“This is somewhere in between Baghdad and fixing the flood in Louisiana,” Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said, comparing the GM decision to major stumbles by former President George W. Bush. Obama “has decided to take this over. He now owns it.”

For Norquist, the takeover of GM could be great news for the Republican Party, ranking somewhere between the war in Iraq, where 4,311 U.S. servicemen and women and tens of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives, and Hurricane Katrina, where more than 1,800 Americans died, because it could hurt President Obama politically.

This spurred me to actually read the politico article that the blog entry linked, where I also uncovered this gem by Eric Cantor:

“I know that I don’t want Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid designing the car that I drive, and I don’t think any New Yorker — or any American — does, either,” House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said in a New York radio interview Thursday. “Washington, the president, Congress, none … has any business running that car company. They’ll run it into the ground.”

I can’t imagine a politician doing this deliberately to rile up his base, because the words coming out of his mouth are so stupid that I assume he must be sincere to say these things.

One: “Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid designing the car that I drive” is such an obnoxious, stupid, and purposeful misrepresentation of what’s going on that I have to think that anyone who didn’t really believe it would think to themselves “Aw, I can’t say this bullshit.”

Two:  “They’ll run it into the ground.”   They’ll run it into the ground?  IT’S ALREADY IN THE GROUND!  IT’S BANKRUPT!  The whole reason the people who have “no business” running the company are in charge because the people who Cantor presumably means did have “business” fucked it up.  And for fuck’s sake, it’s not like you need to know how to service an engine or spot-weld in order to run a car company.  Business is business: Do things that make money, stop doing things that don’t, keep your employees and the community happy.

If  Sergio Marchionne can take over Fiat despite having never even worked at an auto company before and turn them from so bad that GM paid them $2 billion to buy out of the company’s purchase, to a profitable company two years later, to one that five years later is so profitable it’s BUYING CHRYSLER while GM is going bankrupt and being taken over by the government… then, well, why the hell can’t an ownership group the people have elected themselves do the same thing?  I’m sure if you asked Eric Cantor’s “average American”, he’d rather have someone he voted for running the company than the same greedy good-ol’-boy retread yahoos who ran it into the ground in the first place.

Back to Norquist for a second.  The same guy who is excited the government bought GM because he sees it as a political bungle on the scale of Iraq and Katrina (with no regard for the lives lost in either) is the same guy who said his goal was to get government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” Notwithstanding that Norquist is one of the most nakedly greedy and petty minds the right has¹ (petty = wanting the government to fail for meager political gain and not understanding the the whole fucking system is on the verge of collapse), who fucking talks and thinks like that?  “Drown it in the bathtub?”  Is that your fantasy, Grover?  Do you derive some sick pleasure from ending the lives of small, helpless things?

Because you know what I think of when I think “drowned in the bathtub”?  I think of small children and animals.  You know, the sort of things a stuffy middle-aged white dude could successfully overpower long enough to hold underwater.  I would guess Norquist spent some part of his childhood torturing animals in one form or another.  Like, I can’t even imagine how else that metaphor would jump out to you unless you harbored thoughts of drowning small, helpless living beings.  Of ending a life in a naked exercise of power, because you feel so utterly powerless, you impotent, ineffectual, weak man.

Grover Norquist is a mean, power-hungry sociopath.  The value of human life– of any life– means nothing to him.  Nothing to him matters but the number in his bank account.

1 – And I love him for it.  Far from being offended by his speech, I’m glad he’s so clearly outed himself as a sociopath.  I’m thankful he’s free to expose the agenda the Republicans don’t want to talk about; namely, that they don’t give a shit about you or your quality of life, but toss a few bucks your way and say some things about Jesus and you’ll let them run wild and do whatever the fuck they want.  So of course he would say something like he did about GM– since the modern Republican Party’s policies are so grossly self-serving, and their ranks so incompetent (ref: the Bush Administration), their only hope of winning office is for the other side to fuck up long enough for people to vote for them.  Preach on, brother Grover!

Deadspin has a nice post today titled “In praise of Dr. Z“, with a link to Peter King’s Tuesday column describing last night’s benefit for the good doctor.

For those of you who don’t know, Dr. Z is Paul Zimmerman, a football writer for Sports Illustrated.  He’s been writing about the game in some form or another for some forty-odd years.  I love his work– he’s kind of curmudgeonly, writes about red wine a ton, rails at the networks for glossing up their coverage and overlooking the substance of the game.  He loves the game, he analyzes it well, he explains things other analysts don’t, and he’s never afraid to speak an unpopular opinion.

