Saint Nick Just Wants To Watch

Did you know there is an anti-Santa Claus? His name is Krampus, a mythical creature who accompanies Saint Nicholas in various regions of the world during the Christmas season. Krampus acts as an anti–Saint Nicholas, who instead of giving gifts to good children, gives warnings and punishments to the bad children. To the surprise of few, Krampus also loves to visit the homes of well-endowed young females to dole out attentive punishments, as evidenced by the photos below:

Traditionally, young men dress up as the Krampus in the first two weeks of December, particularly in the evening of December 5, and roam the streets frightening children and women with rusty chains and bells. In some rural areas the tradition also includes birching by Krampus, especially of young females.

Originally on PBH3: Bizarro Santa Is Angry And Loves Spanking Young Women

See Also: Krampus!, ArtOrder: Krampus, Holiday Horrors: KRAMPUS!, Krampustime is here, Krampus, and 9 Holiday Characters From Around the World.

Technorati Tags: santa claus, anti-santa claus, krampus, birching, spanking, evil, picture, anti-saint nick, saint nicholas, christmas, christmas eve, christmas gifts, pics, photos, illustrations, drawings, funny

“You’re suspended,” the entrance worker at the Park Slope Food Coop announced as I swiped my membership card. Some entrance workers speak softly, but not this one. Worse, there were a dozen other shoppers within earshot.

Flushed, defeated and taken aback — I knew I owed the co-op some work, but I didn’t know I had been blacklisted — I slunk around the corner for a takeout burrito…

The Flatbush Food Coop in Brooklyn, where guests are allowed to shop without joining and members who don’t want to serve work hours can pay a slight markup for items — Park Slope has one of the stiffest work requirements: 2.75 hours every four weeks for each adult member of a household.

It also has some of the best bargains. The organic spinach that costs $2.97 at the co-op fetches $3.99 at the Whole Foods in Union Square; 17 ounces of Bionaturae Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil costs co-op members $7.80 and Whole Foods shoppers $13.99.

Can you imagine that? Being denied at your fucking local organic totally locally organic Park Slope organic co-op? Imagine the shame and ridicule — that guy must feel like the Pol Pot of the Brooklyn nouveau-aristocracy! Plus, cheerleading 8 years of neoconservatism just gets so tiresome.. you know, with all the manufacturing of evidence and statistics and so forth.

Anyway, long story short, everytime a quotidian tragedy of being rich and White in America is reported by the New York Times, an Iraqi child loses a limb.

See Also: This is One Reason Red America Hates “Coastal Elites,” and They’re Right, NYT: Food Co-op Exile’s Story Demands 2,000 Words, “flunking out” at the co-op, The New York Times’ on The Ultimate Brooklyn Cliches, and This Weekend in ‘New York Times’ Food News.

Technorati Tags: i hate the new york times, the new york times provides us with the names of people who need to be guillotined, bourgeois, iraq war, hey who cares about the world white people have problems, ny times, coops, brooklyn, aristocracy, the new york times is for uncritical bourgeois toolbags, rich people news

Percentage change since 2002 in average premiums paid to large US health-insurance companies: +87%

Percentage change in the profits of the top ten insurance companies: +428%

Chances that an American bankrupted by medical bills has health insurance: 7 in 10

[via Common Dreams]

There are six lobbyists [from the health care industry] for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate, according to Senate records, and three times the number of people registered to lobby on defense. More than 1,500 organizations have health-care lobbyists, and about three more are signing up each day. Every one of the 10 biggest lobbying firms by revenue is involved in an effort that could affect 17 percent of the U.S. economy.

These groups spent $263.4 million on lobbying during the first six months of 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group, more than any other industry. They spent $241.4 million during the same period of 2008. Drugmakers alone spent $134.5 million, 64 percent more than the next biggest spenders, oil and gas companies.

[via Pensito Review]

One thing is for certain with these kinds of numbers — health care reform is going to RULE!

