Tag Archives: president

Phillip Morris USA Continues to Slowly Assassinate President Barack Obama [Politics]

President Barack Obama ‘s first periodic physical exam—in which the Chief White House Physician examines him at Bethesda Medical Center to serve up “a candid assessment of the President’s ability to carry out his duties”—is complete. The results? He’s fine! President Barack Obama is, as they say, “Fit for duty.” But note the physicians recommendation, from the report : For those who like words more than words in pictures, that says “Continue smoking cessation efforts,” as in, keep quitting smoking. For the record: cessation |seˈsā sh ən| noun a ceasing; an end : the cessation of hostilities | a cessation of animal testing of cosmetics. a pause or interruption : a cessation of respiration requiring resuscitation. And how many smokers do you know who are “quitting” (all of them) and who have actually quit? None. Also, it notes that the president is using what’s referred to as a “nicotine replacement therapy.” Obama is not superhuman. We know this because he doesn’t shoot lightening out of his dick. Therefore, like every other red-blooded American who’s on The Gum, The Patch, or The E-Cigarette, he’s either (A) still smoking or (B) addicted to The Gum, The Patch, or The E-Cigarette. I know this because there are 1. No fewer than five smokers on the Gawker masthead, all of whom have probably told someone in the last year that they’re “trying to quit” and 2. One who chews nine boxes of The Gum a day and 3. If you’ve ever smoked, know a smoker, have tried to quit, or have quit, you just know this. There’s no such thing as “quitting” smoking. Just like there’s no such thing as being on a “diet.” You’re either healthy or you’re not. Or “kinda seeing someone.” You’re either leaving your cell phone charger at her apartment, or you’re not. Or you’re just dealing with more bullshit from people telling you to stop doing something you know isn’t good for you, that you also kinda want to stop doing, but for the moment, don’t, because you have more important shit on your mind, and you’re either gonna get around to it before you’re dying from it, or not. Bottom line. Obama’s probably still smoking. And this is a good thing. After the year he’s had, we’d have cause for concern if he wasn’t smoking. You know? Smokers know. Let the guy enjoy a nail every once in a while. It’s for our own good. Gawker Presidential Health Assessment : He’s fine. Fuckoff.

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Phillip Morris USA Continues to Slowly Assassinate President Barack Obama [Politics]

Knopf Editor Makes Great Case for Editors in Poorly Written Post About Needing Editors [Fuckups]

If you wrote a piece for the Huffington Post entitled Do You Really Need an Editor at a Publishing House? , you’d make a strong case, right? The answer, as evidenced by Knopf editor Carole Baron , is a resounding absolutely . Besides the fact that no good editor in their right mind would tell someone trying to make a coherent argument for their job to write a post so explicitly arguing for their job , they wouldn’t let them title it Do You Really Need an Editor at a Publishing House? nor would they let them publish it on the Huffington Post . Where content mostly goes to die. Unless someone else picks it up for being extraordinary in some way, which Baron’s post most certainly is . Clunky Prose: It starts in the lede. Do you really need an editor at a publishing house? I am really annoyed. All this talk about digital. Not to nitpick, but why not? Besides the fact that the text itself is pretty misshapen on the site —a good web editor would’ve taken care of that—the first sentence is also the title of the post (redundancy), the second sentence is a wooden declarative that could simply be spiced up by making a contraction out of “I” and “am,” and the third sentence is a jagged fragment that doesn’t explain what the “talk” is nor what kind of “digital” she’s referring to. Yet most of you are cognizant individuals, and you know she’s referring to digital media, and that the “talk” of which is some idle chatter we’re probably going to learn about. Assuming readers can make it past the first three sentences. Clunky Pronouns : The writer said: “Why not? There is no editing anymore.” Not only is that not true, but it certainly didn’t understand the complex role of the editor in a publishing house. First of all, what kind of braindead company is Baron keeping? Jesus. Also, I know editors often think of writers less as people and more like book-writing-creatures who cost money, but referring to one as “it” seems mildly unnecessary. That is, of course, unless Baron was talking about the writer’s statement, which can only “understand” something in the figurative or poetic sense. Which she already lost credit for in the first sentence, regardless of which, that intention just patently isn’t the case. Finally, who refers to their own job as complex ? Lady, you’re not a machinist. Misspellings and Title Form : Jonathon Gallassi’s: “There Is More to Publishing Than Meets the Screen” in the New York Times, January 2, 2010, expressed it logically and eloquently. “Jonathon Gallassi” has a name, and it isn’t spelled like that. It’s Jonathan Galassi . He’s not exactly a name you want to spell wrong, as he’s the the President and Publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Also, New York Times should be italicized, and from a later sentence in the piece, “short changed ” is one word. WTF? : “And I am happy to say that as many as there are who complain, there are just as many who acknowledge the good work that editors can and do for a writer.” As many what, exactly? People? Penguins? If they’re penguins, they don’t acknowledge what an editor “can and do for a writer” so much as they acknowledge what an editor can do for a writer. Credit where credit’s due: we cribbed this item from a tipster…who wrote “makes the care for” instead of “makes the case for” in their original tip. And please , like we don’t have our fair share of typos on this site even with an editor. There’s probably one in this post! The difference between Baron and I, though, is that I’m not trying to make a case for an editor. My life is a case for editors. Ryan Tate put it best earlier this evening via email: Who will edit the editors? And who will edit the people who call for editing of the editors? Everything must eventually be published via wiki, is my point. A wiki that no one is qualified to edit. Then again, she could just be playing with our heads, as this might be part of an elaborate “meta” campaign for her job, in which case: golden. But that probably isn’t the case. She’s probably just an editor who needs a good editor. Or a good writer.

