I found this over at Grandma’s House.
Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating
Evidently it measures the number of naughty words on your blog and gives it as a percentage. The thing claims that 14.9% of the pages on this site contain cuss words. I call bullshit. There’s no way in hell it’s that low, and if it is, I’m disappointed with myself. Just in case, here’s an extra one.
My days of hanging around strip clubs are long behind me, but I was happy to read this article in the local paper.
A state district judge struck down a state fee on patrons of strip clubs Friday, invalidating a measure designed to raise money for sexual assault victims and people without health insurance.
Travis County Judge Scott Jenkins called the $5 cover charge – which state lawmakers passed overwhelmingly last year – unconstitutional, and said it taxed “expression that, while politically unpopular, is nevertheless protected by the First Amendment.”
Attorney General Greg Abbott, representing the state, plans to “vigorously appeal” the ruling, a spokesman said. And at least one Dallas club owner said she’s not ready to go out and celebrate.
“The rest of them are ready to throw a big party, but I don’t think this is over,” said Dawn Rizos, who owns the Lodge, an upscale Dallas club. “They’re going to rewrite it, and eventually it will pass.”
Rizos is exactly right, the bastards in Austin (most of them Republicans) will keep reworking this until they get a judge to sign off. When it works, the Republicans will go back to their districts and assure their constituents that children are safe from exposed boobies and the Democrats will trumpet their aid to victimized women and the uninsured.
I’ve known enough women who worked at these establishments to have a pretty strong distaste for the people who run them and most of the people who frequent them. That fact doesn’t mitigate my opposition to the “fee.” In the same sense that one does not have to like smoking to oppose increases in the cigarette tax.
The problem with public acceptance of these laws is that it sends the message that it’s ok to tax things the majority of the people don’t approve of in order to fund things they do. Providing services for sexual assault victims is something most people will get behind, and the people behind this law know it.
Officials with the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, which helped craft the measure, said they are very disappointed by the decision but intend to rework the bill when lawmakers return to Austin in January.
“This is not the end of the adult entertainment fee or of our goal of providing comprehensive sexual assault-related services to Texans,” spokeswoman Karen Amacker said.
In case I need to bring this idea a little closer to home, imagine a day where the majority of people are opposed to the exercise of Second Amendment rights and lawmakers decide that they can get away with an onerous “ammunition tax” or a mandatory five dollar fee for entry to the local gun range.
I will concede however that I generally find the “getting naked for tips is a First Amendment right” argument to be more than a little lacking. I would much rather see a law like this get repealed because enough right-minded people see it for what it is, a way to raise taxes on a small segment of the population to gain the favor of a larger segment that disapproves of them.
The Tank Cartridge, 120mm, Canister, XM1028, is a tank round comprised of 1150 (est.) tungsten balls, which are expelled upon muzzle exit. There is no fuse on this round. While the dispersion pattern increases with range as the velocity of the balls decreases, the dense tungsten balls are used to minimize the velocity fall-off
Yet another reason why messing with the US Armed Forces is such a bad idea.
(found via Ernie’s House of Whoop Ass, a very NSFW site)
In keeping with my stated goal from my earlier post (this is sooooo NSFW) :
I have no doubt that you were crawling out of bed this morning, wiping the crust from the corner of your eyes, sitting down at your computer with your first cup of coffee, and saying in your own head “I hope Brett has trolled the dark reaches of the internet and found some ridiculous cocksucker that I would never have had the opportunity to know about otherwise.” Because I’m a giver, I present Myles L. Berman, professional douchebag.
I came across an ad for Myles, or as he introduces himself to the ladies, “Top Gun DUI Attorney,” while following a link from Drudge about one rich, famous guy possibly having a spat with another rich, famous guy over something I couldn’t possibly give a shit about. Myles is apparently hot shit in the world of people who can get you off when you get plastered and climb behind the wheel of your Escalade. In fact, you might say that Myles is to impaired alcoholics who refuse to designate a driver what Johnny Cochran was to black athletes who slit their ex-wife’s throat. Here’s the ad in question.
I don’t know if it’s the gay-porn-actor mustache or the smile of a man who knows his Sex Panther cologne is sure to have the ladies lining up for a little “Top Gun” action, but something about this man says “if you wake up hungover in a cell, give me a call.”
You may think that you have to go to Harvard Law to break into the prestigious world of DUI defense, but Myles is no elitist. He wants to bring his brand of drunk justice to lawyers of all backgrounds. That’s why he created the National Drunk Driving Defense Task Force. Now lawyers from non-Ivy-League schools can claw their way to the middle by becoming DUI defense attorneys.