Days before his inauguration, Obama made it clear he would close Guantanamo Bay, begin the process of moving current detainees through US or international legal systems, and stop torture from being committed by Americans. In fact, he blankly stated [via MSNBC]:

“I was clear throughout this campaign and was clear throughout this transition that under my administration the United States does not torture,” Obama said… “We will abide by the Geneva Conventions. We will uphold our highest ideals.”

And now? [via Wall Street Journal]

The Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a U.S. military commission…

Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration argues that the legal basis for indefinite detention of aliens it considers dangerous is separate from war-crimes prosecutions. Officials say that the laws of war allow indefinite detention to prevent aliens from committing warlike acts in future, while prosecution by military commission aims to punish them for war crimes committed in the past.

Yes, you read that right folks! Barack Obama’s administration is using the same legal justification as George Bush’s to detain ’suspected war criminals’, even if they are found innocent by a military tribunal or American court.

Oh, and remember how he was opposed to Bush’s consolidation of powers in the executive branch and the NSA wiretapping program:

This is in late 2007, but Obama’s message is clear: Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program is illegal, against the principle and spirit of the Constitution, and completely unjustifiable, even with ‘terrorist threats’.

Welp, 6 months into his administration, guess what! Obama now wants to protect the warrantless wiretap program [via the Electronic Frontier Foundation]:

The Obama administration formally adopted the Bush administration’s position that the courts cannot judge the legality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) warrantless wiretapping program, filing a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA late Friday.

The Obama Justice Department claims in its motion that litigation over the wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged “state secrets.” These are essentially the same arguments made by the Bush administration three years ago in Hepting v. AT&T, EFF’s lawsuit against one of the telecom giants complicit in the NSA spying.

Oh, and not to mention that he is now encouraging failed banks and companies receiving government bailouts to hand out large bonuses to their executives, staffed his entire Treasury Department with Goldman Sachs alumni, has refused to prosecute Americans who committed torture, and held private meetings with coal executives and continued to push for mythical ‘clean coal’.

See Also: Judge Suppresses Coerced Confessions and Refuses to Delay Hearing in Gitmo Case, Obama Fails as America’s CEO, Obama Task Force To Delay Report On Detainee Policy, Now even the report on Guantanamo is delayed, Civilian court: first stop for terrorism cases?, and Obama Stalls On Guantanamo Accountability.

Technorati Tags: barack obama, torture, geneva convention, detainees, indefinite detention, warrantless wiretaps, warrantless wiretapping, campaign promises, Guantanamo Bay

What I think, sadly, is that Matt Taibbi is becoming the Sarah Palin of journalism. He seems to deliberately eschew understanding his subjects, because only corrupt, pointy-headed financial journalists who have been co-opted by the system do that. And Matt Taibbi is here to save you from those pointy headed elites….

The more dangerous thing is that Taibbi makes a lot of people feel like they finally understand how they were conned. Taibbi’s facile use of technical terms, his lengthy explanation of little-known secrets that have been endlessly rehashed on every financial page for going on a decade, gives people the illusion that they have acquired valuable information about the financial crisis. They haven’t. They’ve acquired a bunch of disconnected vignettes.

Yes, Megan McArdle, who has spent her lifetime on earth regurgitating the talking points from Business Week on how to solve economic problems, is calling out Taibbi for misuse of technical terms (who ever said he was an economist?) and committing the egregious error of making people angry about things they should be angry about.

Two people asked a Pentagon official cooperating with prosecutors in an investigation into the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to fake his own death to avoid testifying against two pro-Israel lobbyists charged in the case, according to the Justice Department.

Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin pled guilty in October 2005 to participating in a conspiracy with AIPAC officials Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman to obtain and distribute classified information. The Justice Department dropped the case against Rosen and Weissman last month as a trial approached.

Remember kids: it’s treason and espionage, unless you do it for Israel.