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Knopf Editor Makes Great Case for Editors in Poorly Written Post About Needing Editors [Fuckups]

Taliban Figure Apprehended, Kardashians Earn High Ratings, Newspaper Reports

Why are newspapers on the verge of bankruptcy? There are a few theories: they don’t charge for online content; immediate access to news via the Internet and cable news have made them irrelevant; and they have their priorities confused. If you need an example of the latter point, look no further than a copy of The Los Angeles Times from last week: The newspaper feauted Khloe, Kourtney and Kim Kardashian on its FRONT page, immediately below news on President Obama’s health care plans and the capture of a major Taliban figure. Imagine what happens if Khloe actually makes a sex tape . She might be above the fold next time!

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Taliban Figure Apprehended, Kardashians Earn High Ratings, Newspaper Reports

You, Sir, Have the Charisma of a Damp Rag!

British politician Nigel Farage goes ahead and speaks his mind about the President of the European Council. OUCH! [ Ed Note : Jeez, why so down on Belgium? Collateral damage, I guess.] The Best Links: Farage was rude but right about Van Rompuy Nigel Farage insults EU president Herman Van Rompuy Ukip’s Nigel Farage faces reprimand after calling Herman Van Rompuy ‘wet rag’ Eurosceptic MEP Farage in eye of storm Watch

