail sent to Murray were not immediately returned.

The Urban Dictionary defines meep as another way to say “ouch,” or “uh-oh.” It can also be a substitute for a swear word.

At this point I have three questions:

1. Since when is “meep” a substitute for a swear word?

2. Since when do newspapers cite Urban Dictionary as a source?

3. Police are monitoring the situation? Are you fucking kidding me?

I don’t think the school administrators could’ve handled this any worse than they did. It just isn’t possible. First of all, let’s just say outright that disrupting class is not ok, and students who do it should be subject to punitive action. However, by banning a particular (non-obscene) word from being spoken in the school, administrators have all but challenged kids either to say “meep,” or some other word in its place. This would’ve have been a total non-issue if this Principal Murray character had simply stated something like the following in the phone messages and emails he sent out to students:

It has come to our attention that some students may be planning to disrupt classes and school functions in such a way as to hinder the ability of teachers to teach, and of their students to learn. This message is a reminder to all students that disruptions of any kind will not be tolerated and could result in suspension. Please know that teachers have been instructed to be extra vigilant in routing out delinquent behavior.

That’s what normal, socially aware school officials would say in a message like that. But not the people in Danvers. No. They completely took the bait, and told the students specifically that “meep” will not be tolerated, in what amounts to an I-double-dog-dare-you kind of challenge to the kids’ mettle and perseverance. Furthermore, what did these administrators think would happen in this age of Facebook, blogs, and a media with an unquenchable thirst for the quirky? They almost had to know that once they began banning certain (non-obscene) words from being uttered, the ante would get upped.

And that’s exactly what’s happened. Compounding the problem is the fact that the “police are monitoring the situation.” I can picture it now:

Student: Meep!

Cop: Take him down!

Student: Ahhhh, don’t tase me, bro!

Happily, the Danvers School Department has been receiving emails that simply say, “meep” from total strangers who want to show solidarity with students and piss off authority figures. Indeed, most people do not have fond memories of their high school principals and vice principals. Few people actually start out wanting to have these positions for their careers, and therefore they inevitably become filled with people who must basically settle for these tedious occupations. Consequently, some of them are extremely bitter people who view individuality as something to be surmounted, not cultivated. After all, they’re nothing special, so why should these kids be? But I digress.

One of the people who sent a “meep” email to Danvers school officials is copyright lawyer Theodora Michaels. She describes her correspondence:

My subject line said (in full), “meep.” The body said (in full), “Meep.”

Yesterday I received a reply email from Assistant Principal Mark Strout, which said (in full) “Your E-mail has been forwarded to the Danvers Police Department.”

The police department! Oh that’s rich. For what purpose? To waste their fucking time? I know Danvers is a suburban community, but surely even the police there have better things to do the follow up on “meep” leads. I imagine the police chief there is a little pissed off that school administrators can’t get their shit together and have put him on meep patrol.

In case anyone would like to show solidarity with the students, or just take a jab at these reactionary administrators, here are the relevant email addresses taken directly from the Danvers Public Schools website. What a bunch of dunderheads.

Principal Thomas Murray

murray@danvers.org

Asst. Principal Mark Strout

strout@danvers.org

Asst. Principal Cornelia Varoudakis
cvaroudakis@danvers.org

Take us home, Beaker!

- Max

Sarah And Carrie's Excellent Adventure

The future of the GOP? Be my guest.

Last night on Larry King Live, numbskull beauty queen Carrie Prejean made a total ass of herself. See it with your own eyes:

I won’t really remark on the obvious, other than to say that clearly Prejean is incapable of deflecting even softball questions from Larry King. I mean, Larry King for crying out loud! “Why did you settle?” is a very easy question to answer and can be done without breaching the terms of the settlement itself. A typical answer would go something like this: “Well, Larry, I had just been through a lot, and I felt that the best thing to do was to move on as soon as possible. The whole ordeal was weighing heavily on my family and me, and I just needed to get on with my life.” End of answer. Instead, she turned an extremely innocuous question into a personal affront designed to provoke her into violating the settlement. King was clearly in genuine shock that someone would accuse him of asking tough or inappropriate questions because that’s not what he does.

