Stormy Polling Well

Seriously, now, she is pretty. Thats not the kinda photo thats retouched, even. Hair is yellow all the way down, no tattoos, OK, bazoombas are overkill, but she a’right.

Which is to say, I would hit it.

I must say that if you lose the backdrop promoting that porn studio (pure guess that), put up American and Louisianan flags, and stick an oak desk in front of her — that almost looks like an office-ready 8×10 photo.

Having her in a business suit instead of lingerie would work well too.

[ADD: I concur in full with Mr. Promnight. I would hit that so hard, A-Fraud would have to cycle back on.]

Shouldn’t it be?

“Vitter Reelection goes limp as Daniels Comes on Strong”

I think I will Jack this Thread: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100587066

I cannot describe this story, it makes me vomit, kafka-esque, kaka-esque. Justice fucking system? Try criminal justice industry. Excuse me while I vomit.

I don’t know if anyone has ever noticed my silence when the most gentle of vegans around here are baying for blood and the extended torture-murder of the current version of the ultimate enemy of humanity, the pedophile.

Well finally, I am gonna say there is a place for the death penalty. For those who corrupt the justice system on the part of the state. For those who put the innocent in jail.

Prommie: bazoombas are overkill

Wait a minute. Were you, or were you not, unleashing a Niagara of drool over the rack exhibited by one Salma Hayek some weeks ago? (Not to say that I blame you, of course. Verily I say unto you: bewbies created by the Almighty to prove God’s glory to the world.)

@chicago bureau: overkill only because they are, presumably, fake. No no, natural boobies are indeed a solace in this world of pain, a solace to the eye and a balm to the soul, to sorta quote Lou Reed.

Speaking of boobs, Octopussy has her own website now with donation (of course) and comment (uh oh) features.

Prommie: God damn. I have no words for these creeps. All of them.

I mean, the prosecutors were paying off judges to send kids to privately-run prisons. Of the things we outsource, the prison system seems to make the least sense.

But the basic story is that judges were taking money. And I presume that these judges were re-elected year after year (or on a retention ballot or something like that). Just horrible.

@Prommie: She’s a one-woman stimulus package.

@blogenfreude: +1

This is the kind of innovation in government that makes America great.

@blogenfreude: I find her chin to be a bit too prominent. Of course, with one’s face between her boobs, one would not notice this.

@Prommie / chicago bureau: Further to this story of judges sending kids off to a private juvy-hall and getting kickbacks — the Times-Leader (Wilkes-Barre) has received a state audit of one of the centers. Basically, they were taking state money for… a car for the CEO, entertainment of some kind (perhaps the kids were not entertaining enough) and a $3,500 suit for the mayor of Hazelton, Pa. — which if memory serves is the mayor of that town that wants to drive all of the non-English speaking people out.

I’m going to bet that, in Chicago, people would call this “Tuesday,” if it were something other than the Court system that was taking the money. (Hell, I would be somewhat disappointed in Streets & San if they were any less brazen than this.) But — damn.

@Prommie: I agree, she’s pretty in her own sort of way, but the pictures are nevertheless starting to wear thin.

@mellbell: Sorry, but I will the judge of THAT!

There are much better pictures of her in the workplace at Google images: http://www.nudestormydaniels.com/official/brad-armstrong/stormy-daniels-14.jpg

@chicago bureau: @Prommie:
The private prison industry complex is a horrifying tangled web of influence and money, festering corruption across the nation. Prisoners sent thousands of miles away from their families and communities to for-profit prisons that are trying to maximize revenue. Too bad there aren’t any enterprising investigative journalists left to research these companies and their influence.

This story of the corrupt juvenile court judges broke locally in Pennsylvania and in the children’s advocacy world a month ago, it’s too bad that it’s only now that any national media is picking it up. Better late than never, I guess.

@blogenfreude: I echo mellbell, the Stormy booby photos every day are getting old.

@Jamie Sommers: Hey, is your Girl Scout troop selling cookies yet? Can I sign up for 2 boxes of thin mints (I’ll pay for shipping too). Send me a gmail to work out details.

@Dodgerblue: Do you also complain about the gap between Lauren Hutton’s teeth? Geena Davis’s overbite? Cate Blanchett’s little pointy ears?

@blogenfreude: I’m with Mellbell and SFL, enough fake boobs please. It’s a funny story, but try to space the stories out a bit between, you know, real events. Or maybe we can have a weekly Stormy-watch post or something.