How to Create 18 million Jobs

The job-creation proposals coming from the Obama administration, in the president's January 27 State of the Union address and elsewhere, generally point in the right direction, with more spending for clean energy, infrastructure and support for small businesses. These proposals follow from Obama's February 2009 economic recovery program, which injected $787 billion in new spending or tax relief into the economy over two years. However, just as last February's stimulus program was too small to counteract the evaporation of $16 trillion in household wealth resulting from the financial collapse, the scope of Obama's current proposals is nowhere near large enough for the situation today. For example, Obama has proposed $33 billion in new tax credits for small businesses. By contrast, private borrowing by businesses over the previous six months was down by $1.5 trillion relative to 2007, with the largest proportional cutbacks coming from small businesses. What's more, Obama's call to freeze discretionary federal spending in nonmilitary areas is dangerously misguided. The fiscal deficits of 2009 and 2010–at between $1.4 trillion and $1.6 trillion, or around 10 percent of GDP–are indeed very large. But the freeze obscures what Obama and his advisers clearly know–that deficit spending is part of the solution to our economic predicament and will remain so until we see millions of people getting hired into decent jobs. Here is what we need: a commitment from the Obama administration to create 18 million new jobs over the remaining three years of the presidential term. That would mean an average increase of about 500,000 jobs per month, or a bit more than 4 percent growth in job creation over the next three years. This can be done by combining two broad types of initiatives: measures to buttress the economy's floor and thereby prevent another 2008-type collapse, and measures to inject job-generating investments into the economy. If such initiatives are successful, the official unemployment rate will stand at around 4 percent when Obama runs for re-election in November 2012. Is This Realistic? The central features of this plan can remain within the framework of proposals already established by the administration. The key is getting the scale large enough. The only way this can happen is by combining the positive energies of the public and private sectors. This public-private approach is not only practically necessary; it will also counteract right-wing claims that the government is seizing control of the economy in the name of job creation. Most of the financial heft will have to come from banks and other private financial institutions. The banks alone are hoarding cash reserves totaling about $850 billion in their accounts at the Federal Reserve. Most of that money needs to be channeled into job-generating investments. For this to happen, interest rates and the risks for lending to small businesses need to fall substantially. But it will be necessary for the government to keep injecting spending into the economy, which will add to the deficit. Scare stories aside, the fiscal deficit is not dangerously large. The interest rates the government is paying on its borrowing–as opposed to the rates that businesses have to pay on much riskier loans–remain historically low, in the range of 2 to 3 percent. This is because the world's financial magicians of just a few years ago have chosen to protect their remaining wealth by buying up the safest possible assets they can find, which are US Treasury bonds. When Ronald Reagan was running up record-breaking deficits in the early 1980s, the interest rates on the bonds were around 13 percent. This huge gap in interest rates between now and the Reagan era will save the Treasury about $175 billion per year going forward. Also remember that falling unemployment rates reduce the deficit on their own, with each 1 percent drop generating about $90 billion in government revenues or reduced spending obligations. This is because when people are newly employed, they can support themselves and pay more taxes. We also need workers earning decent wages. Even if we didn't care about the ever-widening inequalities of wages, incomes and wealth, we would still need working people to have enough money in their pockets to boost sagging consumer markets. Conversely, when unemployment rises, the government is faced with huge extra spending burdens through unemployment insurance, food stamps, Medicaid and related social safety net commitments. The fiscal deficit could probably be eliminated altogether if unemployment could be driven down to around 4 percent, even without spending cuts or increases in tax rates. Finally, we can extract about $300 billion in savings and new revenues by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and by establishing a modest tax on speculative Wall Street trading. One argument against taking bold measures now is that, mass unemployment aside, the official indicators tell us that the recession is over. The economy did grow at a robust 5.7 percent over the past quarter, though that may be only a short-term blip, driven by businesses restocking their depleted inventories. But let's assume that a recovery is indeed under way at more or less the normal rate of progress relative to recent recessions. In fact, under such a “normal” scenario, unemployment would not likely fall to around 5 percent until early 2017. We would not likely hit 4 percent unemployment until mid- 2018, assuming the recovery could be kept going for another eight years. Even with a successful coordination of large-scale expansions of private and public spending, is it realistic to expect that the economy, which has been so trampled down for the past three years, could possibly create 18 million jobs over the next three years? It is an ambitious but realistic goal. This is basically the rate at which employment grew under Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter coming out of the 1974-75 recession. The Carter years are widely derided through the lens of his 1979 “malaise” speech. Yet the first three years under Carter generated the fastest expansion of job opportunities of any comparable period since, including any three-year stretch under Reagan or Clinton. The Carter presidency, of course, ended disastrously with the severe 1980 recession. But this was because OPEC and the oil companies doubled oil prices between 1979 and 1980. Even more important, Wall Street insisted at the time that Carter appoint Paul Volcker as chair of the Federal Reserve to stop the inflation that resulted from the oil price shock. Volcker immediately raised short-term interest rates, pushing them as high as 17 percent by April 1980. This brought unemployment up to 7.5 percent in time for Reagan's landslide victory over Carter in November 1980. (It is ironic that among Obama's top tier of economic advisers, the same Paul Volcker is taking the hardest line against Wall Street excesses.) … (please read the rest of the article at the nation: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100308 ) Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He is the founding co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI). His research centers on macroeconomics, conditions for low-wage workers in the US and globally, the analysis of financial markets, and the economics of building a clean-energy economy in the US. His books include A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the US and Contours of Descent: US Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity video from http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&a… added by: peterzylstramoore

Jay-Z Takes Credit For Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ Dance

Jay cracks jokes on BBC show about his wife stealing her most famous moves from him. By Jocelyn Vena Jay-Z and Beyonc

A Tale of Two Babies by Sarah Palin.

