My ADD is Kicking In

I wonder how smug little creampie face Tommy F feels now considering Sugar Mommie’s inheritance (was billion dollar Commercial Real Estate in RETAIL MALLS fortune) is going down the shitter.

As for Paris, I think it would be fitting if she crashed her car (and considering her awesome driving record, a definite possibility.) Diamond studded dash… Great idea!

After the revolution, let’s eat Paris Hilton. With barbecue sauce, I mean.

@Put a Tommmcatt in your tank!:
Nice idea, but I’m not crazy about eating herpes infected meat (live or cooked.)

@ManchuCandidate:

I forgot about the sores and rashes. Let’s just feed her to Rush Limbaugh.

Though Democrats never came around to Friedman’s way of serious thinking , they did manage to take control of both chambers of Congress the following year, ushering in a period of nearly unprecedented political dominance that continues to this day, which strikes me as a pretty important thing to do.

Yeah, they got that majority and did exactly nothing with it. Way to go, Spineocrats!

@IanJ:

Yeah, that’s kinda the huge flaw in our whole Demoncratically run gummit: Nancy and Harry & Co. caved to (secretly approved of?) every single one of Caligutard’s demands, then largely benefitted from people voting against the Retardicans, rather than for the Demoncrats.

@ManchuCandidate: “Bachman Socialism Overdrive?” Oh, thats good, thats very good indeed.

@Prommie:
Thanks. Mish Bachmann and Overdrive go together like Bachmann and Krazee Eyes.

Tom Friedman’s 5 most astute predictions:

1.- “I’d better put another quarter in this meter ’cause this haircut’s probably going to take more than an hour and I don’t want to get a ticket.” (7/12/89)

2.- “In 20 minutes this egg should be fully hard-boiled.” (12/03/01)

3.- “I really doubt that ‘Grand Torino’ will have sold out by the time we get to the theater.” (2/11/09)

4.- “Looks like it’s gonna rain. I’d better take an umbrella.” (6/6/88)

5.- “If you keep swinging that thing around the house like that you’re going to break something.” (9/16/72)

@Serolf Divad: Another six months and Iraq will be under control.

@Serolf Divad: And that is why we missed you.

@Serolf Divad:

If you truly loathe Tom Friedman–and really, what sane person doesn’t–then this Matt Taibbi hit-piece is an hee-larious must read:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/19908

When some time ago a friend of mine told me that Thomas Friedman’s new book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, was going to be a kind of environmentalist clarion call against American consumerism, I almost died laughing.

Beautiful, I thought. Just when you begin to lose faith in America’s ability to fall for absolutely anything — just when you begin to think we Americans as a race might finally outgrow the lovable credulousness that leads us to fork over our credit card numbers to every half-baked TV pitchman hawking a magic dick-enlarging pill, or a way to make millions on the Internet while sitting at home and pounding doughnuts — along comes Thomas Friedman, porn-‘stached resident of a positively obscene 11,400-square-foot suburban Maryland mega-monstro-mansion and husband to the heir of one of the largest shopping-mall chains in the world, reinventing himself as an oracle of anti-consumerist conservationism.

So is Blessed Xtian Salt the only flavoring in the world that makes food taste blander?

@Prommie:

I wonder if Tom Friedman knows that the Friedman Unit (aka the “F.U.”) has its own Wikipedia page? It’s my understanding that he’s remarkably unselfaware, so perhaps ignorance is bliss.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_Unit

Hey overlords, are we going to have a March Madness pool for those of us who are Sport lovers (and non-lovers of Sport can play along as well, and most likely win the pool)?

@SanFranLefty:

Oh, fun. I’ll pick by the color of the uniforms.

@SanFranLefty: Someone will have to propose details, because I have no idea how such a thing would work.

@SanFranLefty: Darn skippy we are!

@nojo: Last year I just set up a group on Yahoo! Sports and posted the log-in information on CP. Easy as pie.

@nojo: Last year we had a Cynics’ pool through Yahoo sports. I don’t know if we’d want to do that again or set up something through the Stinque website. Obvs it’d be easier to use the pre-existing system on Yahoo.
http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/t1

@SanFranLefty: Ideally whatever site we use would have some kind of leader board widget. I’ll look at what’s out there.