See Also: Islamo-fascism, Judaeo-fascism, Bapto-fascism, and Why We Need More Bars, They Asked Him To Fake Suicide, AIPAC Case Witness Asked To Fake Suicide, Wag The Dog–Israel Threatens “Punishment” Against the US, and Why aren’t Jews outraged by Israeli occupation?

Technorati Tags: Lawrence Franklin, Steven Rosen, Keith Weissman, DOD, department of defense, espionage, aipac, jewish lobby, israeli lobby, traitor

See Also: Afghan was taken to Guantanamo aged 12-rights group, Obama, Taguba, and the new Abu Ghraib photos, Darth Crashcart Unplugged, Torture Memo, Do The Photos Show Rape?, Photos Obama won’t release include images of rape…(warning, graphic), It’s Torture!, Torture’s Harvest, Mancow gets waterboarded: “Absolutely torture. Absolutely. That’s drowning.”, Won’t Somebody Listen to the Generals (and Admirals and Majors)?, Watching Monsters, “… authorize torture as a method of interrogation, and rape logically becomes part of the continuum of efforts to break down a prisoner’s self-esteem.”, Cheney lied about torture, Abuse Photos, and Torture and the American Conscience.

Technorati Tags: us torture photos, american torture, guantanamo bay, united states torture program, torture pictures, photographs, photos taken of torture done by americans, american military, abu ghraib, beatings, sexual assault, documentation, evidence, barack obama

Exhibit A: You’re fat.

Punishment: You’re soaking in it.

[a mash up of the You's from the past 5 years Buffalo Beasts 50 Most Loathsome]

From 2004:

Crimes: You gaze idly at the carnage around you, sigh, and go calmly back to your coffee and your People magazine. You can’t stop buying useless crap, though you’re drowning in a deepening pool of debt. You think you’re an activist because you bitch all day on the internet, but you reelect the same gangsters at a 99% rate. You consider yourself informed because you waste a significant portion of your life watching the same three news stories cycle over and over again on your gargantuan, aerodynamic television set while you eat processed food. You really thought everything would be okay if Kerry won. Not only do you believe in an invisible man who magically farted out the universe, you also excoriate and marginalize those who disagree. You have a poorer understanding of your country’s foreign policy history than a third world peasant, but you can’t wait to see what Julia Roberts will be wearing at the Oscars. You cheer as Ukrainians challenge an election based on exit poll data, but keep waiting around for someone else to fix your problems. You can’t think, you can’t organize and you won’t act. This is all your fault.

Smoking Gun: You’re fat.

Punishment: You’re soaking in it.

From 2005:

You

Charges: Silently enabling and contributing to the irreversible destruction of your planet. Absolving yourself of your responsibility to do anything about it that your immediate neighbors don’t. Assuming that it’s normal behavior to spend several hours each day totally inert and staring into a cathode ray tube. Substituting antidepressants for physical motion. Caring more about the personal relationships of people you will never meet than your own. Shrugging your shoulders at the knowledge that your government is populated by criminal liars intent on fooling you into impoverished, helpless submission. Cheering this process on.

Exhibit A: You don’t even know who your congressman is.

Sentence: Deathbed realization that your entire life was an unending series of stupid mistakes and wasted opportunities, a priceless gift of potential extravagantly squandered, for which you deserve nothing but scorn or, at best, indifference, and a cold, meaningless demise.

From 2006:

16. You

Charges: Your whole life has been a pitiful exercise in rote mimicry, a meek subjugation of individuality in exchange for herd approval. Your delusions of “common sense” wisdom stem from an unwillingness to seek information and an inability to critically analyze it. You never hesitate to offer strong opinions on subjects you don’t know a damn thing about. You’re willing to believe anything a guy in a suit says on TV, as long as it doesn’t hint at your culpability in the negligent homicide of your country and planet or otherwise cloud your streak-free conscience. You’re more worried about friction on the “Desperate Housewives” set than the lack of health coverage at your tedious, soul-destroying job. You have no idea what is going on in the world, and you’re fine with that. You are why democracy doesn’t work.