(Keep checking back throughout the day for updates.) “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…” For Sarah Palin back in March of 2008, this was especially true. She was right in the middle of trying to convince the people of Alaska that, despite all appearances, she was indeed pregnant with her fifth child, after surprising even her own staff with the news on March 6th. (Though at first she did not seem to put a lot of effort into convincing people as you can see from this photograph taken on March 29th, at the Spouses’ Luncheon. This is a scant twenty short days prior to Trig’s “birth.” You will notice that she’s wearing what appears to be a raincoat inside of her own house. And there’s nothing under those hands but a black scarf.) Obviously as she got closer to her due date she would have to put a little more effort into the deception. Perhaps a little padding would help. There, that’s much better. (The above picture was taken at the end of the legislative session in Juneau, on April 13, five days before Sarah supposedly gave birth, and only fifteen days after the picture from the Spouses’ Luncheon was taken.) The next twist in our storyline was Sarah’s trip to give a speech at the Republican Governor’s conference in Texas on April 18th. What really happened there? No one knows. But what is known for certain is that Sarah left the conference abruptly in the early afternoon of April 17th and came back to Alaska, a ten plus hour trip involving two four hour flights and a layover in Seattle. (Not only did this decision seem abrupt, but even Sarah’s security staff was not contacted and did not know she was arriving to have a baby until after the birth.)What is also known for certain is that no one has ever come forward to say that they noticed anything special or different about the Gov during this trip. In fact, she was seen reading a book in the lounge during the layover in Seattle. Whatever the truth, by noon on April 18th the Governor’s office had announced that at approximately 6:30 that morning Sarah Palin had given birth to a son. So now Sarah did not have to wear that cumbersome belly anymore and she could enjoy the warmth of spring in her shorts and sweatshirt. See how much more comfortable Governor Palin looks only a few days after she had that baby? And look at that beautiful baby boy! Let’s see if we can’t get a a better quality picture of that precious child shall we? (Below is a screenshot from, Palin best friend, Kristan Cole’s website which shows photos that Cole posted of a baby shower she hosted for Sarah Palin on a weekend in May, either the 3rd or 4th, I believe. A photo, not included here, but obviously from the same day was later provided to OK Magazine of Sarah and her newborn.) And here is the OK magazine shot, and its doppelganger from the baby shower. Now from that same baby shower we have this much more detailed picture of the child known as Trig Palin. (Please note that I have chosen not to show the face or release the name of the young girl holding “Trig” as she was a minor when these photos were taken.) He IS just adorable isn’t he? But wait a minute. Is there something a bit odd about this picture? Take a close look at this baby’s ear. Do you see that? Perhaps a closer view might help. According to one of the physicians I talked to that is a malformation of the helix. In this case, it’s noticeable and distinctive. And, although not as clear, in another picture taken at the same event, this time of the baby’s left ear, a similar malformation is possibly visible. Ear defects are often “bilateral” which means on both sides. Isn’t that odd? I don’t remember the Trig Palin who was photographed so many times on the campaign trail having that particular malformation. Oh that is because he didn’t. In fact it appears that Trig Palin has two absolutely perfect little ears. As you can plainly see in this photo of his left ear. Yet as you can see in this side by side comparison, it is crystal clear that the ear on the infant Trig does NOT match the ear on the older Trig. I showed the baby shower picture to a number of medical professionals, including an Ear, Nose, and Throat Specialist, a physician, an audiologist who specializes in children’s hearing issues, and a pediatrician (None of them knew they were looking at a picture of Sarah Palin’s child). Each agreed the ear is visibly malformed. I asked them if this defect could “heal” or disappear on its own. “Of course not”, they each replied. I then showed them pictures of Trig Palin’s ear from the campaign. Again, none knew they were looking at a photograph of Sarah Palin’s son. I asked all if it could possibly be the same child, four to five months later. The answer: “No.” Furthermore I learned that to correct conditions like this surgery is required, and that these surgeries are never performed before the age of four. And even if someone could have been located to perform plastic surgery on a child so young, the result would not be the “perfection” that Trig’s ear shows. Some scarring would still be visible. We have countless high-definition photos of Trig Palin’s head. Nothing of the sort can be seen in any of them. “So in other words” I asked. “You are saying that the child in the baby shower pictures must still have that same ear malformation today?’ Each of them answered in the affirmative. In fact here is a direct quote from one medical professional: “There is an approximately zero percent probability that these two sets of ears belong to the same infant.” So what does all of this mean? If that baby’s ear could not have healed on its own, then how can the Trig we see today have two perfectly formed ears? The answer is simple and shocking. Sarah presented an entirely different child to the world as Trig Palin on August 30, 2008. Just a fluke, you say? A trick of the camera? A shadow? Well, there’s more. She did not just do it once. Look again at this picture of Mercede holding this mystery baby in Sarah Palin’s kitchen, taken on a different day with a different camera. Look closely at that ear. Do you see it? It was there all along. This picture was taken the week right after Sarah “gave birth”. Here is another one. This time of Levi holding the child identified as the Governor’s son. (Seen for the first time on the Tyra Banks Show) (For those who wanted confirmation of the day these pictures of Levi and Mercede, with “ruffled ear” baby were taken I just learned that it was on May 3rd, Levi’s birthday. You can see his cake in the background in the picture above.) Do you see the ear? Again, although it’s not as clear, the ear of the baby in these photos has the same “ragged” pitted appearance. And you can see it in every shot taken that day. As most of you know I have been absolutely convinced that Sarah Palin did NOT give birth to a baby on April 18th, 2008. But what has come as a huge surprise was that on two separate occasions, she presented a newborn baby to two separate groups of people as Trig Palin her newborn son with Down syndrome. (She did it once in her own kitchen while presenting him to the Johnston family, and again at a baby shower given in her honor.) As you can plainly see THIS baby has a distinctive malformation of his ear. However the baby that was introduced to the nation only four months later does NOT have any malformation of his ear whatsoever. In fact, though today’s Trig has many of the characteristics of a Down syndrome child, he also possesses two perfectly shaped ears. As Andrea Friedman pointed out so eloquently: “My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes”.” Perhaps with this new evidence we can understand, now more than ever, why Sarah treats this child like a prop. Because that is EXACTLY what he is. It is well past time that the “lame stream media”, to use Sarah’s very own phraseology, start to ask the really hard questions about Sarah Palin’s pregnancy. When the questions first arose the Alaska media failed to do so. When they resurfaced five months later the McCain campaign failed to do so. And in all of this time since the world discovered Sarah Palin the national media has also failed to do so. It was left up to a rag tag group of bloggers to stay with the story until some real evidence could be produced. Well we have done our part, will the rest of the media do theirs? There are still so many questions left to answer. Who is the baby’s real mother? Who helped Sarah pull off this deception? Who else in her family knew about this? Exactly why did she feel the need to lie about her pregnancy? I am still conducting interviews and digging for those answers, but it would be ever so helpful if reporters with expense accounts and the support a national publication or television network would lend a hand. (By the way I encourage EVERYBODY to download pictures off of this post, and take screenshots of the blog. There is a very good chance that this will cause a tsunami of anger directed at me and the Immoral Minority. I have already saved it as a pdf file and I have many friends who have done the same. But just to be triple sure it would be nice to know the content is safe on friendly computer hard drives all across the world.) Update: Speaking of a “rag tag group of bloggers” my friend Bree Palin is on the case as well. Update 2: Palin’s Q & A joins the party ! Update 3: I notice that some people are getting fixated on the young woman whose face I blacked out. That young lady has NOTHING to do with the baby. She was just a girl who happened to be at the shower. It is also not one of the Palin girls. I would not have felt the need to protect their identity since they are already well known. Update 4: It looks like Todd did indeed quit the Iron Dog at Puntilla Lake . Hmm I wonder if he received a frantic phone call? (By the way thanks for the link Anonymous.) (The Fairbanks Miner has more .) Update 5: The Alaska Report asks the obvious question . Update 6: Let me clear up another misconception, this time about the photo on OK magazine. I did not say that it and the photo next to it were identical. I actually referred to it as a “doppelganger”, in other words, a “look-a-like”. If it had been the same picture I would have said “Look the same picture shows up in OK magazine.” However what is clear is that those two pictures were taken the same day, with the same camera, of the same baby, and only moments apart. The important point is to prove that Sarah herself had identified that baby as Trig Palin to a national audience. She was not just trying to fool a few friends and potential family members, she lied to the whole world. Update: Oh wow! I think I inspired a Facebook group . Cool!