I’d love to see the Stinque take on the stimulus compromise. Who’s it fucking over? Who’s making out like a bandit? Did Unicorn McHopeypants and TurboTax screw us over as bad as I think they did?

@Jamie Sommers: Just drop me a gmail and I’ll send a check to the local GS council for your troop. Just tell me how to write the for: section on the check and in my letter OR, if all donations go into one pot, I can send it to your troop directly and you guys can resell the cookies or chow down at your next big event.

redmanlaw at gmail

I would kill to see the debate between Daniels and Vitter. That is prime-time television right there. (Are you listening, NBC?)

“My opponent has been content to sit in his diaper while doing nothing for Louisianans. I will crack the whip on our behalf to make your lives better.”

@mellbell:

There better be plenty of Rice Cake on my birthday, that’s all I’m sayin’…

@Jamie Sommers

Put me down for 2 boxes of whichever- you don’t hafta send them, just give them to someone who’s feeling down. E-mail me at Thumphreys2003 at Yahoo, and let me know where to send the check.

@Prommie: I couldn’t agree more. What these judges did undermines a cornerstone of civilization and perverts justice worse that republicans pervert… um… justice.
That said, somewhere a writer for Law & Order just had a orgasm.

Re Stormy: Pretty face, ridiculous boobs, and I’d love to see Vitter get beaten by a woman he couldn’t pay enough to change his diaper. but I think I speak for all the gals and the gheys when I say:
We want BEEFCAKE. Preferably with adorable puppies and kittehs. Thank you.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: @redmanlaw:

Okay, you guys set a good example. Why should Jamie hassle with sending me the Thin Mints, when that’s the last thing my ass needs? Besides, I can have another martini if I forego the thin mints.

So Jamie, drop me a gmail and I’ll send a check to your troop.

@Tommy: When’s your birthday, big boy?

@SanFranLefty:

November 13th… Scorpio. You?

@IanJ: @Mistress Cynica: Don’t anger me – I could probably find the material to do one a day.

@blogenfreude: Double dog dare ya.

@IanJ:

It’s much better than the original Senate bill, with more unemployment funding, social welfare, education funding and aid to the states. This aid is especially important for us, since our state is basically bankrupt.

I haven’t seen more specifics yet, but it’s probs the best that we can hope for. And BTW, as if we all don’t know this, Republicans are fucking crazy. They’re hoping the bill will fail, and thus the economy will collapse further, in order to better their political prospects in 2010 and 2012. That’s some downright evil shizzle even for them.

I don’t get Barry’s game with them; he seems to be playing what Agatha Christie called “the lone hand.” The prob is that game theory assumes the players are rational and not raving, Reagan-channeling, tongue-talking lunatics.

Tits again? Seriously?

ADD: As of this moment, I am boycotting all tit posts, but not until I tell SFL that I saw Angela Davis (on teh teevee) talking about the prison industrial complex, and she was fucking awesome! She also wants to let everybody loose regardless of crime, but that’s the kind of crazy Angela brings. And my dad has had a crush on her since the “Free Angela” days, and I almost went to UC Santa Cruz to get her to autograph Women, Race and Class for me, but I was too shy. And with that, I’m OUT!

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Excellent use of portmanteau.

Did anyone catch the financial industry execs getting grilled by Congress? Comedy gold, I’ve heard, with all kinds of know-nothings huffing and puffing right before they vote to give them another trillion dollars, no-strings-attached, from the Congressional whorehouse. Like the execs give a shit—they’ve got their zillion dollar bonuses, and they’re apparently in the only business in America where your pay can’t go down. Shouty hearings are just the cost of doing bizniss.

Naomi Klein made a prescient and 100% accurate point recently: The Treasury hasn’t socialized Wall Street, it’s the opposite. Wall Street has privatized the Treasury.

Also: The Congress/CEO make-up seXXX is gonna blow the roof off next week.

@Original Andrew: Wall Street has privatized the Treasury.

Naomi Klein is a prophet. Though too often she merely reports the facts.

@Pedonator: And I’m positive that if blogenfreude could get a pic of Naomi Klein’s ta-tas the level of discourse here, already excellent, would only improve.

@IanJ: I’d love to see the Stinque take on the stimulus compromise.

When Nobel laureates collide…

I honestly don’t know what to make of it. I liked the sound of it back in December — all that hawt infrastructure talk that makes Rachel wet — but then the tax cuts sucked the life out of it, never mind who won what subsidiary battles.