During the interview Prejean said that her “personal hero,” is Sarah Palin, which is actually very appropriate, and not just because Palin was also a beauty pageant contestant. In each case, we are dealing a woman who was basically thrust upon the national scene, given an inordinate amount of attention by the media, and lionized by the right wing as an upstanding representative of the conservative cause despite the lack of any depth whatsoever.

Take Palin. Unconscionably, last August this woman was selected by John McCain to be his running mate. And what were her notable qualifications? Six years as Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, which has a population that could be squeezed into the bleachers at Fenway Park; and two and a half years as the governor of said state—one of the least populous in the Union. Having said that, this relatively weak political résumé did not have to be cause for concern, since Palin would have plenty of time to convince the American people that she was ready, willing, and able to be Vice President, and President if necessary.

Of course, this did not happen. In fact, the exact opposite of this happened. Rather than prove herself to be ready, willing, able, Palin engineered a two month-long media train-wreck, and the only thing she ended up proving was that McCain had a very lax vetting process for VP hopefuls. Virtually every interview was an utter disaster, with Palin showing that she didn’t know anything at all about anything at all. Perhaps this lack of depth and knowledge had something to do with the whirlwind college tour she took in the 1980s. Little reported by the media was the fact that Palin went to no less than four colleges in five and a half years.

Palin’s collegiate career began in the one state younger than Alaska, where she attended Hawaii Pacific University in the business administration program. She started in the fall of 1982. Next she headed to North Idaho College, a two-year institution, where she was a general studies major for two more semesters, spring and fall of 1983. Although she never received a degree there, she received the school's Distinguished Alumni of the Year Award this past June.

In the fall of 1984, she transferred to the University of Idaho, where she majored in journalism with an emphasis in broadcast news. She stayed until the spring 1985.

The next fall, Palin headed back to Alaska to attend Matanuska-Susitna College, just 14 miles from her hometown, Wasilla.

After one semester, she returned to the University of Idaho, which she attended for three more semesters—spring 1986, fall 1986, and spring 1987. She (at last!) graduated with a degree in journalism…

There are also some reports that she attended the University of Hawaii at Hilo for a couple of weeks just after her high school graduation, but there seems to be no record of her enrollment.

Now, I really don’t care where political candidates go to college, as long as it’s an accredited university and not some two-bit, shit-kicking Bible college in the Midwest. But why so many transfers? This is something that the mainstream media—for all the allegations against it of being anti-Palin—never pressed her on. This needs to be addressed. It is not normal to bounce from college to college as she did. What could possibly account for all this moving around? I honestly have no idea. Did she have issues adjusting? Were they psychological in nature? Was it something different entirely? I’m not saying the reasons are dubious by any means, but Palin needs to explain why she went from college to college. And mind you, we’re not talking about one transfer, not two, but four transfers here. Why?

Despite losing the election, Palin has not gone away. In fact, she gets more media attention than John McCain, who unlike Palin, has stayed in office. By resigning the governorship in the middle of her term this summer, Palin continued her history of quitting. In addition to four colleges, and the governorship, Palin also quit the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2004 after less than a year on the board.

This is not the résumé or behavior of a future President of the United States. And yet, the Right has anointed this woman as the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. The plain fact that no Republican wants to acknowledge, is that if Sarah Palin were ugly or even average-looking, she’d still be wallowing in obscurity in Alaska somewhere, overlooked by John McCain, by the media, and by extension the American public. I don’t blame Palin for not knowing anything. Ignorance is her prerogative. However, she has been railing against the very media which heaps upon her the unwarranted attention that she’s all too happy to bask in. She’s even “written” a book, Going Rogue, which will undoubtedly be a horrid, milquetoast piece of crap containing little that is insightful or interesting.