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A Tale of Two Babies by Sarah Palin.

Scotty Lago Leaves Vancouver Olympics After Racy Photo Controversy

Snowboarder Scotty Lago bolted the Winter Olympics after a racy photo surfaced of him inviting girls to kiss his bronze medal. While it hung around his waist. The third-place finisher in the men’s halfpipe snowboarding event voluntarily left after the risque photos of a woman kissing and biting his … medal surfaced. The 22-year-old free spirit was snapped with his bronze medal around his waist and the hardware hung over his groin area on a public street late Thursday. Pretty rad display all around. A second shot showed a woman biting the medal, but this time Scotty Lago held it up by the logo on his Team USA T-shirt. Hey, a dude’s gotta celebrate . KISS OFF: Snowboarder Scotty Lago is in hot water with the U.S. Olympic Committee and Snowboard Association after inviting the ladies to kiss deez bronze medalz . In response to the controversy, Lago apologized to the U.S. Olympic Committee and the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, which required its athletes to attend a special program prior to the games to avoid potential PR nightmares. That was time well spent! Association President and CEO Bill Marolt said: “Scotty Lago is a great athlete, but with that talent comes a responsibility of proper conduct, and his involvement in this situation is not acceptable.” “With that said, Scotty realizes that his conduct was inappropriate. He has formally apologized and also made a decision to leave Vancouver today.” Reports say his “voluntary” departure was prompted by an ultimatum from the U.S. Olympic Committee: say you’re sorry and go or we kick you out. No further action against the Seabrook, N.H. native appears likely. In other Olympics news, how about those Lindsey Vonn photos ?! Hot damn!

