Allthyngs

You know how we live in a country with a totally free press and yet for some reason there’s still really nobody out there saying the stuff that needs to get said? Well, apparently that’s because nobody in America has as much courage as your average Chinese newspaper editor, although you probably have to be pretty courageous to become a Chinese newspaper editor so maybe that’s not a fair comparison. There’s a thing in China called the Household Registration system that requires families to sign up with the government as either urban families or rural families, and it’s fairly unpopular because it makes it really hard for poor country families to move into the city. Well, this week 13 newspaper editors came together in China, inspired by the National People’s Congress meeting this Friday, to write a signed editorial protesting the Household Registration system, and they published the editorial in all 13 of their newspapers, although it’s now pretty hard to find any evidence that they did because the story has mysteriously disappeared from all their websites. At least they tried, and good luck to them with whatever hell they’re going through right now.

Check out the whole story on The Huffington Post

What’s going on is democrats are trying to get spending bills passed because federal spending is the blood that runs through America’s veins, but Republicans refuse to let these bills through because they think they’re adding too much to the deficit and because they give money to a lot of projects they don’t like. Basically, what’s happening now is like the right half of your heart refusing to pump any more blood because it thinks your cholesterol’s too high. Maybe it’s right, and maybe you’ll have some serious problems down the line, but you still need that blood right now or those other problems don’t matter.

Because these spending bills got tied up, 2,000 Department of Transportation workers can’t go to work and get paid right now because there just isn’t the money to pay them. Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky is holding up the jobless aid and highway construction budget because it would give people unemployment benefits he doesn’t believe in, although now he’s saying he’ll let the budget through if the money comes from what’s left in the stimulus package, because his real concern is adding to the deficit. The Democrats’ solution seems to just be that Jim Bunning surrender to their “might,” so although they’re right that the Republicans are being obstructionists and blocking really important stuff from getting through Congress, that’s pretty much the pot calling the apple green.

Read more about this story in the New York Times

It’s amazing how guns just draw out people’s ability to be crazy. On the one hand, why would a law-abiding citizen mind that another law-abiding citizen is carrying a gun? But on the other hand, how small is your penis that you have to strut into Starbucks like Clint Eastwood with a gun on your waist? Right now, crazy people all over the country are going crazier because Starbucks lets people in states with Right To Carry laws bring their guns into the Starbucks. The gun-nuts all say they don’t trust anyone but themselves to protect them, so they’ll bring their gun wherever they damn well please, and the gun-haters all say the only shots they want with their Starbucks are of espresso. What is it about the second amendment that makes it impossible for people to have a reasonable position whenever it’s involved? Does all this make Starbucks the Saloon of our culture? God, that really says a lot about how pathetic our culture is.

Read more about this story On the Huffington Post

First of all, I’d like to preface this post by saying that I’m upset I missed this tea party convention. Opryland is a 15 minute drive outside of downtown Nashville, and a few of my buddies and I really wanted to drive out to see this debacle. Unfortunately, tickets for the Palin portion alone were running in the $350 range. Regardless, it would have been an experience to be in an enormous arena with hundreds of other people with possibly the lowest IQ of any group ever assembled outside of the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team.

Had I been there, I might have been lucky enough to see first hand that Sarah Palin had to scrawl buzzwords on her palm as if she were an idiot or something. I find this disturbing. Every politician has their buzzwords, I get that. Maybe it’s just a show for a lot of them, but it’s a legitimate part of playing national politics. The fact that she wrote down “tax” is stupid because obviously that issue is coming up regardless, and if you were to forget that I’m sure someone would mention it during Q&A. “Lifting American spirits” is a whole different matter. First of all, that’s neither a position nor a core value/belief. It’s a task that is incredibly difficult to quantify and quite frankly impossible to put down as one of your goals. Secondly, if you do care so much, why is it so difficult for you to keep it in your mind? Palin should just stick to birthing children and giving them absurd names that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

You can read the full story on the Huffington Post

So we all know the Republicans these days are basically just really old, blotchy skinned sandbags, but at least they’ve mostly maintained a sense of propriety and decency about pretending they were trying to be helpful. Alabama senator Richard Shelby is throwing all that out the window today (the first day Republicans have 41 seats, one too many to have their filibusters overridden) by blocking every single one of the 70+ nominations Obama has submitted to congress until Democrats agree to give him two projects he’s been fighting for. Personally I’d be willing to make that deal, as long as he was willing to agree to officially change Alabama’s state motto to “Alabama: the state where ‘politics’ just means ‘fancy talk extortion.’”

Read the whole story on Talking Points Memo

In response to the Citizens United ruling, David Price (D-NC) and Mike Castel (R-DE) are planning to propose a bill that would make CEOs do a little thing at the end of every ad their corporations pay for saying like, “I’m Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, and I approved this message,” pretty much the same way politicians have to already. The act that makes politicians have to do that is called the “Stand By Your Ad” act, and that was also sponsored by Price, so this one is being called the “Stand By Every Ad Act.” As band-aids on bullet holes go, this seems like a pretty good idea to me, so I’m really excited to see the awesome objections people come up with to it. What if a CEO is mute, huh? Are we discriminating against the mute now?

