NYT goes all John Edwards on us

No, I don't mean that the NYT became a d-bag who cheated on his cancerwife with some photog chick, thus briefly elevating the National Enquirer to approximately the same journalistic stature as daytime CNN. 

During the primary campaign Edwards repeated "tonight 200,000 veterans will go to sleep under bridges and on grates" ad nauseum, in a sort of '08 version of his equally over-repeated "two Americas" bit from 2004.  Either of these is of course far less cringeworthy than his "son of millworker" refrain.

Well today the Grey Lady saw it fit to opine about "steam-grate hoboes partying spiffy as expense-account insiders" in an editorial lauding Obama's plans for some sort of Neo-Marxist inauguration in place of the usual lobbyist-fueled bacchanal.

Ahem, NYT. A hobo is not the same things as your garden variety DC bum. Hoboes ride the rails and keep the ingredients for mulligan stew in their hobosack. (No dumbass, this kind of hobo bag, not the kind you buy at the mall.)

During GDP2 there is bound to be a profusion of subtypes of poors and it would behoove the NYT (and the rest of us) to refer to everyone with the utmost accuracy.  It's just good manners.

Anyway, speaking of riding the rails, I am too poor to ride the rails of the National Passenger Railroad Corporation, so instead I am Bolt Bus-ing it to New York this weekend. This at least allows me to avoid the 3rd circle of Hell, popularly known as the Port Authority Bus Terminal. 

Funny papers: Princess Peggy's NoVa outing

In her latest column, Princess Peggy treats us to more unfounded Declarations about the health of the economy based on precious little more than her, well, precious personal observations.

PP fired up her horseless carriage and headed off to the wilds of Northern Virginia, a land where remorseless Confederates are now ruled by their newly-powerful Communist overlords (just ask Joe McCain). 

Here's what PP spied:

The other night, the big houses were strung with glittering white Christmas lights—not all different colors, as we do in other suburbs, but stately white—and from the Georgetown Pike, heading toward Great Falls, we saw a house with a big glass-walled living room that faced the street, and below it a glass-walled entrance room, and each had its own brightly decorated tree. "Two Christmas trees," murmured a companion, and it captured the air of prosperity and solid well-being of the area.

It reminded me: Government is our most reliable current and future growth industry, and the near suburbs of the capital are where those who run it, work it, lobby it, feed off it and finagle it live. "You have to go farther out to see the foreclosure signs," said a friend.

Oh my, a land of stately white lights and such a cornucopia of wealth that its residents can luxuriate in the sap of not one but TWO Christmas trees.  See, no economic troubles here, everything looks just as before.  Well, except:

Faced with an accelerating foreclosure crisis, Fairfax supervisors in June approved a three-pronged, $6.5 million program to combat the problem. The county would buy, refurbish and sell 10 of the most derelict properties, offer counseling to owners at risk of losing their homes, and provide loans to aid homebuyers in purchasing a foreclosed dwelling.

The county saw 1,264 homes enter the foreclosure process in October, according to foreclosure-tracking company RealtyTrac, second only to Prince William County’s 1,373 homes. Prince William, the Virginia locality worst-hit by the foreclosure crisis, received $4.1 million from HUD to reverse the problem.

The rash of foreclosures in Fairfax County has struck government coffers, as well, contributing to a projected $500 million shortfall next fiscal year.

PP's other thoughts, based on nothing so much as reading The Corner at the National Review whilst in a barbituate-induced haze:

• Even if he ignored a trifling piece of paper entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike in United States" and then precipitated an economic collapse far worse than when the actual terrorists tried to destroy our financial and military nerve centers, George W. Bush "still kept us safe" from gay marriage, renewable energy, and our constitutional rights.
• Fingers-crossed that that half-black Mohammedan can do as good a job as George W. Bush.
• Foreigners didn't care so much about that Hussein dude getting elected, what REALLY impressed them was that the old white dude made it through his going away speech without croaking or getting smote down by either the albino sorceress or the wolf huntress at his side.  
  
• Something about Nazis.

  

Sarah Palin's personal economic stimulus plan

People have accused Caribou Barbie and her Eskimo Ken of being nothing more than "Wasilla Hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast."  First of all, I think they prefer the term "snowbilly." Second of all, it's now clear that Sarah Palin was just doing her part to try and prevent the collapse of the American economy the best way she knew how--a spending spree fueled by other people's money.