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Scotty Lago Leaves Vancouver Olympics After Racy Photo Controversy

Project Runway: Girls Gone Wild

Project Runway is all about vision and delusion. The vision that making little clothes for little people is harder. The delusion that we care. The vision that little girls are pure. The delusion of tarting up a bunch of children. Last night’s Project Runway was a bit like smearing lipstick on a second grader or one of those shows where little JonBenet Ramseys twirl around in princess dresses trying to impress judges or like Jodi Foster in Taxi Driver but with better hair and worse clothing. It was like one of those. Pick a simile. The designers had to make an outfit for little girls between the ages of 5 and 8. They were each given a mini model and they were in turns cute, annoying, shy, loud, still, and squirmy. And because they needed something to keep the mature coat hangers busy, they were then given a surprise second look (!!!) for their big girl models. Fun. Well, not really because this challenge is one of the: Things We Hate Full-Tilt Lifetime Boogie : Really, a mommy and me challenge? This is ovary manipulation of the highest degree. This challenge was created so that the Midwestern moms targeted by the network could coo and aww and imagine that they were up there getting designed for by a bunch of hacks on a reality television program. These girls even melted Nina Garcia Fashion Director of Marie Claire Magazine. She actually smiled and it wasn’t her usual wince/grimace when she’s trying to not look like a huge bitch. It was a beaming that came directly from her uterus and snaked up her body pushing up the corners of her mouth. It was a horrible manipulation. Maya : What the fuck is going on with Maya. She was the only remaining designer not to show at the final runway show in Bryant Park last week, so we thought that meant she was going home for sure this week. No dice. Also, she was barely on this episode. Are they just trying to vanish her like it’s 1984 or something? Did she talk trash about Heidi and they’re going to erase her from the planet? And now we know she’s not in the final. How many weeks are we going to have to go carrying her bangs around like a backpack full of bricks? Listening to the Clients : Especially if they are little girls. Never do this. Ever. How many times do we have to teach this lesson? There are only four people you have to please and they never stand on the runway. They sit next to it in directors chairs stained with fake tanning solution and back sweat. Don’t make something for the girls, make something for the judges—every time! Seth Aaron Is Smart : Fucking asshole Seth Aaron. He has a daughter (how, how did that happen?!) so he knows what they like and made a purse, which his mini-model loved and made NGFDMCM’s lady parts twitch. We fucking hate him, but he is actually pretty good. His pair of designs looked like Gwen Stefani and her daughter, and that is a high compliment. He is going to do just enough right to get to the finals, isn’t he? God, he is Wendy Pepper with a penis. The Asshole Straight Guy : Nearly every season has had one, and Jeffrey Sebelia even won a season! You know the type, they are straight, abrasive, usually punk-rockish, and talk about their love of women and how it makes they design clothes for them, and it just pisses the rest of us off. This year we have two. Why can’t Seth Aaron Jingleheimer Schmidt and Logan Jesse. Why can’t we just have a bunch of girls and kooky gays? Straight guys have everything, just leave this for the girls and the gays! Bad Parenting : Don’t these girls have mothers? Where were they? They were just letting their impressionable young tots hang around with a bunch of absent-minded designers who want to exploit them for a win and a bunch of skinny models using them as props while teaching them sexy walks and the easiest way to barf up a baloney sandwich? Maybe these are all the kids of the producers and crew and they just all happen to have kids of about the same age, so they were really there behind the scenes. Anyway, I fear for these poor tykes. Things We Love Tim Gunn ‘s Peek : Every week, right after Tim hurries all the designers and their breathing mannequins out of the room for the runway show, he always opens the door to the workroom, peeks his head in, and looks around to make sure no one is in there. It’s like Tim is expecting to catch a stray designer hiding in the corner under a table quickly sewing the hem of a dress with an army of fairy helpers guiding the needle and thread. It’s so cute. And what if there was one? Would Grampa Gunn wing a Werther’s Original from his pocket and hit them in the head and tell them and their little fairies it’s time to go? Yellow : Both the ill-fated Jonathan and supremely ill-fated Maya used yellow this week. It was very cool. Why don’t we have more yellow clothing? Why don’t I have more yellow clothing? This needs to be corrected. Jay’s Outfit : Not the purple ruffley thing he made that made his 6-year-old look like a contestant on The Littlest Hooker , the one he wore while shopping at mood. It was a Kelly green sweater and shorts with some sort of printed sailboat pattern and probably topsiders (though we didn’t see the shoes closely). It was the most inappropriate getup we ever did see. He looked like he was dressed for a gay clam dig on Nantucket, but he