But huge as it is, it’s still the first episode in a series, and I’m not ready to cast judgment until I see what follows. I can say that unrequited “bipartisanship” is annoying the hell out of me, whatever long game Barry’s playing. That, and kicking no-brainer decisions to “study groups”. But I don’t have his number yet; it’s not as clear as Cheney calling in his cronies to divvy up the energy-policy spoils.

Somewhat on-topic: Zatarain’s (of course) wants to make Mardi Gras a national holiday, and they claim that 80% of Americans agree in nationwide polling. Of course, 80% of Americans would probably support a national holiday in honor of Cheez Whiz, just to have another day off work, but whatever. Bewbies for everyone!

@finette: Bewbies Dirty rice for everyone!

Fixed.

@nojo: I trust I’m not the only one bothered by the mind-splitting irony of borrowing money to spend on tax cuts. How, pray tell, my nouveau-mathematique friends, is this ever going to help anything? Don’t we, at least in theory, get our national budget from taxes?

I’m thinking the old way, aren’t I. I’m not up on the new national treasury math.

@IanJ: Keynsian economics is profoundly counterintuitive, which is why it’s easy to attack.

Yes, I would prefer to see all the money plowed into direct spending on projects. And yes, recent tax cuts have been pointless — mainly because they benefited the filthy rich, who just sock it away instead of buying trinkets.

And there’s an interesting argument that lump-sum rebates aren’t as effective as the same amount spread over time — so it’s not just the amount of a “middle-class tax cut,” but how it’s delivered.

So yes, the New Math may not make much sense on the face of it. But with everyone revisiting Great Depression history, the new line seems to be that FDR’s first term worked out pretty well, and it’s only when he resorted to premature budget-balancing that things went south again until war spending picked up the slack.

And me, I’m still hanging back on “stimulus” grousing. I honestly don’t know yet what to think.

@IanJ: Its kinda like if you could ever, in chess, just once, make two moves in a row; noone could beat you.

There’s nothing intuitive about why the economy slowed down, either, is there? If everyone would just go start buying and selling and then hiring and paying and all, it would be fine, there are still as many people, all want jobs, all want to buy stuff, well, why should it have stopped? I mean, logically, we should all just say “one, two, three. . . NOW” and go back to doing what we were doing last year, and there we are, all fine, right?

The problem is interconnectedness and rippling chaos and delays and leverage and the impact of mere delay on the stability of the system.

So, throw some money at it. What The Fuck. Logical to me.

It’s like being in a traffic jam. If everyone would just step on the gas at the same time we wouldn’t be stuck in this mess.

And it’s also worth noting that this is actually like the third stimulus bill, including the ones where we got checks, right?

Japan launched around 10 stimulus bills that ballooned their national debt to 150% of their GDP and they’re still in a stagnant economy almost 20 years later (I’m spouting from memory here).

P.S. Fuck you, children and children’s children.

@Original Andrew: Isn’t the conventional wisdom that Japan waited too long to do anything, then did the (obviously) wrong thing, and so exacerbated the problem?

And yes, this is the third stim in a year — although the previous two were at the behest of the previous Administration (with the connivance of the Dems, of course).

But hey, the grandkids get Cannibal Anarchy either way, so let’s go out in style.

@nojo: I think Japan got screwed because there was an overheated real estate market, people were paying far more than property was really worth and banks were handing out credit lines like there was no tomorr…..oh, wait a minute *slaps forehead*

@nojo & nabisco:

Yes exactly, that’s the hee-larious thing. Japan took far too long to force their insolvent banks, bankers and real estate investors to take their medicine, and now we’re doing precisely the same thing after relentlessly criticizing them for nearly two decades.

We’re spending trillions propping up the zombie banks when the combined market value of B of A and Citigroup is like $56 billion. They–along with several others–must be nationalized and have their assets and profitable divisions sold off, while writing off the rest.

The key diffs are that Japan has an intense culture of saving–they routinely sock away 20-25% of their pay–that’s nearly non-existent in the US, and also they have a superb public infrastructure that they needlessly spent billions upgrading, while ours is shit.

So… Blowing our wad on infrastructure and sane banking/investment/credit laws is bad for which reason, exactly? Because the free-market wonks don’t like it? “Big government?” “Socialism?”

Which is the same question I originally asked, looked at from a different direction, I realize.

@IanJ:

Being wingtards means they never have to explain their deranged non-sequiturs.

I just put up a new Stormy post where we can convene.

Thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you?