Talk to the Invisible Hand, Pal

The invisible hand. Would that be the one that has us all by the short hairs?

TJ
Yesterday’s Astronomy Picture of the Day showed three, count ’em, three Morning Glory clouds over the Gulf of Carpentaria. Gorgeous!

Oops, that was Monday’s APOD, not yesterday’s. Easy to find if you click on Archive at the APOD site.

But at least it’s cold. And doesn’t taste like piss. As one imagines piss might taste absent lust.

Which brings me to: this is NOT English. It’s corpo-speak: ie. jargon. It has very little to do with English. (Goodness, but I got huffy quickly this am!) I’m reminded of pentagon-speak or lawyer-speak (settle down), the most egregious usage of which being the use of ‘absent’ (stress on second syllable) to mean ‘without’. Oh wait.

Sigh. Isn’t there laws against this?

It’s not just 80% of the US America beer market. It’s about 80% of Canada City’s beer market and 60% of Europe’s, too.

Only place it’s not is Asia, who prefer to put formaldehyde in their beer (not joking.)

@Benedick: Yes, it roughly translates to: “What is great about a duopoly owning 80% of the market is having pricing power roughly analogous to ass raping a victim with a gun her head. It makes Jesus smile.”

@lynnlightfoot: So where is the picture link?

BREAKING: WA Secretary of State’s office to accept “Mickey Mouse, Saddam Hussein,” and “Gofuk Yousef” in Referendum 71 signature count.

“The state has to take voter intent into account,” explained Secretary of State spokeswoman Christina Siderius,” so it’s really a waste of time trying to determine if Mr. Mouse, Mr. Hussein, and Mr. Yousef are registered voters, which is something we suddenly don’t give a shit about, or even if they’re real people. Mr. Yousef could be of Middle Eastern descent for all we know. The point is that someone at sometime signed this petition, and they want a public vote on repealing the equal rights of godless sodomites.”

@Original Andrew: These people will not fucking stop until we’re all back in the closet again. And they wonder why we got mad after Prop 8. If you ever ask the people about civil rights, they will always choose to deny them because the popular mind is always decades behind what is right.

@rptrcub: I’m amused the way these same clodpoles, while attending ‘town meetings’ are all so suddenly concerned about ‘the tyranny of the majority’.

@Original Andrew: I thought that WA was supposed to be one of those states where reason rules. Like CA. Oh wait.

@FlyingChainSaw: Let’s face it: it does make him smile.

@Benedick: It only matters when they want a return to the 1950s, when them *bad words to describe black people* were kept in their places and the queers underwent shock treatment.

Note: the asterixed phrase is meant to mock racists. Please to be not thinking that I am one. Kthx.

@rptrcub: What makes me sad is to hear gay men of a certain age mourn the closet as being a sexier time than now. Yes, we can sexualize anything. Even the passing on of AIDS, as has been done by a new generation of those growing up in shame.

But. New posting from This Day In Fun at the secret clubhouse. A nice big copy of my favorite (and funniest) Xtian greetings card: Jeebus manhandling hunky carpenter. Or: Is That A Hammer Or Are You Just Glad To Save Me?

@Benedick: Yes, and Jesus would laugh out loud if InBev were to get a patent on water.

I think this is great – Belgians in charge of pricing some redneck’s beverage of choice. Ha. Ha. Ha.

@Benedick: Mourning the closet? What planet are they living on?

@blogenfreude: Where/when will the teabaggers protest this?

The consolidations have really hardened my stance on beer. If I can’t drive to brewery in an hour or two and meet the owners, I don’t consider it. Occasionally, one of the big players would produce a specialty item or a seasonal and I’d check it out for fun. Miller had a nice Reserve actually in the early 80s that I’d grab when I found myself in the big chain liquor store. The excepts, of course, are Yuengling and a wheat beer from the Leinenkugel people – and those occasions when I find myself somewhere with Molson’s Export on draft.

@rptrcub: Secrecy was/is a big turn-on. And nothing much has changed in Hollywood: gay men still live like Jimmy Dean. (Yes, he was one of us; I personally know two men who slept with him.) Oh, and of course, most of the Republican party up to and including Nixon. But you must know men in their 70s or older who are nostalgic for how things used to be.

@Benedick: That greeting card is heelarious.

@SanFranLefty: Isn’t it? How can something so wrong be so right?

I am not a gambling man but I would bet folding money that Mike Jones has pics somewhere of him acting out this scene with Ted Haggard. And I, for one, would like to see them.

T/J. Greetings from Bend, Oregon, Transcascadian home of overweight, unemployed white people. I’ve got Deet and Diet Code and am heading up to some mountain lakes.

@Benedick: too good.

@Dodgerblue: Look out for the meth labs and the pot farms on the Forest Service lands around those lakes. The guys guarding them are well-armed and not very friendly.

@Mistress Cynica: If the 1st miracle at Cana was turning water into wine, the 2nd miracle seems to have been turning the bridegroom gay.

@SanFranLefty: Especially those with cameras and Cali plates.

@Dodgerblue: enjoy it. I’ve not been to Bend yet in my short time in Oregon but I hear good things.

@Benedick: the problem is you have Seattle & Olympia and then you have everywhere else.

On the matter of beer: fortunately there are a metric shit-ton of choices here in the Portland area if avoiding the 80% duopoly is one’s goal (basically, avoid Widmer and Henry Weinhardt — although I like Widmer’s hefeweizen) — because this price fixin’ is crap.

@ManchuCandidate:
Tell me and my aching head all about it. Cheap draft beer is bad.

@Original Andrew:

Wow. Just…wow.

@Tommmcatt Floats:

Granted that’s my satirical take on this CF, but the reality’s not much different.

@Benedick:

Washington is more progressive than 95% of the other states, but it’s still AmeriKKKa.