Exhibit A: You’re Time magazine’s person of the year. So was Hitler.

Sentence: More of the same.

From 2007:

You

Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism — it’s nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes than actual people. You love to blame people for their misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over. You still think Republicans favor limited government. Your knowledge of politics and government are dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears’ children. You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy. You think you’re going to get universal health care. You tolerate the phrase “enhanced interrogation techniques.” You think the government is actually trying to improve education. You think watching CNN makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough. You can’t spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole reason that you don’t want to die. You think lowering taxes raises revenue. You think the economy’s doing well. You’re an idiot.

Exhibit A: You couldn’t get enough Anna Nicole Smith coverage.

Sentence: A gradual decline into abject poverty as you continue to vote against your own self-interest. Death by an easily treated disorder that your health insurance doesn’t cover. You deserve it, chump.

From 2008:

You

Charges: You think it’s your patriotic duty to spend money you don’t have on crap you don’t need. You think Hillary lost because of sexism, when it’s actually because she’s just a bad liar. You think Iraq is better off now than before we invaded, and don’t understand why they’re so ungrateful. You think Tim Russert was a great journalist. You’re hopping mad about an auto industry bailout that cost a squirt of piss compared to a Wall Street heist of galactic dimensions, due to a housing crash you somehow have blamed on minorities. It took you six years to figure out what a tool Bush is, but you think Obama will make it all better. You deem it hunky dory that we conduct national policy debates via 8-second clips from “The View.” You think God zapped humans into existence a few thousand years ago, although your appendix and wisdom teeth disagree. You like watching vicious assholes insult each other on TV. You support gun rights, because firing one gives you a chubby. You cuddle falsehoods and resent enlightenment. You think the fact that 43% of whites could stomach voting for an incredibly charismatic and eloquent light-skinned black guy who was raised by white people means racism is over. You think progressive taxation is socialism. 1 in 100 of you are in jail, and you think it should be more. You are shallow, inconsiderate, afraid, brand-conscious, sedentary, and totally self-obsessed. You are American.

Exhibit A: You’re more upset by Miley Cyrus’s glamour shots than the fact that you are a grown adult who is upset about Miley Cyrus.

Sentence: Invaded and occupied by Canada; all military units busy overseas without enough fuel to get back.

Ergo, “Momma, we’re gonna go to Applebee’s and you can get the best shrimp dinner you ever done have. PAW, fire up the ATV and put on your church clothes, we’re going into town!”

Technorati Tags: applebees, applebee menus, google trends, mothers day, worst mothers day ever, may 10th 2009, funny image, where do people take their moms on mothers day, where to go on mothers day, picture

In the first quarter of 2009,

The U.S. economy shrank at a pace of 6.1% in the first quarter

Yet…

Purchases by individuals rose at an annual 2.2% rate, the first time personal spending rose since the second quarter of 2008.

But…

Personal income decreased $29.1 billion, or 0.2 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $10.5 billion, or 0.1 percent, in February, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $17.2 billion, or 0.2 percent.

So, let’s get this straight. Personal income decreased by approximately $30 billion, the GDP shrank by 6.1%, and yet people are spending 2.2% more than they were a year ago? Are you people trying to get your god damn flat screen TV’s foreclosed?!

See Also: Confidence Is Up, The disconnect of my economy with the money economy, What Good Is Modern Finance?, GDP Falls 6.1%, GDP falls 6.1% in the first quarter. What does that mean?, Weaker Than Expected GDP, Team Obama Miscalculates US GDP Growth By Nearly Half a Trillion Dollars, Not Depressed Yet, The rising specter of unemployment, The End of Capitalism?, and Tuning Back In to the Economy.

Technorati Tags: economy, personal income, contraction, recession, behavioral economics, spending money, personal consumption, gdp numbers, first quarter 2009, april 2009, economics, individual spending, expenditures, disposable income, consumer spending, 2009 stats