By the way, I know you saw that “Friends don’t let friends plead guilty!” tag line and now you want to use it in conversation or on your business card. Well, you can’t, he trademarked that shit, and now it’s all his. What did your mother tell you about the early bird and the worm?
Q: Why are your posts so sporadic?
A: I run a brick-and-mortar business so my spare time tends to vacillate between sparse and non-existent. I generally post when there’s something I should be doing that I really want to avoid.
Q: Did you expect anyone to read this blog when you started it?
A: Yes. I posted my first couple of entries and then set in motion a cunning plan to have the coolest blogger on the entire internet link to me within the first 24 hours. It was executed to perfection.
Q: Seriously?
A: No.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish with your blog?
A: I hope that I can offer my unique insight on political issues of the day and amuse people with my wry humor, but mainly I want to see the realization of my lifelong dream to bring the word “cocksucker” into the mainstream of American political discourse. For example:
Senator Obama: I believe that we are facing a unique opportunity to heal the deep wounds of our past and begin a journey to a united America ready to face the challenges that lay before us.
Senator Clinton: That sounds wonderful, but I think the real question on the minds of Americans is why you still maintain your relationship with that racist cocksucker who pastored your church for twenty years?
Q: Why “Army of Dog?”
A: Because it’s hard to get links for a blog called “Army of Cocksucker.”
for this. Book them on one count of felony creeping me the fuck out.
that the prolonged Democratic Primary will ultimately hurt McCain because the media will focus on Obama and Hillary and the ultimate nominee from that contest will benefit from the attention. At least that’s what I heard him say a few weeks ago when he appeared as an analyst on some cable news show. Now let me tell you why Karl is full of shit.
The attention these two candidates are getting consists of racist pastors, a wife who can’t keep her mouth shut, and verifiably bullshit stories of sniper dodging. By the time these two get finished running this primary, John McCain is going to be the shiniest turd in modern political history and the only thing he’ll have to do is keep his mouth shut and tour foreign countries.
And I strongly suspect he’s been having a few phone chats with Mitt Romney, because a guy who clearly did not understand economics particularly well a few months ago seems to be picking it up pretty fast. If you’re a politician and you want my vote, getting me a little tipsy with some smooth, free-market-oriented fiscal talk is gonna help, a lot. Especially if the rest of your political resume leaves something to be desired.
McCain was addressing the “housing crisis” in a speech yesterday when he unleashed this bit of hard truth:
I will not play election year politics with the housing crisis. I will evaluate everything in terms of whether it might be harmful or helpful to our effort to deal with the crisis we face now.
I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers. Government assistance to the banking system should be based solely on preventing systemic risk that would endanger the entire financial system and the economy.
I have my issues with some of the rest of the speech, but this is an excellent distinction for McCain to make between himself and the two communists still in the race for the Democratic Party nomination. As a contrast, here’s The Shrew on how the Government is going to wipe your nose and make everything better:
That means acknowledging that our economic crisis is, at its core, a housing crisis, a crises caused in part by unscrupulous mortgage lenders and brokers and unregulated transactions in mortgage-backed securities, in part by speculators who were buying multiple houses to sell for a quick buck and other buyers who didn’t act responsibly. And in part by a president and administration who failed to anticipate and continue to downplay the problems we face. Unlike what happened here in Pennsylvania, when Governor Rendell started seeing problems - and I remember those articles we had in the newspaper, governor, where the housing supply was being, you know, expanded and people were putting zero money down and they were trying to once again get the American dream, they were commuting sometimes two hours to be able to afford that house. Well, those warning signals went unheeded in Washington. But thankfully, not in Harrisburg. And what we have to do now is to look at our housing crisis in greater detail. And I’d like to outline my plans to address it.
2.2 million foreclosure notices went out last year - up 75% from 2006. Communities of color have been especially hard hit. Subprime loans are five times more common in predominantly African American neighborhoods than predominantly white ones. And 41% of loans to Hispanics are subprime compared to only 22% to whites. But this crisis isn’t just about the more than 2 million households at risk of losing their homes and, of course, 2.2 million foreclosure notices means many more people than that because obviously you have homes where anywhere from two to ten people live. It’s about the tens of millions of families who have lost value in their homes.