was shopping in a fabric store in New York. It was so out of place it was amazing. The Boys : Last season the boys sucked and we thought it was some supreme Lifetime conspiracy to get all ladies to the end, which they did. Well, this year is the total opposite and the boys are kicking ass. Even if two of them are the horrible straight guys, we’re glad to have some penis power back in this competition. Maybe they’ve been taking the free lady vitamins that Lifetime put in their Atlas apartments and are somehow dodging the testosterone sensors at Parsons. Michael Kors Hates Kids : Of course he does, and it makes us love him even more. Lifetime Movies : God, they all suck. This week we had to watch commercials about Will Truman as a conman pretending to be a straight Rockefeller and marrying some lady so he could kidnap their kid. Also, Jill Scott is trying to win an Emmy for doing the TV version of Precious: A Television Drama Based on the Movie Precious Based on the Book by a Woman Who Wouldn’t Sell the Rights Unless Her Name was in the Title . They are so horrible, but we don’t want them to die. They’re like Sarah Jessica Parker’s little mole thingy. Her face isn’t be the same without it, and there is one fewer thing to pick on in the world. We miss that mole. “Bravo” : When congratulating a designer on a job well done, NGFDMCM said, “Bravo.” No, it’s Lifetime. Ha! That joke will never get old. In the end, Annoying Straight Man #1 took home the top prize for his little striped hoodie with watermelon pockets and a gorgeous black and white coat with a fucked-upedly fantastic collar that looked a bit like a fashion straight jacket for a couture S/M editorial shoot. The judges finally picked right and put Jay’s Barney purple tartlet creation and Jesse’s French-inspired preciousness in grey and red in the top as well. It was Tear up Weepy Janeane who was finally sent home for her boring blob of red and some other bullshit that she bought off etsy the night before and just passed off as her own. Bye-bye, dead weight, can’t you take Maya with you on your way out? Also horrible was Emilio’s Pepto Bismol poured in a shot glass and a champagne flute, Ben’s study in wilted lilacs, and Jonathan’s tissue explosion that he made with spare rolls from the Charmin Toilet off of the Brother Sewing Room. At least the last one had some yellow. Amy’s crazy “petal” pants—which looked like the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons —weren’t that bad. OK, yeah, they were. The petals weren’t finished and the colors were garish and the little girl looked like an orphan digging for trash in a alleyway right before Joseph Bologna shows up in a limo with a wonderful side part and puts her and four other girls in a band and lets them live in his mansion ( Rags to Riches , anyone?). Still, if Amy had made those petals in black, grey, and red and finished them, NGFDMCM and her estrogen-filled Easy-Bake Bun in the Oven would have climbed up onto the runway, thrown the kid out of the way and snatched them off the model’s body. But for Jonathan’s spot on Queen Tangerine impersonation, Suzanne Sugarbaker’s annoyance with little girls, and some other travesties, you have to go watch the videos. Don’t worry, we’ll babysit while you’re gone. We promise not to take LSD and put your baby in the microwave. Kors of the Matter Description : Jonathan finally show a little bit of personality with his funny German accent and his amazing Michael Kors impersonation. Vision : “Now is ze time on Schprockets ven vee make fun of Michael Kors.” Delusion : Sorry, kiddo, this isn’t as classic as Santino Rice doing Tim Gunn. Nice try. What Would Nina Say : “You know, my daughter does the most amazing impersonation of André Leon Talley eating Oreos.” Dramometer : 4 Under the Gunn Description : Tim goes to visit Amy, who is cutting out a bunch of frayed fabric to make some insane creation. Vision : Tim thinks this could be inspired, or clown clothes. Delusion : Oh, Gramps, the only thing that reeks more of clown clothes is the laundry room at Cirque du Soleil. What Would Nina Say : “If those pants were my child, I would have a late-term abortion.” Dramometer : 3 Suzanne’s Beauties Description : Our beloved Suzanne Sugarbaker is allergic to three things: subtlety, silence, and small children. Watch him try to deal with all three as the workroom is taken over by a bunch of howling banshees. Vision : This was exactly the producer’s vision of this challenge. Delusion : They are lucky that this is as messy as things got. We fully expected crying, and were sorely disappointed. What Would Nina Say : “Suzanne, you can babysit for me anytime.” Dramometer : 6 Runway Arrogance Description : Seth Aaron watches his design tromp and twirl its way to victory. Vision : This is what a girl wants, want a girl needs… Delusion : it makes us happy, but it won’t set us free of Seth Aaron. What Would Nina Say : “I could just eat you up! Yes I could!” Dramometer : 2 Caitlin the Hero Description : We do not like children any more than Michael Kors, but Amy’s model Caitlin is not afraid of bitchy old gay men who sell their wares at Marshalls. Oh hell no. She sticks up for her outfit right to Queen Tangerine’s face, and he gives her the scowl of disapproval. Vision : “I don’t care what you say old man, I like it!” Delusion : That a child would behave any other way. What Would Nina Say : See for yourself! Dramometer : 8