And so, this is the woman Carrie Prejean says is her “personal hero.” Makes sense. Because like Palin, Prejean was also thrust onto the national scene as a result of happenstance and not accomplishment. Take a look at the pageant answer Prejean gave that made her famous—a villain to the left and a heroine to the right:

Pageant judge Perez Hilton: Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?

Prejean: I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage and, you know what, in my country and my family I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there but that's how I was raised and that’s how I think it should be between a man and a woman.

A confusing answer? Yes. Worth discussing on the next day’s news? No. But since this went down, all kinds of shit has hit the fan. A Prejean sex tape, a Prejean boob-job, and a Prejean book due out this month. And the American public has eaten it up.

Both Palin and Prejean will be the focus of loads of media attention in the coming months and years. However, Prejean has one thing going for her that Palin does not: the lack of any real expectations. Having been the VP nominee of the Republican Party, the perception among many right wingers (and incredulous left wingers) is that the next stop on the Palin Express is the presidential nomination. That expectation is of course ridiculous. Like Prejean, Palin seems void of any depth or worldliness. And while the conservatives of America are not above electing such an obviously under-qualified candidate president (see, George W. Bush), Palin’s star is way too bright at the moment. Like actual massive stars across the universe, Palin is burning up fuel far too quickly to last very long as a shining light for the Republicans. Indeed, it’s only a matter of time before she collapses under the weight of her own stardom, culminating in a fantastic supernova, and, if we’re lucky, maybe even a black hole that will swallow up a doomed Republican Party. Watch out for that event horizon.

- Max

New Anti-Lieberman Facebook Page Pledges To Donate To His Opponent If He Continues To Shill For HMOs

Joe Lieberman is a dingleberry (seen here metaphorically clinging to the anal hair of the Democratic Party).

There’s a new anti-Joe Lieberman Facebook page. By becoming a fan, you essentially give your word that you’ll donate money to the campaign of Lieberman’s yet-to-be determined opponent in 2012 if he filibusters the health care bill. I’m generally skeptical of the ability of websites and internet petitions to effect change, but it certainly can’t hurt.

Become a fan today!

- Max

One Step Closer To Excommunication!

The Catholic Church is about to give me one of these...for life. Sweet.

So I’ve finally written that follow-up letter to the archdiocese that’s supposed to make my excommunication from the Catholic Church official. It’s short and sweet. I encourage all disillusioned Catholics to join me by also requesting excommunication. As I’ve said before, feel free to use my letters as templates for your own. I can’t wait for the actual letter stating that I’ve been expelled to show up in the mail. This is going to be awesome.

Dear Mr. Peterson:

Thank you for your prompt response to my letter dated August 17, 2009 requesting excommunication from the Catholic Church.

The purpose of this letter is to satisfy the requirements for excommunication in accordance with Canon Law 751. As such, let me state unequivocally that I repudiate the Catholic faith, and I refuse to submit myself to the diktats of the “Supreme Pontiff.” Herr Ratzinger is but a man chosen by other men. I owe no allegiance to him or any other “representative” of “god.” His recent remarks against the use of prophylactics to combat the AIDS epidemic in Africa is one of the most wicked things I have ever heard uttered by a person of supposedly good repute. That many on the continent take Ratzinger’s warnings to heart makes his position even more immoral. Reasonable people can disagree about abortion, but the Vatican’s stance on AIDS and contraceptives is downright unconscionable, and I have no doubt that many have contracted that awful disease because they heeded his horrid advice. For shame on that man and everyone who shares his backwards views on the subject.

Not only do I repudiate the Catholic faith, I heartily welcome the latae sententiae excommunication that will come with this apostasy. While this action is merely symbolic as far as I am concerned, I very much want to deny the Church the ability to claim me as a member of the faithful.