@mellbell: @SanFranLefty: Ah, that’s what I was hoping. I can set up something with Yahoo, but I’ll wait for other recommendations.

@mellbell: Too bad Louisville will be out in the first round.

@homofascist: Oh no you didn’t!

Nojo: here’s some shitty news for the Big Shitpile file (from CNN): Stocks plunged to fresh 12-year lows Thursday as investors waded through more grim news: GM said its survival is in doubt, bank shares took a beating, and Citigroup fell below a buck. Adding to the global woes: China defied expectations by failing to boost its economic stimulus program, CNNMoney reports. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 281 points, or 4.1 percent, according to early tallies

@Dodgerblue: Now’s a great time to invest!

But usually I leave the Big Shitpile stories to Bloggie, who actually seems to know a few things. My broad take was that stock prices have finally returned to traditional valuations, but there’s a lot more shit going down than that.

@Dodgerblue:

Those Chinese–always so defiant!

Breaking up Citi and selling off the profitable parts will happen eventually, and my guess is that first quarter ’09 losses will be so astronomical that amateur hour will be effectively over. The shareholders have already been wiped out, and the bondholders will have to take the so-called “haircut.” That’s the risk of capitalism, right? The FDIC does this everyday on a smaller scale.

I’m just thinking off the top of my head here, but since Citi is so geographically large, their assets could be sold off to healthy banks by state. Somewhat similar to a state guaranty association’s assumption and redistribution of the assets of an insolvent insurance company, but on a national scale.

@Dodgerblue: (puts fingers in ears while skipping about the room) la la ala la la la la la la…!

@SanFranLefty: Hell, woman! I’ll take the men from the NYC Ballet vs the Seattle Sissies any day.

@Original Andrew: So when do I get the bailout for my student loans with Citibank?
@mellbell: Check out the Sports Illustrated brackets. I wonder if Google has a bracket feature this year.

@Original Andrew:
But the Commie Captitalist Chinese leadership ain’t too smart. All those wise economikal assumptions by hexperts torn torn asunder especially this faint hope that the Chinese could keep spending.

This of course is a crock of shit based on looking at their per capita income in US America greenbucks.

I’ll join the Stinque NCAA pool. Let me get my darts and dartboard ready when I pick the teams.

@SanFranLefty:
Hahaha. No bailouts for you, that’s socialism!

In a similar vein, the creditors rejected my employer Dear Leader’s plan to give retention bonuses to the fucktards (execs and lower management.)

The 45 mil would have been split 36 – 9 for the execufucks and pointed headed fucks. I think the only retention bonus required is that the employees will refrain from going postal on their worthless asses.

@SanFranLefty:

It would please me immensely to tell you that you would be able to stop making payments if (when) Citi goes tits up, but sadly, no. Citi’s asset–your debt–will be sold to the highest bidder and you’ll simply make payments to the new owner/loan servicer.

You should keep copies of your most recent statements showing rates, payments received and balances, because fuck-ups have been known to happen during a transition.

@ManchuCandidate: Billions were invested here on the theory that the Chinese would keep making cheap crap and we would keep buying it. Oopsie.

@ManchuCandidate:

It’s my understanding they’re still about 20 to 30 years away from having a self-sustainable internal economy, at which point they could tell us to focke off.

@Original Andrew:
To borrow DB’s phrase. Oopsie.

@nojo: All I know today is the joke on the street: Did you hear McDonald’s added Citigroup to its dollar menu? Badump!

@blogenfreude:

Ha, thank you, I needed that.

Tuesday’s headline from the Post Intelligencer (“Wall Street’s Shocking Plunge”) certainly didn’t do me any favors.

Um, P.I.? Not helping.

@blogenfreude:
Shittybank fits in with the menu. Like the “food” equivalents, it is guaranteed to give you heartburn and regret.

@Prommie: You know Bachman is a Mormon, right? And the dad of exmo Tal Bachman (“She’s so hiiiiiiiigh/ high above me/ she’s so lovely…” Ugh). But Tal is a great fellow otherwise.

@homofascist: That would be The Blessed English Salt.

