News to Make You Blue

The Best Of You

by News to Make You Blue on May 20, 2009 |   Trackback URI   |     Email This Post Email This Post   |   29 Views  

You gaze idly at the carnage around you, sigh, and go calmly back to your coffee and your People magazine. 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 shrug your shoulders at the knowledge that your government is populated by criminal liars intent on fooling you into impoverished, helpless submission. You cheer this process on. 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. 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 cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You never hesitate to offer strong opinions on subjects you don’t know a damn thing about. 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 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 are shallow, inconsiderate, afraid, brand-conscious, sedentary, and totally self-obsessed. You are American. You are why democracy doesn’t work. You are an idiot.

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]

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Hit me with your best shot!

by News to Make You Blue on May 15, 2009 |   Trackback URI   |     Email This Post Email This Post   |   10 Views  

Actually, this kinda hurts [note: all of these are taken from Buffalo Beast's 50 Most Loathsome annual lists]:

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.

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Worst Mothers Day Ever

by News to Make You Blue on May 10, 2009 |   Trackback URI   |     Email This Post Email This Post   |   19 Views  

All across America, Mothers are getting the worst Mothers Day ever:

worst mothers day ever Worst Mothers Day Ever

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

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Who are you people?

by News to Make You Blue on April 29, 2009 |   Trackback URI   |     Email This Post Email This Post   |   39 Views  

Nothing says getting out of a recession like keeping up the behavior that got us into it in the first place:

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

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Torture Gets A Pass, But Letter Writing…

by News to Make You Blue on April 21, 2009 |   Trackback URI   |     Email This Post Email This Post   |   59 Views  

So, you can apparently torture without recourse in America:

The Obama administration on Thursday released top secret memos outlining the legal rationale used to justify the CIA’s torture of terror suspects, but vowed not to prosecute the torturers.

“It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department,” Attorney General Eric Holder said.

But, defending a Guantanamo prisoner and writing a letter detailing his torture, welp.. that’ll get your ass sent to jail:

A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who accused a Bay Area company of flying him to foreign torture chambers for the CIA is at the center of a bizarre new case, in which his lawyers face possible jail sentences for writing a letter that asked President Obama to disclose how brutally he was treated.

Only in America.

See Also: A Light At The End Of The Torture Tunnel, Torture Prosecutions Still On The Table, WH Press Secy: There Will Be No Accountability For Torture, Olbermann: “President Obama, You Are Wrong”, The CIA waterboarded two people 266 times… Do you feel safer?, Torture: I’m talking to Yoo, Torture: Obama Is on a Slippery Slope, and This Week In the Conservative Underbelly: Tea Parties, Torture, and Telling.

Technorati Tags: torture, prosecution, torture memos, cia, central intelligence agency, Guantanamo bay, Guantanamo prison, interrogations, interrogation methods

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Woman: [Shouts] “Burn the books!” [applause]

Man: “I don’t think you were serious about that, were you?”

Woman: “I am too.”

Man: “Burn all the books?!”

Woman: “The ones in college, those, those brainwashing books.”

Man: “[laughs] Brainwashing books?”

Woman: “Yes.”

Man: “Which ones are those?”

Woman: “Like, the evolution crap, and, yeah…”

And that’s just one meeting.

Via AS and LGF

See Also: The Tea Baggers’ Strange Brew, A Quick Glimpse Into The Project 9/12 Tea Parties, The Degree To Which Fox News Isn’t Trying Is Amazing, I got your leading conservative intellectual right here, The Mirror Speaks, The Reflection Lies, Here is what happens when political propaganda is fed to a weak mind…, Neil Cavuto of FauxNews is a Time Traveler, Andrew Sullivan, astroturfing Republicans and GOP hypocrisy, Mad As Hell, and Burn Those Evil Science Books!

Technorati Tags: glenn beck, glen beck, fox news, tea parties, insane video, evolution, book burning, mind control, media control, obama, barack obama, stimulus, tax rights, tax parties, april 15, 912, conservative, libertarian, deficits, ayn rand, ron paul, crazy fucks, anti-american, george soros, burn the books, brainwashing

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This is beyond depressing:

Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed face the incredible prospect of a six-month jail sentence in America after writing a letter to President Obama detailing their client’s allegations of torture by US agents…

Clive Stafford Smith, director of legal charity Reprieve, and his colleague Ahmed Ghappour have been summoned to appear before a Washington court on May 11 after a complaint was made by the privilege review team.

The privilege team argue that by releasing the redacted memo Reprieve has breached the rules that govern Guantánamo lawyers and have made a complaint to the court of “unprofessional conduct”.

Yes, you read that right — you can essentially go to jail for 6 months for writing a letter to the President about torture. Hear no evil, see no evil, right?

See Also: Torture And The Other, Getting Your Face Wet, What We Do And Don’t Know About US Medical Personnel and Interrogations, A Month of Crucial Decisions on Torture, Torture, It’s Strictly Confidential, Why is Obama Alienating His Base?, and Red Cross report details CIA war crimes.

Technorati Tags: torture, reprieve, legal charity, binyam mohamed, Guantanamo bay, torture, abuse, cia, prison abuse, president obama, barack obama

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It’s been confirmed: all the white phosphorous dumped onto Gazans by Israel (which children deserve because they hate freedom) came from American manufactures:

The human rights group said the Israeli military had used white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas, which it said was an indiscriminate form of attack and a war crime. Its researchers found white phosphorus still burning in residential areas days after the ceasefire.

At the scene of an Israeli attack that killed three Palestinian paramedics and a boy in Gaza City on 4 January, Amnesty found fragments of an AGM114 Hellfire missile, made by Hellfire Systems of Orlando, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The missile is often fired from Apache helicopters

See Also: Amnesty calls for arms embargo against Israel, Lieberman & Lieberman: Together at Last, On the one hand, Israel, and Death of Asil: An Israeli-Palestinian Tragedy.

Technorati Tags: israel, white phosphorous, amnesty international, war crimes, gaza, palestine, palestinian genocide, gaza city, international law

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