Sincerely,

Max Canning

Reality TV Is A Sinister Enterprise

Douchebag Jon Gosselin is wanted for contributing to the delinquency of America.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, “reality” television started to take off. Of course, the name for these kinds of shows was a total misnomer. Indeed, what’s so “realistic” about a scenario where a bunch of strangers are purposely plopped down in some remote area of the world where they suddenly have to figure out how to hunt, make fire, and conspire against each other to win $1 million via a series of votes? The success of Survivor and other shows appeared to be thanks to their unusual premises and situations, which seemed to put the contestants under immense strain. My own dislike of all “reality” television notwithstanding, these shows seemed to make interesting TV for millions of Americans.

But then something strange happened. Almost counterintuitively, reality television did not get more far-fetched and outrageous. Instead, it got more real, more banal and everyday. And then something even stranger happened. These shows were also popular, and their “stars” became instant celebrities. Whereas shows such as Survivor and The Amazing Race still sell with their unusual plot lines, there are an increasing number of shows whose success defies explanation.

Take Jon and Kate Plus 8, whose premise was simply, “We have a lot of kids.” Producers were able to squeeze out 112 episodes about the couple’s daily struggle to raise these children. One hundred twelve shows. That’s sixty-six hours of “coverage” of a wife and husband whose only claim to fame is, to repeat, “We have a lot of kids.” One would think that the audience might tire of this after thirty, sixty, or ninety minutes, because it really doesn’t take long to realize that if a couple has eight kids, their lives are pretty much fucked. As Thoreau once queried about the gossip-mongers of his time, “If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?” Indeed, we get it. Having eight kids sucks. Now move on.

Or how about any of the Real Housewives of… series? Those shows basically consist of rich, scheming, bitchy gold-diggers who are some of the shallowest human beings who have ever walked the Earth. Most of them have no depth whatsoever, and yet for millions of perhaps equally shallow Americans, these vixens make for riveting television.

Perhaps even more disturbing than the runaway popularity of these shows, is the viability of two other shows which particularly stand out for their portrayal of people with social stigmas. The first is TLC’s Little People, Big World, which according to Wikipedia, “follows the six-member Roloff family farm near Portland, Oregon. Many of the episodes focus on the parents, Matt and Amy, and one of their sons, Zach, who all have dwarfism.” The second, is NBC’s The Biggest Loser, which “centers around overweight contestants attempting to lose weight to fight for a cash prize.”

Do these two shows remind anyone else of P.T. Barnum’s nineteenth century “sideshows?” Recall that Barnum’s circuses would often feature dwarves and extremely obese individuals who were put on exhibition for the curious masses who would pay to see these “wonders”—these poor bastards with obvious and handicapping stigmas which made it all but impossible for them to lead “normal” lives, and so many of them ended up selling their dignity for the pennies that Barnum tossed their way.

That grotesque principle is exactly what is at work in these shows. All of them. Not just the ones about dwarves and fatties. Notice that the documentary-style reality television shows almost always feature people who have some deficiency or problem that distinguishes them from “normal” people. With Jon and Kate, it was all those kids. Be glad you don’t have eight children. With Real Housewives, it’s all the conniving amongst so-called friends. Be glad you don’t have friends that stab you in the back like that. With Little People, Big World, it’s the disabling lack of height. Be glad you’re not that short. And with The Biggest Loser, it’s all that extra weight. Be glad you’re not that fat.

Taken all together, reality television is trying to tell us something sinister: Be content. Watch these shows and thank the heavens that you’re probably not like any of these people. Don’t complain. It could be worse. Watch and feel better about yourself. Fill that void you so clearly have in your life with this vacuous nonsense. It feels good. It’s a little holiday from all of your troubles and all of your cares. Be content! And don’t forget to buy the shit advertised in the commercials.

It’s no wonder we’re fucked as a nation.

- Max

America's Peasants Must Get In Line Behind Wall Street For H1N1 Vaccine.

Are you looking to get the swine flu vaccine? Do you work for this company? Then fuck off.

This story has been making the rounds on television news and the blogs. It tells you a whole lot about how this country is run:

While thousands of at-risk Americans wait, some big Wall Street banks have already secured the hard-to-find H1N1 vaccine for their employees.