Read the full story on the Huffington Post

Do you remember two weeks ago when the Supreme Court ruled that corporations could run ads supporting politicians before elections if they wanted to? They argued that it was a violation of the freedom of speech of the money corporations represent to deny that money the right to be spent on campaign ads (I’m serious, that’s what they said, read this article if you don’t believe me), even though doing so would endanger the power of the American People to control their own government. Well, now that the Supreme Court has made this ludicrous procolmation, really the only way to fix things is to amend the Constitution to make it clear that that’s retarded, and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT.) is trying to do exactly that, proposing an amendment giving Congress the power to control the raising and spending of money in campaigns. Good thing he’s retiring in a year. Oh.

Read the full story on The Huffington Post
Check out another movement to fix the Constitution at http://www.movetoamend.org/

Last night Jon Stewart appeared on the O’Reilly Factor to chat it up with Papa Bear himself. The interview is subdued, Jon isn’t his normal jester self, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t funny: he effortlessly quips back at O’Rielly’s brash comments. There isn’t much intellectual discourse in the interview, but Jon tries to explain some problems facing the nation. So as you can imagine nothing much is said. Jon puts valid points out on the table, and Bill just goes and insults or raises his voice at Jon. It’s aggravating, but watch the interview, it’s fun.

You can find it on The Huffington Post

Political attack ads always bring me great joy. I consider Maryland a pretty normal area, however, so I think I probably miss out on the really juicy stuff. Take this ad in which California senate candidate Carly Fiorina takes aim at congressman Tom Campbell, decrying him for being a wolf in sheep’s clothing and a “fiscal conservative in name only” (Looks like FCINO is the new slang being thrown around these days). Beyond the fact that they represent Campbell with a demonic sheep which is clearly a man on all fours in a sheep costume (you can see his feet from behind for christ’s sake), I find a few issues with this. First of all, the video is 3 minutes and 21 seconds long. If this came on television I wouldn’t even get to the demon sheep; I’d rather watch another Ron Popeil Table Top Rotisserie infomercial. Secondly, all the sheep imagery is really bizarre; it comes across as a bad SNL skit. A really bad one. Thirdly, the “fall from grace” metaphor with a sheep makes me jump straight to Biblical metaphors. Is this pasture California/heaven and all the sheep angels? When this one sheep gets on the pedestal, does his pride cause him to fall a la Lucifer? My takeaway from this ad is a suggestion that Tom Campbell is satan, and a confirmation that Carly Fiorina’s people are retarded.

Watch the ad on The Huffington Post

Iran is claiming today that it can defeat the West in the battle of technology because it successfully launched a rocket into space with a mouse, two turtles and worms on board. In other words, Iran seems to think our multi-billion dollar program that has put men on the moon and a machine on Mars is somehow inferior to its program, which is basically just the premise for a pretty awesome kid’s cartoon.

Read the full story on The Huffington Post

Last week Obama went into the lion’s den (that seems too strong, it was really more like a dinner party at someone he didn’t like’s house) threw some cameras on that bitch and told them to ask him any questions they had. Now he’s saying that it went so well he wants to do it again, because he thinks that’d be a great way to share the job of governing and put Republican ideas under closer scrutiny, which is code for saying “show everyone that they don’t actually have any ideas.” On top of all that, he’s inviting some Republicans over to the White House for the Super Bowl, which could get a little awkward when that Tim Tebow ad airs.

Read the full story in the New York Times

The Obama administration dropped it’s plan to try the people accused of plotting September 11th in Lower Manhattan because, seriously, the traffic would be horrible. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had been strongly in favor of having the trial in the city, but then someone pointed out that it would be difficult so he changed his mind, and now it looks like the trial has to find a new venue. Gail Collins wrote a great editorial about the story yesterday.

Read more about the story at the New York Times

Obama schooled the entire GOP side of the House of Representatives, He’s also related to Scott Brown, and a new website will let people tell you what’s wrong with you.

JD Salinger died, Chris Matthews forgot Obama was black, Nancy Pelosi thinks she can pass the Senate health care bill, Ford turned a profit last year, Joe Scarborough almost died, and somebody else already made a product called the iPad. Oops.

Obama wants a 3 year discretionary spending freeze and The Tea Party convention probably isn’t going to happen.

Osama bin Laden says he was behind the Christmas Day attempted bombing of flight 253, The Jersey Shore cast wants more money, and Andy Dick got arrested.

Obama’s keeping 50 prisoners at Guantanamo for now, Filibuster reform if gonna be introduced to the Senate, A Russian Cop with a YouTube account was arrested for fraud, and Jay Leno’s gonna perform at the White House Correspondents Dinner this year.

Obama supports breaking up big banks, the Supreme Court doesn’t like democracy, Conan and NBC officially make a deal, the President of Middlebury wants the Vermont drinking age to be 18, and apparently Marisa Miller isn’t leaving Victoria’s secret. Oops, sorry.

The TSA still doesn’t have a leader, Republican Scott Brown won in Massachusetts, Marisa Miller’s leaving Victoria’s Secret, NewYorkTimes.com will be charging for content, 23 people died in a Mexican prison brawl, and somebody stole a German pirate skull from a museum.

For $65 you can tour LA’s gang territory, there are new pictures of Osama Bin Laden, Ricky Gervais quit twitter, Sandra Bullock kissed Meryl Streep, and Apple’s finally gonna unveil the tablet.