When I talk about the home foreclosure crisis, sometimes people, I can tell, look at me a little skeptically because they, I can tell, they’re thinking to themselves, I didn’t buy one of those mortgages, I don’t have an ARM, I’m not at risk. But, in fact, that is just not the case. Home prices dropped almost 9% last quarter. Home prices for everyone. If you have paid off your home, if you have a fixed rate mortgage with a manageable interest rate, you have suffered the steepest decline on record. That means families have lost at least $1.9 trillion in housing wealth so far, nearly two-thirds of the size of the entire United States government budget. And today, nearly 9 million families are struggling with mortgages that are under water. They actually owe more for their mortgages than their homes are worth. So what was once their biggest financial asset is now a financial liability.
In other words, these people were a victim of their lack of understanding of basic economics and if you elect me President, I’ll make it stop, dammit. I’m too lazy at the moment to drag up any of the Obamessiah’s comments on the issue, but just go back and read Hillary’s speech and pretend it’s a little less shrill and you’ll pretty much have it nailed.
The problem with the “housing crisis” and all of its proposed government solutions is that it presents, once again, the age-old conflict between making economically rational decisions and making politically rational decisions. There are those who, out of extreme frustration, like to accuse politicians of not understanding basic economics. Given the education level of most of the serious candidates for high public office, this is unlikely. What seems more likely to me is that politicians will knowingly make economically incorrect decisions because they are politically advantageous.
The free market economy relies on the idea that individual actors in that market will make rational decisions and that the collective effect of those rational decisions will be an efficient economy that provides goods and services to consumers at the best possible price. This system works best when it’s left to its own devices, since the various pressures inherent in the market will tend to correct problems long before an outside observer (say a nanny state politician) even recognizes them. Not only do problems tend to be fixed faster when market forces are doing the fixing rather than politicians, the negative effect those problems have on individuals tend to be much milder.
Politicians, on the other hand, have a completely different set of criteria for rational decision-making. As elected officials, they are required by their sense of political self-preservation to make decisions that are more likely to result in their reelection, even if those decisions are economically irrational.
As a case in point, the promise to bail out financial institutions that made questionable loans to borrowers they knew were more likely to default. Under free-market conditions the institutions would have to have an increased financial incentive that outweighed the additional risk they would assume in making these loans. If their judgment about the risk/reward ratio was poor, they would face ruin if a significant enough portion of the borrowers defaulted. While this would have a negative effect in the short-term on the economy, the firms with poor judgment would be replaced by new or existing firms who were more capable of accurately assessing the risk/reward of their loans.
The borrowers who defaulted would also suffer consequences such as losing their house and damage to their credit. This is the natural economic consequence of poor judgment, and borrowers would, ideally, learn the lesson about buying more house than they can afford. If they don’t, their credit will likely be bad enough in the long-term that they won’t be able to get another loan from a credible source.
In both cases risk either shapes decision-making or it shapes survival. In this way the presence of risk both now and in the future ensures that the current problem will be less likely to be repeated.
What the Democrats are doing is promising to remove or mitigate the consequences of the increased risk that was assumed by both the borrowers and the lenders. This is an economically irrational decision since it will increase the likelihood of the risky behavior being repeated in the future either by the current players or by others. It is, however, a politically rational decision because it will appeal to a large number of traditional Democratic Party constituents who have little understanding of the economic consequences.
In order for a politician to make an economically rational decision at the expense of a politically rational one, they must, in effect, decrease their likelihood of being elected. They must display political courage, which is what McCain displayed in his speech. There can certainly be an argument about how much political risk he really assumed in saying what he said and whether or not he’ll stick to his position when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, but he made the point and assumed some risk. That’s more than most will do, and I applaud him for it.
I can’t help but think he’ll fuck it up pretty quick though. I’d vote for Bill Clinton before I’d vote for his wife or that race-baiting snake oil salesman she’s running against, so McCain pretty much has my vote locked up. The only thing in doubt is how much drinking I’ll need to do after I pull the lever.
when the First Lady and the President’s daughter are under threat of sniper fire, but I’m pretty confident it’s not “stand in the open and force yourself on young girls.”
Of course this was the Clinton White House, so who really knows. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, we have the internet now, you need to watch what you say. I don’t know if it’s that particular brand of Clinton hubris or just rank political stupidity, but making statements that can be directly contradicted by video evidence is unbelievably stupid. To make matters worse, this wasn’t an off-the-cuff remark, it was part of a speech. Somebody had the opportunity to scrutinize this and say “this sounds a little stupid, perhaps someone running for president shouldn’t say it.”