@Put a Tommmcatt in your tank!: No! No! Pick by which mascot would kill the other mascot in a cage fight.

@mellbell: Haha! It’s okay. Stanford always chokes in round 2. Are they even going this year?

@JNOV:

Haha. It’s funny because it bugs Benedick.

@Original Andrew: I’d like to see Citi and other banks taken down a la the ending in Fight Club. (Citi has my student loans.)

@SanFranLefty: werd

@Dodgerblue: Worked for Japan until they got all techie on us and started making good shit.

@Original Andrew: If they don’t export their pollution to us in the meantime and kill every living thing on the US West Coast.

@blogenfreude: Ching!

@Put a Tommmcatt in your tank!: Benedick knows the English can’t cook. And don’t even get me started on the Irish!

@JNOV: He was (I hope) just kidding. We made it to the Elite Eight last year as a 3 seed and will probably get a 2 or 3 seed this year. We’ve had a couple of rough seasons under Pitino, but this is not one of them.

We are so pestorked. Rogered raw. Buggered bloody. Fucked royally.

Actually not so much, my friends. The working poor, as long as they have their jobs, will muddle on with no effect, except deflation will make at least housing cheaper for them.

Us oldsters who had savings for retirement are more fucked, no savings for retirement, oh well.

The unemployed will be fucked, the government will not have the money much longer, it will not be able to keep monetizing this crisis. I understand there are already a few states with no cash, only emergency stimulus funds are allowing them to keep making unemployment payments.

So, during the Great Depression, people moved in together and started sharing housing, that seems likely.

Russia went through something this bad in the last 10 years, they lived.

We will see.

@JNOV: I usually pick against my “enemies list” but I run out of teams too fast, so I’ll try the Mascot method. Hope to see the Fighting Irish match up against the Boilermakers.

Unless someone has a mascot like anthrax, I would expect the Wolverines to take it all. Grizzlies don’t even fuck with wolverines….

What team does Paris Hilton mascot for?

@Dodgerblue: Forget March Madness (though I will be using my super-secret selection technique again this year). We need a poll on when the Dow gets below 5,000.

@fupduk: Haha! I love it when it’s a team like the Hoyas and some animal. How would an inanimate object fight a Nittany Lion or some such? You get to think of all kinds of creative destruction when you use the mascot method. I think Stanford always chokes b/c The Tree is suffering from some sort of Sudden Oak Death or something.

@Promnight: Alright, Debbie Downer. Don’t make me have to slip you some X or something.

@Mistress Cynica: Resist the urge to jump on Prommie’s bandwagon. I haz a hope!

@JNOV: I has a hope, too. Today all day I fielded calls from GM dealers, asking what was going to happen when they had to close their businesses and lay off, oh, the average is about 100 employees.

But despite that large dose of reality, what with people asking me, what would happen to the business started by their grandfather, that has been his family’s life’s work for three generations, when GM declares bankruptcy.

But despite that (most of them had an upbeat, gallows humor vibe going, pretty stoic) I has hope.

Somehow, I has hope.

My hope is that it will not really reach the level of cannibal anarchy and a 1,000 year Dark Age, no, I really have some slight hope.

That it might only, merely, be as bad as the great depression.

Thats hope, man. We could all get through that.

@Promnight: I know your job forces you to deal with the day-to-day horrors of an industry that has driven this economy for over one hundred years. Now that I’m not a recruiter, I ignore the talks of firm layoffs, I totally ignore the Dow, and I’m wearing blinders for my own mental health. You’re not able to stick you fingers in your ears and sing Lalala and hope things turn around before the background noise becomes a cacophony. I get it, and I sympathize. But I will manhandle you like a fois gras goose and funnel some drugs down your gullet if I think it’s in your best interest. Hell, you might even become tasty for when we resort to cannibalistic anarchy.

@JNOV: You are funny, you made me laugh. I am not really down, you know, I am a sort of a closet goth, and I delight in misery.

Take a look at the video I just posted … frightening.

@Promnight: I love you, darling!

@mellbell: Oh. Yes. I. Did. Of course, Illinois will definitely be out in the first round. If they can’t find a way to beat Penn State…