Building on a story that BusinessWeek broke, NBC reports that employees at the New York Stock Exchange, bankers at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and employees at the Federal Reserve have all received swine flu vaccine doses to administer to their employees.

In particular, NBC reports that Goldman Sachs has received 200 doses of the vaccine -- the same amount as Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. Wall Street banks, like many other companies, put in requests for the vaccine but seem to have had something of a leg up on securing doses.

It’s a good thing I’m not looking to get the swine flu vaccine, because the last time I checked, I don’t work for Goldman Sachs or Citigroup. It’s nice to know that these and other Wall Street firms are given priority over hospitals and doctors’ offices that have yet to receive doses. After all, their employees have to be healthy and on top of their game if they’re going to continuing robbing this country blind.

(Read more at the Huffington Post.)

- Max

John Boehner And Co. Demonstrate How Fake Their Patriotism Really Is

“I’m not a Constitutional expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

For a group that’s always wrapping itself in the American flag while shamelessly invoking the ghosts of the country’s founders for a variety of batshit purposes, Republicans today demonstrated a comical ignorance of the sort generally seen on “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?”

Congressional Republicans held a rally in Washington DC today at which they derided the Democratic health care reform proposal—even displaying thousands of pages of legislation for theatrical effect. I guess their point was, if a bill is long—like a book—it must be bad (unless it’s the Bible). Rather than discuss the substance of their arguments yet again on this site, I’m just going to point out two transcendently ironic and funny things that happened at this rally:

1. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) declaring, “I’m going to stand with you and all freedom-loving Americans against this bill. [Holds up a pocket-sized edition of the U.S. Constitution] This is my copy, this is my copy of the Constitution. And I’m going to stand here with our Founding Fathers [Dramatic pause] who wrote in the preamble, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.’ So join us and say ‘no’ to a government takeover of healthcare.”

First of all, Boehner was quoting from the Declaration of Independence, and not the Constitution, which to reiterate, he was holding in his hand. Second of all, what the fuck does the Declaration of Independence have to do with health care reform? Unless King George III had a hand in writing this legislation, the answer is nothing.

2. Missouri Representative Todd Akin, after a two-minute, one-man bull session about how awesome the Pledge of Allegiance is, in which he declared that its recitation “drives liberals crazy,” leading the crowd in the Pledge. Problem is, he left out the word, “indivisible,” as in, “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

What does this profound ignorance tell us about the GOP leadership? It tells us that for all their rhetorical Founding Father-Fucking, their knowledge of this stuff is extremely shallow. And by extension, that patriotism they’re always throwing in our faces to show us how what great Americans they are, is total bullshit. What this indicates to me is that Mr. Akin hasn’t said the Pledge of Allegiance in quite some time. Not that I care, but if you’re going to trash others for allegedly hating the pledge, you’d better make sure you at least know the fucking thing. Otherwise you look like an asshole. And Todd Akin sure did.

As for Boehner’s boner, well, that’s unconscionable. Here’s the leader of the GOP in Congress—a man who, if the Republicans were suddenly to become the majority in Congress, would be Speaker of the House. And yet, he doesn’t know that the most famous line in American history, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” is actually from the Declaration of Independence, and not the Constitution, written eleven years later.

Today, the right’s faux patriotism was on overt display for all to see; but despite this, the fact is that probably over three-fourths of the wingnuts in attendance didn’t even know Boehner had fucked up. And even if they did, it wouldn’t matter to them. He’s singing their tune. These people really don’t give a shit about what Thomas Jefferson said or what James Madison wrote. These long-dead intellectual icons merely serve as justification for whatever it is the rally-goers are pushing. In fact, if Jefferson and Madison were around today advocating policies at odds with the GOP (and they certainly would on several fronts), they’d be dismissed as eggheads by the very people who right now claim to be upholding their principles. Furthermore, I doubt that very many in attendance today have ever actually read any of these and other Founders’ writings. After all, the Founders were accustomed to writing lengthy essays which often contained big words, kind of like a health care bill.

- Max