But these are all pretty generic facts.  He’s my favorite football writer because he cares, because he’s unique, because he writes about the overlooked aspects of the game, because he loves red wine, because he’s too stubborn to ever give up.  So I wish him the best in his recovery from his strokes.

This may not mean much– I’m nobody and this post is nothing special– but he’s my favorite writer, and he’s underappreciated.   I want you to know that.

the money quote, a summary of one of the very biggest problems with our mainstream media:

Today, mainstream print and electronic media want to be neutral, presenting both or all sides as if they were refereeing a game in which only the players—the government and its opponents—can participate. They have increasingly become common carriers, transmitters of other people’s ideas and thoughts, irrespective of import, relevance, and at times even accuracy.

They don’t report anymore.  They regurgitate.  The media’s job is to seek and show us the truth under the facades of our institutions, not to be a willing propaganda / PR arm thereof.

Lenny Dykstra is not much of a high-roller huckster.

Shepard Smith would like to remind the viewers of Fox News that no matter how many evil, soulless mouthpieces try to justify it, America does not fucking torture.

Our (spuriously elected) leaders ordered it and had their lawyers justify it–

–to try to force false confessions to give them the evidence they needed–

–to start a war they’ve been trying to justify for years–

–for the money.

It’s war profiteering and war crimes for sure.  Considering the state it’s left the country in, it might well be treason.

No one wants to say it or believe it.  It’s the Matilda effect:  Nobody believed the Trunchbull could be so abusive because she was so persistent and egregious and flagrant about it– “too real to be believed”.  Being so audacious as to commit your atrocities openly often bumps up against people who don’t want to believe that anyone, especially their leaders in government (or home or church or whatever authoritative institution they believe in), would do that.

At first, it was really delicious and fucking awesome, almost depressingly so– a sick pleasure I knew was wrong for me.  After the middle stages of plowing through a bit, though, I felt so sickened by the whole thing that I didn’t want any more and felt bad for even participating.   I recommend it only if you can get the first few bites and get the hell out of there before it gets ugly.

So in that sense, it sounds a lot like an actual gangbang.

Yes, this is what I post after a three-week hiatus.

Last note, I crack up every time I imagine a Whataburger commercial with the whinnying-horse narration saying, “Whatagangbang!”

The blog has been infrequently updated of late because of my two latest projects– “making money” and “writing long form”.  I don’t have as much time for the internet as I used to.

I hope this fucking pig gets to live with this on his conscience for the rest of his life.  He probably won’t care, though– just another greedy, amoral piece of shit.

Police officer delays Ryan Moats of Houston Texans in hospital parking lot as family member dies

1 – It sounds like something Leon Phelps would write in a love poem.  “Yeah, and after I have romanced you with a candlelight dinner and dancing under the stars, because you are a fine and special lady, we will take our clothes off and I will allow you to gaze on the humongitude of my Moonlit Wang.”

3. Iris Macadangdang vs. Dr. Shasta Kielbasa, sweet 16, Chrotchtangle Regional.  That priceless last name against an awesome juxtaposition of food items.  Plus, he’s a doctor!  In the end, that may have swayed it for me.

2. Rev. Valentine Handwerker vs. Velvet Milkman, round 2, Dragonwagon regional.  I don’t know what the seeding committee’s criteria are, because Velvet Milkman is a fucking awesome name.  Much like Dr. Kielbasa, Valentine Handwerker’s reverend-ship saves him here.  These are both final four names.

1. Taco Vandervelde vs. Barkevious Mingo, sweet 16, Bulltron Regional.   Probably my two favorite names in this year’s competition.  I mean, Taco Vandervelde is inspired– he sounds like a bad lounge singer of confused ethnic identity.  But Barkevious Mingo?  That could be anything.

Mingo is my choice for Name of the Year.  It’s just so weird as to defy characterization.  Cartoon supervillain?  Japanese animatronic toy?  LSU linebacker recruit?  Anything could be a Barkevious Mingo.

Other names I thought were under-seeded:

- Dexter McCluster

- Crystal Metheny

- Brooklyn Pope

- Orion Outerbridge

- Buff Parrott

Name of the Year