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Project Runway: Girls Gone Wild

Kamikaze Tax Rebel Joe Stack: Libtard or Wingnut?

Joe Stack , the bass-playing, tax-hating Austin divebomber who murdered at least one person yesterday, left a confusingly post-partisan populist suicide note, making it hard for pundits to assign blame for his actions to their political opponents. But they’re still trying. As soon as Stack’s suicide note was discovered online yesterday, the political calculations began: He hated Bush (so do liberals!). He hated taxes (so do Tea Partiers!). He hated religion, but he also thought we live under a totalitarian regime. He approvingly quoted Karl Marx, but he hated government bureaucrats. That’s quite an incoherent grab-bag of positions, often with mutually exclusive political implications, which isn’t really surprising seeing as how it was issued by someone who set his own house on fire and then piloted an airplane into a building. But since we’ve lately had a rash of sudden and random violence from politically motivated actors, from James von Brunn to Scott Roeder, the de rigeur (and sometimes justified) next step is to associate the murderer’s rantings with other law-abiding political partisans, and begin the laying of blame. Since Stack’s manifesto is so confusing, the initial moves yesterday as the event unfolded were preemptive: He’s not one of ours . Literally minutes after the note was discovered, CNN’s Rick Sanchez was on the air arguing that Stack’s condemnation of “presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies” should be taken with a grain of salt, because Stack also attacked “Obama’s policies” (though that’s not really true—he seems to support health care reform, and nothing about the tax system that Stack rails against is specifically associated with Obama). Time observed that the note “eerily reflected the angry populist sentiments that have swept the country in the past year,” obliquely referring to the teabaggers. Meanwhile, the right-wingers at Newsbusters started complaining that the “liberal media” was deliberately covering up Stack’s shout-out to Marx , which constituted “perhaps the most politically consequential lines in the entire note” and proved conclusively that he was no teabagger. Last night, Laura Ingraham warned Bill O’Reilly that “over the next few days, you will hear from the left and all the crazies that, you know, we talk about other networks and so forth trying to tie CPAC maybe, the Tea Party movement, all of this anger on the right that is out there…. I mean, you’re going to hear that. I don’t think it’s believable. The guy is obviously a total nut.” And this morning. Michelle Malkin launched a screed against the “furious left-wing bloggers” trying to link Stack to right-wing rage, arguing that “no law-abiding Tea Party group would ever condone what he did” (ignoring the question of how the law- breaking Tea Party groups feel about it). It’s all a tiresome little game, really. When someone who hates taxes and the government kills people, he’s a lone nut and anyone who says otherwise is a disingenuous liberal. When a Muslim who hates the war in Afghanistan kills people, he’s part of a sophisticated international terrorist conspiracy and anyone who says otherwise is a traitor . The same people who are so strenuously declaiming that anti-tax rhetoric and ideas had nothing to do with his crime were literally days ago shouting that the Alabama professor who shot up her tenure committee was a “‘ far-left political extremist who was ‘obsessed’ with President Obama ‘”—as though we are at risk of a rash of gun crimes from Harvard-educated lefties. Stack is one in a long, long line of people who have attempted to injure or kill IRS agents . People have hated tax collectors for as long as people have liked money. Honestly, his profile— a bass player in the Austin country-rock scene, graduate of the Milton Hershey School for troubled teens in Pennsylvania, and lover of jazz —doesn’t seem to align too well with the reactionary gun-toting revanchist types that show up at Tea Party rallies. He sounds a little like a hippie. And to the extent that his little screed seemed to take up opposing threads of the contemporary political debate, it’s silly to try to fit him into a caricature of either side. He was motivated by rage at his own failures, for which he blamed faceless bureaucrats. But he did hate the IRS, and he did hate taxes, and he did feel entitled to not have to pay them. Political partisans will always be able to find examples of violent extremism with which to tar their opponents. The balaclava-clad lefties who throw rocks at G5 meetings are ideological cousins of the American left, just as Timothey McVeigh and Eric Rudolph were ideological cousins of the teabaggers. The difference is that the Democratic Party establishment isn’t currently engaged in actively fomenting the sort of rage that motivates the fringe of their party. The problem isn’t that the right wing is creating Joe Stacks, or should be held responsible for inciting them. It’s impossible to know whether Stack would have done what he did absent a current environment of deluded anti-government hysteria on the right wing, but given the facts that his grievances go back to the Reagan era and that he seems to have been squeezed to despair by the recession, it’s likely that his rage transcended the Fox News-driven political dynamic. And there will always be people like him. The problem is that the GOP and Fox News are currently addressing their political messaging to people like him. They’re not creating or inciting the right-wing fringe so much as bringing it in from the cold.

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Kamikaze Tax Rebel Joe Stack: Libtard or Wingnut?