In rugged, independent Alaska, they are used to getting things paid for. Between Sen. Ted "the Hulk" Stevens and Rep. Don "Not Indicted Quite Yet" Young, Alaskans were able to make the rest of us taxpayers foot the bill for every last bridge, ice road, pipeline, and sidewalk to nowhere--all while they pay no state income tax at all. Sarah Palin then mastered the art of making the oil companies foot the rest of the bill--upping each Alaskan's "permannent fund" dividend check to more than $2,000 last year.  

With a going rate that high, it's no wonder she (or someone in her family anyway) was squeezing out all of those kids. (Don't forget those fat per diems either.)  You say welfare queen, I say maverick.  Potato, potato.

So when she saw the economy in trouble, she did what was natural and implemented a stimulus plan of her own (courtesy of the generous, if misguided folks who donated hard dollars to the Republican National Committee).  It's no $700 billion bailout, but her plan was still very ambitious:

• $55,000 on a general purpose stylist 
• $110,000 on a traveling hair stylist/make-up artist of American Idol (the highest paid member of theMcCain campaign, incidentally).
• $180,000 (yes, more spending above the original $150,000 was revealed just yesterday) on clothes and accessories for her, her husband, and her ankle-biters.

You can't blame the poor gal, compare Palin with and without the help of stylists:

With, sporting a lovely Valentino jacket during her acceptance speech:

Without, post-election poolside in Miami sporting a large mimosa and even larger t-shirt:

It's worse than when the Goreacle lost in 2000, got fat, and grew that terrible beard:

Anyhoo, like most things Sarah Palin tried, her economic stimulus plan didn't work out so well. And then GDP2 caused the price of her state's beloved Black Gold to collapse, bankrupting Alaska, and thus causing the whole state to subsist solely off of mooseburgers and Todd's snowmachine winnings.

Oh no she didn't!

Just the other day I was sitting at my desk doing the serious of work of saving the world when I decided to take a gander at my favorite blog, HuffPost.  Nothing could've prepared me for what I was about to see.

Sandwiched right there on the front page in between the latest attack on the Clintons and reminder of George Bush's incompetence was an item that screamed "Real Housewives star evicted."  And there I saw a picture of my beloved NeNe! 

 

I gasped audibly, my pulse quickening.  Why couldn't have been that bitch Sheree?  Or that trashbag hooker Kim?  Anyone but my dear NeNe!

And that, my friends, was the moment that GDP2 really hit home. 

Deprived Europeans now allowed to consume ugly produce

While some Americans mutter about socialism and fret about "big government liberals," it is really Europeans who suffer from a crushing burden of regulation. The common rules that all members of the European Union must follow, the so-called acquis communautaire, run to some 170,000 pages. This comes in addition to other national regulations.

So it comes as a little bit of a surprise that the Eurocrats would choose to eliminate some regulations--on the size and appearance of vegetables and fruits in this case. The EU has heretofore had strict rules that banished all but the most beautiful and shapely of foodstuffs from the shelves of European supermarkets. Individual store managers could even be prosecuted (as three were in 2007) for selling a less-than-comely carrot. To wit:

[It is] illegal for retailers throughout the European Union to sell a forked carrot or a cauliflower less than 4.33 inches in diameter. A Class 1 green asparagus must be green for at least 80 percent of its length. A vine shoot on a bunch of grapes must be less than 1.97 inches.

Now it seems that the desperate times of GDP2 call for a rollback of the EU's produce prettiness laws:

In these days of high food prices and general economic difficulties, consumers should be able to choose from the widest range of products possible.

And of course the relevant EU Minister brings it all back to the favorite fruit of Great Depression Classic, the apple:

It makes no sense to throw perfectly good products away, just because they are the ‘wrong’ shape. I want to be able to decide whether to buy a big, round, red, class I apple or a less pricey, but just as delicious, small ‘ugly’ apple!

GDP2 to save children of Los Angeles from lifetime of puppet-induced nightmares

As my friends know, there are a few things in life of which I am particularly afraid. Among them are clowns, carnies, and mimes. Marionettes are like freaky silent undead clowns operated by carnies. In other words, my worst nightmare.

Apparently in a "scrappy" corner of Los Angeles there is some creepy puppet theater that sadistic parents have subjected their children to for over 50 years. It is populated by an 84 year-old puppetmaster and his army of 3,000 undead clowns.

But apparently such evil is not powerful enough to overcome the force of GDP2 and this puppet theater is now in danger of closing.

I suppose this is proof that not everything about GDP2 is a bad thing. I mean, tell me these things aren't scary as hell:

Toothless in 2009?

As my parents (and my dentist) tirelessly remind me to this very day, they spent thousands of dollars on my teeth and it is my holy duty to floss twice daily.  As is the case with most holy obligations, I am entirely too fallible.  Thankfully GDP2 may soon provide me with an excuse--other than my own laziness--for this particular personal failing. 

While on my monthly toiletry run to CVS today, I discovered that proper oral hygiene may soon become the latest thing to become out of reach for the middle class.  Instead of good ol' Glide floss, I was greeted with the new Reach Ultraclean (featuring Micro-Grooves!), which I can only guess is spun from gold, as it costs $5 a roll. For floss!

Things only got worse from there.  I then strolled down the aisle to search out a replacement head for my electric toothbrush.  Since spending $200 for the toothbrush itself is apparently an insufficient financial commitment, it's obviously appropriate for replacement heads to cost $22 a pack--ON SALE.  

Between AussieBum underwear, beer, oral hygiene products, and Mach 5 razor blades, I think I may have to start selling my plasma to maintain myself.   

I suppose dental care is one area where one can cut back during tough times, right?  I mean, the British have obviously been doing so for centuries without any problems.

Japan: still messed up

The Japanese must be pretty mad at us.  And not for those two atomic bombs we dropped on them back in the day.  Though I think they're probably still a little chafed about that as well. 

(For the record, I am personally still angry with Japan for inspiring that unbearable Gwen Stefani song.) 

After all, their bankers figured out how to use easy credit to make trillions of dollars and fuel an economy based on a huge stock and real estate "asset price bubble" way before ours did. And remember how they sent us all of those well made, fuel-efficient cars to attack our very way of life (and then even dared to start making them here).  Then of course the shit really hit the fan when they used all of those ill-gotten yen to buy Rockfeller Center (see: "The Japs Capture Rockefeller Center," National Review, December, 9, 1989).  

Yes, apparently it was still ok for conservatives to use the word "japs" in late 1989.

Well, they got theirs when their bubble burst in a major way in 1990 and they went into a recessionary or zero-growth period that lasted some FOURTEEN YEARS. Yes, zero percent interest rates, 10 different economic stimulus plans, and trillions of yen in bailouts didn't cut it. But then they finally got their shit together in recent years and their economy had actually started to grow again.

But don't worry, we showed them.  We used easy credit to make trillions of dollars and fuel an economy based on a huge stock and real estate asset price bubble, it burst in a major way, and now GDP2 has messed up the Japanese economy all over again.  The Nikkei is now down almost 50 percent on the year.  

Japanese society has of course responded in a predictably bizarre fashion.

I've long thought of Japan as a place where up is down, down is up, black is white, and white is a dayglo-colored piece of plastic.  The aforementioned Japanese recession forced people to live with their parents almost indefinitely, which gave them lots of spending money and thus fueled massive (and massively expensive) consumptive binges on bizarre fads.  This time, however, it is the old people in Japan who are going nuts.

Packs of aged bandits are presently ravaging Japan's shops with an indiscriminate spree of petty theft.  The Washington Post now reports that in Japan--unlike perhaps every other society in the world--the elderly are now vastly more likely than young people to be arrested.  And they are even trying to get caught merely to interact with other human beings:

Here in Sapporo, police in September arrested a 71-year-old retired man in a grocery store after he tried to steal 14 items, including ice cream, worth $27. He told police that he often shoplifts.

The man receives a social welfare check for about $1,600 a month and lives with his wife, who is ill and unable to do housework. He told police that his wife's illness caused him stress but that when he steals, he feels "refreshed."

At the time of his arrest, he had $7,500 in cash in his pocket. He told police that he preferred not to spend money on groceries.

I guess all of those freaky robots aren't doing such a good job taking care of grandma and grandpa after all.

Finally, while we are on the subject of freaky things from Japan, I can't help but bring this clip up: