But, but . . . his heart was in the right place . . .

From Sweetness and Light, we are reminded how some men of power and high regard are so blinded by their passions and self-righteousness that they will commit treason.

The Crusader – Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, Paul Krengor

Appendix

TEXT OF KGB LETTER ON SENATOR TED KENNEDY
_________________________________________
Special Importance Committee on State Security of the USSR 14.05. 1983 No. 1029 Ch/OV Moscow
Regarding Senator Kennedy’s request to the General Secretary of the Communist Party Comrade Y.V. Andropov

Comrade Y.V. Andropov

On 9-10 May of this year, Senator Edward Kennedy’s close friend and trusted confidant J. Tunney was in Moscow. The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Center Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov.

Senator Kennedy, like other rational people, is very troubled by the current state of Soviet-American relations. Events are developing such that this relationship coupled with the general state of global affairs will make the situation even more dangerous. The main reason for this is Reagan’s belligerence, and his firm commitment to deploy new American middle range nuclear weapons within Western Europe.

According to Kennedy, the current threat is due to the President’s refusal to engage any modification on his politics. He feels that his domestic standing has been trengthened because of the well publicized improvement of the economy: inflation has been greatly reduced, production levels are increasing as is overall business activity. For these reasons, interest rates will continue to decline. The White House has portrayed this in the media as the "success of Reaganomics."

Naturally, not everything in the province of economics has gone according to Reagan’s plan. A few well known economists and members of financial circles, particularly from the north-eastern states, foresee certain hidden tendencies that many bring about a new economic crisis in the USA. This could bring about the fall of the presidential campaign of 1984, which would benefit the Democratic party. Nevertheless, there are no secure assurances this will indeed develop.

The only real threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations. These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign. The movement advocating a freeze on nuclear arsenals of both countries continues to gain strength in the United States. The movement is also willing to accept preparations, particularly from Kennedy, for its continued growth. In political and influential circles of the country, including within Congress, the resistence to growing military expenditures is gaining strength.

However, according to Kennedy, the opposition to Reagan is still very weak. Reagan’s adversaries are divided and the presentations they make are not fully effective. Meanwhile, Reagan has the capabilities to effectively counter any propaganda. In order to neutralize criticism that the talks between the USA and the USSR are non-constructive, Reagan will grandiose, but subjectively propagandistic. At the same time, Soviet officials who speak about disarmament will be quoted out of context, silenced or groundlessly and whimsically discounted. Although arguments and statements by officials of the USSR do appear in the press, it is important to note the majority of Americans do not read serious newspapers or periodicals.

Kennedy believes that, given the current state of affairs, and in the interest of peace, it would be prudent and timely to undertake the following steps to counter the militaristic politics of Reagan and his campaign to psychologically burden the American people. In this regard, he offers the following proposals to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Y.V. Andropov:

1. Kennedy asks Y.V. Andropov to consider inviting the senator to Moscow for a personal meeting in July of this year. The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA. He would also like to inform you that he has planned a trip through Western Europe, where he anticipates meeting England’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President Mitterand in which he will exchange similar ideas regarding the same issues. If his proposals would be accepted in principle, Kennedy would send his representative to Moscow to resolve questions regarding organizing such a visit. Kennedy thinks the benefits of a meeting with Y.V.Andropov will be enhanced if he could also invite one of the well known Republican senators, for example, Mark Hatfield. Such a meeting will have a strong impact on American and political circles in the USA (In March of 1982, Hatfield and Kennedy proposed a project to freeze the nuclear arsenals of the USA and USSR and pblished a book on the theme as well.)

2. Kennedy believes that in order to influence Americans it would be important to organize in August-September of this year, televised interviews with Y.V. Andropov in the USA. A direct appeal by the General Secretary to the American people will, without a doubt, attact a great deal of attention and interest in the country. The senator is convinced this would receive the maximum resonance in so far as television is the most effective method of mass media and information. If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interview. Specifically, the president of the board of directors of ABC, Elton Raul and television columnists Walter Cronkite or Barbara Walters could visit Moscow. The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side.

Furthermore, with the same purpose in mind, a series of televised interviews in the USA with lower level Soviet officials, particularly from the military would be organized. They would also have an opportunity to appeal directly to the American people about the peaceful intentions of the USSR, with their own arguments about maintaining a true balance of power between the USSR and the USA in military term. This issue is quickly being distorted by Reagan’s administration.

Kennedy asked to convey that this appeal to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is his effort to contribute a strong proposal that would root out the threat of nuclear war, and to improve Soviet-American relations, so that they define the safety of the world. Kennedy is very impressed with the activities of Y.V. Andropov and other Soviet leaders, who expressed their commitment to heal international affairs, and improve mutal understandings between peoples.

The senator underscored that he eagerly awaits a reply to his appeal, the answer to which may be delivered through Tunney.

Having conveyed Kennedy’s appeal to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Tunney also explained that Senator Kennedy has in the last few years actively made appearances to reduce the threat of war. Because he formally refused to partake in the election campaign of 1984, his speeches would be taken without prejudice as they are not tied to any campaign promises. Tunney remarked that the senator wants to run for president in 1988. At that time, he will be 56 and his personal problems, which could hinder his standing, will be resolved (Kennedy has just completed a divorce and plans to remarry in the near future). Taken together, Kennedy does not discount that during the 1984 campaign, the Democratic Party may officially turn to him to lead the fight against the Republicans and elect their candidate president. This would explain why he is convinced that none of the candidates today have a real chance at defeating Reagan.

We await instructions.

President of the committee

V. Chebrikov

About That Kennedy, II

The News Hour with Jim Lehrer provides today's ration of nauseating Kennedy hagiography. Let's inspect the closing sentiments from the Deans of Washington Conventional Wisdom, Mark Shields and David Brooks.

Lehrer: [paraphrasing] final words on Kennedy?

Shields: Kennedy leaves a legacy of bipartisanship in the Senate, which is factious (sic) and fractured, and an unpleasant place. [He represented] an ability to stand firmly for what you believe and, at the same time, to see in those with whom you disagree a humanity and a capacity for compromise and consensus.

Brooks: He could exercise great anger, when he disapproved, but it was not resentment, and so it never got quite as personal, so for conservatives in the wilderness that is a model for them, to find the best in your tradition and to follow it the way he followed liberalism when it was in the wilderness during Reaganism.

Really?

An ability to stand firmly for what you believe and at the same time to see in those with whom you disagree a humanity and a capacity for compromise and consensus?

Really?

Not resentful and never personal?

Really?

1987 – Floor of the United States Senate:

Mr. President, I oppose the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, and I urge the Senate to reject it.

In the Watergate scandal of 1973, two distinguished Republicans — Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus — put integrity and the Constitution ahead of loyalty to a corrupt President. They refused to do Richard Nixon's dirty work, and they refused to obey his order to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. The deed devolved on Solicitor General Robert Bork, who executed the unconscionable assignment that has become one of the darkest chapters for the rule of law in American history.

That act — later ruled illegal by a Federal court — is sufficient, by itself, to disqualify Mr. Bork from this new position to which he has been nominated. The man who fired Archibald Cox does not deserve to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. Bork should also be rejected by the Senate because he stands for an extremist view of the Constitution and the role of the Supreme Court that would have placed him outside the mainstream of American constitutional jurisprudence in the 1960s, let alone the 1980s. He opposed the Public Accommodations Civil Rights Act of 1964. He opposed the one-man one-vote decision of the Supreme Court the same year. He has said that the First Amendment applies only to political speech, not literature or works of art or scientific expression.

Under the twin pressures of academic rejection and the prospect of Senate rejection, Mr. Bork subsequently retracted the most Neanderthal of these views on civil rights and the first amendment. But his mind-set is no less ominous today.

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.

America is a better and freer nation than Robert Bork thinks. Yet in the current delicate balance of the Supreme Court, his rigid ideology will tip the scales of justice against the kind of country America is and ought to be.

The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination, if it is not rejected by the Senate, could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term. President Reagan is still our President. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate, and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and on the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.

And did I mention that the nominee is a pedophile, eats puppies, sleeps with farm animals, worships Satan on the corpses of nuns and priests, and is incontinent? And he does not wash his hands after using the toilet.

This speech is credited with changing the tone of Washington and introducing the politics of personal destruction. Perhaps. Sydney Brillo Duodenum is highly dubious that Sen. Kennedy’s speech represented anything new in Washington polemics. That’s to argue that Joe Kennedy, Sr. was a saint and his son was the bad seed that changed the world. Perhaps what was new was the brio and lust with which the media, then fully aghast at the presumption of the Reagan Presidency, took the Kennedy harangue and used it to further indict Reagan and conservatives. Chickens and eggs.

In any event, the speech is a slice of the Edward Kennedy style. Yes, yes, he was a man of passion and belief in his causes, and you can’t fault him for consistently staying on message, but so often his advocacy was advanced by impugning the morality and intentions of his policy adversaries. A disagreement about the precise amount to increase the minimum wage is actually a discussion of undeserved gross corporate profit for heartless elitists versus a husbandless mother of three trying to make enough money to earn bus fare to take her to the ritzy part of town so she can search through the garbage bins of fancy restaurants.

In private, in the company of sycophants and fawners and Camelotians, he let bare the prime Kennedy signature. Some years ago, your host penetrated the Lion’s sanctum sanctorum, the Senator’s Embassy Row mansion, to attend a “Literary Night” PTA fundraiser for SBD’s child’s school (the literary draw being the Senator himself on the occasion of the publishing of one of his books on the policy route out of the supposed conservative hell that had been imposed on Washington).

The common image of Senator Kennedy is of a bloated, red-faced, tottering boulder in tweed and tiny loafers, screaming spittle into the well of the Senate chamber. But at that point in his purgatorio, Senator Kennedy had actually slimmed down, his face had lost its bulberous aspects and gin rumminess, his hair was not yellow, his eyes almost white and bagless, and he appeared to be holding steady with a simple Chardonnay. He looked somewhat svelte, healthy and chipper. But when he tacked into the welcoming hot gusts of wide eyed admiration billowing off the faces of Washington’s most elite and insufferable, in the living room of the Kennedy mansion, next to a piano on which sat a silver framed black and white portrait of the Kennedy clan playing football on the lawn in Hyannis, it took only minutes for him to transform into the red-faced, screaming spittle lion of the Senate, impugning his adversaries and practically questioning whether they deserved to live to see the next day. He denounced Bush. No surprise, really. But he accused him of literally destroying the country and ruining public education in the United States with No Child Left Behind, because it still wasn’t enough money and was framed by the canard of holding schools accountable. Kennedy accused Bush of doing so out of spite and absolute indifference to the future of children. Kennedy promised the assembled that he would not stop until education received the funding necessary to make this country great again. And he tied it to the minimum wage and abortion choice and civil rights and the entire Liberal Litany. This received many righteous head nods among the 20-something teachers in attendance as well as the parents. Strange, heaving stuff, particularly considering that Kennedy had worked so closely with Bush on crafting NCLB and appeared a the bill signing and glad handed all around. At one point, Kennedy simply appeared as a giant red balloon looming over the gathering, with all awaiting its explosion.

Brooks is absolutely wrong. It was personal and there was a great deal of resentment. Shields is absolutely wrong. Kennedy ascribed no humanity to conservatives. Whatever it was they had agreed to, though, it was apparently not enough; it was not fair. The impression was that compromise was and always would be unacceptable to this man, and any agreement or bipartisanship was something akin to a hudna, a tactical moment of peacemaking, during which you work to defeat your foe during the disadvantage occasioned by the weakness he showed in agreeing to a compromise.

In any event, it should come as no surprise that "Washington" would eulogize with more lies and misrepresentations of Kennedy. It's how they conducted themselves when he was alive.

Behold: The KFC Double Down Chicken Sandwich

Available only to lucky bastards in Rhode Island and Nebraska.

About That Kennedy

Sydney Brillo Duodenum's Catholic stringer Saul Menowitz weighs in on the passing of the Irish Chieftain .

Sorry, but I just can't get all weepy about his passing. My only real concern is that BHO not be able to use this "tragedy" to push death care through.

How should I feel about this? Ted is responsible for the death of a young girl, which, so far, has not been mentioned by the MSM, to my knowledge. It should be the lead in his obit.

He is a traitor to his faith, having caused great scandal in the Church, as the term scandal is used in the Church - causing confusion and leading people away from the Truth. He was a fanatic pro-abort pol.

His vision of America is contrary to mine in almost every way. He was a tax cheat, or at best used whatever legal means he could to avoid taxes, while advocating raising taxes on peeps like me.

He never ran a business, but traded on his family's name. He was a hypocrite - using his wealth and power to prevent a wind farm off of his Hyannis Port home, while promoting environmentalism regardless of the cost to the average, hardworking American.

That being said, he suffered greatly - having to witness the assassinations of his two brothers and identifying the remains of his nephew, who was supposed to bear the torch for Camelot. But then again, he probably got to hear firsthand accounts of what Marilyn Monroe looked like naked from his brothers. But I digress.

About the only thing I liked about him is that he was a drunk and Irish. But I can't say I'm sorry he's dead.

I'll pray for him. I'll pray that God's mercy overwhelms His justice, because I think Ted deserves to rot in Hell for his crimes. I'm not sorry he's dead, and I hope his version of America dies with him.

Clown Show

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Federal Reserve Board has chosen Denis Hughes, president of the AFL-CIO in New York, to become chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to serve through the end of 2009. Hughes has been serving as acting Chairman since May.

The New York Fed chairmanship typically has gone to prominent Wall Street executives or academics. The ascension of a labor leader is a new twist for the New York Fed and a sign of the public pressure the Fed has been under to loosen its close ties to Wall Street.

The current brilliant financial tactician and Treasury Secretary Timmy Geithner honed his multiplication skills there.

Hughes is plainly and simply a hack. He is there to protect organized labor and shake down business. He has no history of acting outside of type. His appointment can do nothing but solidify the dysfunction and cynicism that has captured New York finance. He is the typical Obama appointee - a radical whose radicalism is somehow not indicative or emblematic of Obama's radicalism, who for some bizarre reason is still viewed as a go-go moderate. Oh, well Hughes represents organized labor, so he is not outside the mainstream. When organized labor represents but 11 percent of American workers, he most definitely is outside the American mainstream. He has no financial expertise to speak of. He's a shill and a jack boot.

Investor's Business Daily sums up the problems with this appointment:

Denis Hughes, president of the AFL-CIO in New York, has served as interim head of the New York Fed board since May. His ascent to one of the world's most important financial posts is another troubling sign of this administration's too-tight embrace of organized labor.

Understand, this is a time of great financial peril. That's the main reason why Bernanke was renominated. The idea of changing Fed leaders in the middle of a financial crisis was too much.

Bernanke has printed close to $2 trillion in new money to help refloat the economy. President Obama is no doubt happy — if for no other reason than it will let the White House claim its $787 billion "stimulus" is the real reason the economy's starting to grow again.

But the naming of Hughes as the top banker at the New York Fed is the real news. And it's quite astounding.

He has no significant finance experience. Nor does his educational background — "Brother Hughes," as the AFL-CIO's Web site calls him, has a B.S. degree from the Harry Van Arsdale School of Labor Studies at Empire State College — reassure us.

Of greater concern is his career as a bought-and-paid-for union official and political operative. The New York Fed chairmanship is hardly a place for a person whose entire career has been spent fighting and strong-arming the very people he'll now be regulating.

As American Thinker editor Ed Lasky put it, Hughes is someone "who may be more schooled in extracting concessions from corporate America than the intricacies of high finance."

Exactly. More to the point, can those on Wall Street who come before him in routine regulatory matters expect fair treatment? Will union issues become part of the New York Fed's agenda? Will banks find requests to expand or merge stymied because unions fear a loss of jobs somewhere?

These are more than just academic questions. The New York Fed is the primus inter pares, the first among equals, of all the Fed banks. It is the bank that executes the Fed board's will in the marketplace. It is the on-site regulator of Wall Street, playing, as its Web site says, "a leadership role in monetary policy, financial supervision and the payments system." Now it's headed by a union shill.

Putting this key Fed bank in the hands of a person whose experience suggests a bred-in-the-bone hostility to capitalism strikes us as bizarre at best and dangerous at worst. And it bears the unmistakable imprint of the White House. Just last week we wrote about plans to elevate former United Steelworkers adviser Ron Bloom from head of the auto task force to "industrial policy czar."

Putting so many union people in powerful positions of economic policymaking is a recipe for disaster. Since 1955, the share of the workers belonging to unions has plunged from 33% to about 11%. Still, though increasingly unpopular, unions have helped wreck two major industries: autos and steel. Not much of a track record.

But now, through politics, unions are getting rewarded with control of the economy — a very bad omen for American capitalism.

Perhaps there is hope in the limited nature of the appointment, as the Fed will choose 2010's replacement sometime in November or December. At the top of the list is the Fed's newly named Vice Chairman, Lee Bollinger. Bollinger is another leading financial expert and wunderkind, as evidenced by training as a lawyer, his tenure as Columbia University's 19th president, his abuse of affirmative action at University of Wisconsin, and his noted free speech advocacy, including ensuring that Iranian terrorist leader Mahmoud I'mmadinthehead was given a podium at Columbia University.

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around
And one who can't move
But where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns

Last Day Dawning

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Dinner: the Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre

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Dinner

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Your Host Dresses Up After A Day On the Sand

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Vacation Jail

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Untitled

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Chart O' the Day

Says Chart of the Day:

One positive outcome of the financial crisis was that gasoline prices did plunge from their record highs – down 60% peak to trough. Beginning at the end of 2008, however, gasoline prices have surged and are currently 61% above their December 2008 lows. Today’s chart provides some perspective on the recent spike with a long-term view of the average US price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline. It is interesting to note that most gasoline price spikes were a result of Middle East crises and often preceded or coincided with a US recession. So while gasoline prices are currently well below the record high levels of 2007, this recent rally has brought prices to a level well above what was witnessed from 1984-2004 – a two decade span of relative energy price stability.

What's In A Name

So far this week, Sydney Brillo Duodenum has been called a Klansman, an astroturfer, a racist, a Nazi, a mobster, a pistol packing assassin, a nut, a minority, a militiaman, a southerner, un-American, an evil monger, fishy, un-democratic but well-dressed, an extremist, partisan, in the way, a bus passenger, an intimidator, a silencer of regular people, a high-level Republican political operative, a demagogue, a shouter, disrespectful, and a heckler.

The worst of it though was when Sydney Brillo Duodenum Junior called SBD "the meanest dad in the world."

Kids say the darnedest things.

First Taste - Dogfish Head Theobroma

Dogfish Head Theobroma

Brewer: Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Inc., Milton, DE

Location: Top of a Mayan pyramid in Bethesda, MD

Marketing BS: "Theobroma, or 'Food of the Gods,' is a re-creation of the premier chocolate beverage of the Americas, intended only for the gods, kings, and the elite. This liquid time capsule is based on the earliest chemical and archeological evidence of cacao in the New World, dating to before 1100 B.C., and enhanced by natural additivies of the later Mayan and Aztec drinks."

Other side of label: "Off-Centered Ales for Off-Centered People. As per the amazing molecular evidence, this ancient ale is brewed with honey, ancho chilies, ground annatto, Soconusco cocoa nibs and cocoa powder from our good friends at ASKINOSIE chocolate."

Marketing Translation: While on vacation at Copan during spring break, one of our summer brewing interns smuggled out some pottery shards, on which we found dried scum. We paid an intern in a molecular scientist's lab a lifetime supply of our winter seasonal brew to analyze the scum and make up a list of ingredients that, according to a Hollywood script, could constitute an ancient beer recipe brewed by chest slashing drunk ass Aztec priests.

Bottle/Label: This sucker's a pint of coiled danger. Makes your wife think you're drinking an entire bottle of wine. The label features a picture of a proto-Dora the Explorer popping out of a Mayan manhole cover.

Alcohol: 9%. Well, that certainly explains the non-stop bloody sacrifices, now doesn't it?

Method of Imbibation: A Guinness pint glass. Worked, as it held the head nicely and offered forth a full quafe of liquid complicity in pre-Columbian genocidal crimes against humanity.

The Pull: As silent as an obsidian blade making the final slash across the circumflex branch of some prole's left coronary artery.

First Swig: Completely surprising in its banality, but then mass murder at the hands of a cult to honor bloodlusting deities is pretty banal. What is so surprising is how modern this craft brew is. Nowhere to be found is chocolate or cocoa or cacao or ancho chilies or chocolate cocao or ancho chocolate cacao chilies or cocoa chilies or annatto chilie cocoa cacao or Countchocula. There aren't even any Soconusco cocoa nibs to tickle with one's tongue. There is, however, enough honey to cover the daily factory run of the HoneyCombs cereal plant in Jonesboro, Arkansas. It's reminiscent of Dogfish's Aprihop but without the apricots and full bore hoppiness. Nevertheless, while presiding over one's den on a Thursday evening, fresh from a full day of humiliations at the hands of eager Obamanauts, this beer will salve your tender soul and convince you that you too are an elitist, who, given enough time, will be pitching the heartless torsos of expendable seniors down a flight of stone steps, all in homage to a delusion of grandeur and progress and hope.

Competition: Dogfish Head Midas Touch Golden Elixir; Kirin Brewery Old Kingdom Beer

Recommendation: Drink it because you'll get a sweet buzz, which will make it easier to watch the first game of the Washington Redskins preseason as they fall miserably to the Baltimore Ravens. There ain't no sacrifice big enough to save this team.

Sitting Quietly in Their Homes, Listening to Him

Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal:

The president has a problem. For, despite a great election victory, Mr. Obama, it becomes ever clearer, knows little about Americans. He knows the crowds—he is at home with those. He is a stranger to the country’s heart and character.

He seems unable to grasp what runs counter to its nature. That Americans don’t take well, for instance, to bullying, especially of the moralizing kind, implicit in those speeches on health care for everybody. Neither do they wish to be taken where they don’t know they want to go and being told it’s good for them.

Who would have believed that this politician celebrated, above all, for his eloquence and capacity to connect with voters would end up as president proving so profoundly tone deaf? A great many people is the answer—the same who listened to those speeches of his during the campaign, searching for their meaning.

It took this battle over health care to reveal the bloom coming off this rose, but that was coming. It began with the spectacle of the president, impelled to go abroad to apologize for his nation—repeatedly. It is not, in the end, the demonstrators in those town-hall meetings or the agitations of his political enemies that Mr. Obama should fear. It is the judgment of those Americans who have been sitting quietly in their homes, listening to him.

A Fishy Letter

Sydney Brillo Duodenum's Denver connection has forwarded to him an open letter from a private citizen - a Mr. J.T. Townsend - that was addressed to the Fishmonger-in-Chief. The letter concerns the Fishmonger-in-Chief's effort to sell his plan to socialize America's health care system, including requesting that the Fishmonger-in-Chief's supporters provide directly to the White House the names of Americans whom they believe are misrepresenting the President's plan to socialize America's health care system. This letter is very fishy. It smells like a freshly caught Red Snapper, filleted on deck, and dashed with lime and lemon juice, sea salt, cilantro, and minced garlic, onion and tomato. Delicious.

August 5, 2009, approximately 6 hours after learning of the existence of this link on the White House home page:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/


Dear Mr. President;

This morning, I learned of the existence of this link on the White House homepage: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/

I was surprised, that in support of legislation that addresses what you consider one of the most important crises facing our nation – the current state of our healthcare industry - that instead of encouraging debate over solutions, you would allow your staff to create a website encouraging Americans to report to your White House “fishy” e-mails from their fellow citizens. To me, the existence of this site, and your encouraging of Americans to “get in the face” of those who disagree with your current view and proposed solution confirms that rather than engage in an active, intellectual debate regarding healthcare reform legislation, you’ve chosen to suppress and vilify the opposition. This is in direct contrast to your campaign rhetoric regarding cooperation and tolerance, and beneath the behavior of any principled leader.

During your campaign, you took on the mantle of high-minded principle, espousing your belief that a good leader needs to include everyone at the table, to tolerate ideas contrary to his own, and drive opposing sides to a workable compromise. Broadly, I agree with these premises. In execution, though, this website and your “in their face” comment abide by none of these principles. There are valid concerns regarding the healthcare reform legislation currently before our Congress. How does asking Americans to report their fellow citizens’ comments in opposition of this legislation to their White House, or telling them to get “in the face” of those who disagree, coincide with “tolerance”? Your actions demonstrate you do not value others’ opinions or debate.

American citizens have valid concerns about the legislation currently before Congress that coincides with your proposed solution for healthcare in the United States. The “Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things” website lists and dismisses three such concerns 1) the elimination of private coverage 2) control of personal finances 3) end of life care. The site coolly, but incorrectly, states that you have addressed all of these concerns. Indeed, the letter of the legislation does not eliminate a citizens’ current coverage, but it does affect their possibility of future coverage by a private insurer if they change employers or if they are an employer not currently providing health insurance. The ramifications of these measures on employment and wages have not been publicly articulated by you, and are the true heart of the concerns expressed in e-mails and editorials circulating the country.

As far as the control of personal finances, the taxes necessary to fund this program and its effects on the budget deficit have not been articulated by you to the satisfaction of this nation’s citizens. Numerous economic studies have been published in contradiction to the economic value you suppose will be created by a more efficient system, and you have yet to provide an accurate (GAO approved and independent private accounting firm) financial accounting of how much the program will cost and where the money will come from. This is a control of personal finance issue for every American citizen, as funds for government programs do not come from accounts generated by government revenues, but from the pockets of hard-working Americans.

Finally, I do not believe that you have addressed the end of life care issue, which is outlined in the legislation, and which you – in a nationally televised interview - dismissively said was not something you were aware of. It is not surprising you do not know that this provision is a part of the legislation. In fact, this and many other facts would be apparent to Americans if not for the existence of what is the most offensive part of the legislation that the website does not address – the current legislation before congress regarding healthcare reform is 1,100 pages long, and inclusive of hundreds of provisions and articles that you have never addressed publicly. Would you hold any other professional to such a low standard? You have not read the legislation in such a manner that makes you familiar with a provision that directly affects the pursuit of happiness of the citizens whose rights you are charged with protecting? Do you expect your military commanders to know the content of their written orders to subordinates? Do you expect the Federal Reserve to understand the contents of its written financial and economic reports? Do you expect businessmen to know the contents of the contracts they are signing? Do you expect doctors to know the contents of their patients’ files? And yet you present (as an adequate answer around legislation you say to be so important) that you’re not familiar with every bit of this legislation’s content? It is inexcusable that a President or any other government official would vote for or sign legislation without reading and understanding it in its entirety. If a law is so insignificant that it doesn’t need read to be passed, then it ought not to be passed at all.

I am ashamed that my nation’s highest-ranking, elected official discourages debate and has not articulated the ENTIRE content of legislation that will have such an intimate effect on my family and the families of my fellow citizens. The mantle of leadership in a true Republic is not demonstrated when the position is the vehicle by which you or any other leader promote your idea rough-shod over differing opinions. Instead, like any leader (and more so given the sanctity of your position), your responsibility is to convince by the eloquent presentation of facts.

I believe strongly one ought not to criticize without being prescriptive, so this is what I suggest you do to remedy the errors highlighted by the existence of this website.

Prescription for you, the President

• Act as a true leader – not a politician – and encourage active debate and deliberate consideration of the resulting legislation before it becomes law. The current “my solution is the only one” and rushing of congress to pass it as law is beneath any principled leader.

• Remove the facts are stubborn things website and quit actively encouraging Americans to “get in each other’s faces,” both of which are in direct contradiction to your campaign promises and rhetoric.

• Explain how this program will be funded – not with economically realized “value” – but accounting figures integrated into the current national budget.

and

• Do what the President ought to expect from every professional – fulfill your job responsibilities by knowing every fact of the documents (legislation) of your profession.

• Replace the “Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things” website with a site containing the proposed legislation and a personal note on every aspect of the bill and why you support it.

or

• Simplify the legislation to a digestible document that every citizen should read and consider.

• Present to the American people (article by article) the healthcare reform legislation in its entirety, and promise publicly that the plan includes nothing more and nothing less than what you have articulated.

Indeed, Mr. President, facts are stubborn things. Thus far, the facts are that you have acted contrary to your campaign promises and dismissively admitted you do not know the facts around what you’ve said is one of the most important pieces of legislation of our time.

I invite you to surprise me, because given your recent actions, I expect none of this to be done. Your website and “in your face comment,” are not indicative of a leader who would take these bold and difficult steps to gain support for your position.

Please, Mr. President, make me look the fool and live by your word.

Sincerely;


JT Townsend

Citizen

Eat This

Working Papers in Health Economics:

Food Prices and the Dynamics of Body Weight

A popular policy option for addressing the growth in weight has has been the imposition of a "fat tax" on selected foods that are deemed to promote obesity. Understanding the public economics of "fat taxes" requires an understanding of how or even whether individuals respond to changes in food prices over the long-term. We study the short- and long-run body weight consequences of changing food prices, in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We found very modest short-term effects of price per calorie on body weight, and the magnitudes align with the previous literature. The long-term effect is much bigger, but it takes a long time for the effect to reach the full scale. Within 30 years, a 10% permanent reduction in price per calorie would lead to a BMI increase of 1.5 units (or 3.6%). The long term effect is an increase of 1.9 units of BMI (or 4.2%). From a policy perspective, these results suggest that policies raising the price of calories will have little effect on weight in the short term, but might curb the rate of weight growth and achieve weight reduction over a very long period of time.

Yes, and "over a very long period of time" we are all dead.

The Body Politic

Mark Steyn:

Health care is a game-changer. The permanent game-changer. The pendulum will swing, and one day, despite their best efforts, the Republicans will return to power, and, in the right circumstances, the bailouts and cap-&-trade and Government Motors and much of the rest can be reversed. But the government annexation of health care will prove impossible to roll back. It alters the relationship between the citizen and the state and, once that transformation is effected, you can click your ruby slippers all you want but you’ll never get back to Kansas.

[...]

Government-directed health care is a profound assault on the concept of citizenship. It deforms national politics very quickly, and ensures that henceforth elections are always fought on the left’s terms. I find it hard to believe President Obama and his chums haven’t looked at Canada and Europe and concluded that health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. He doesn’t say that, of course. He says his objective is to “control costs”. Which is the one thing that won’t happen. Even now, health care costs rise far faster under Medicare than in the private sector.

[...]

When health care is the government’s responsibility, it becomes its principal responsibility. Because the minute you make government the provider of health care, you ensure that, come election time, the electorate identifies “health” as its number one concern. Thus, in a democracy, the very fact of socialized medicine seduces the citizenry away from citizenship. Buying health care is no more onerous than buying a car or buying a house – which, pre-Barney Frank, most Americans seemed able to manage. Indeed, most of the complications are caused by existing government interventions. If you were attempting to devise a “system” from scratch, you might opt for insurance for catastrophic scenarios and, for PAP smears and colonoscopies and whatnot, something similar to the tax breaks for a Simplified Employee Pension: C’mon, how difficult can it be? Back in the day, your grampa managed to go to the doctor without routing the admin through Washington. Matter of fact, the doctor came to grampa. That’s how crazy it was.

[...]

the acceptance of the principle that individual health is so complex its management can only be outsourced to the state is a concession no conservative should make. More than any other factor, it dramatically advances the statist logic for remorseless encroachments on self-determination. It’s incompatible with a republic of self-governing citizens. The state cannot guarantee against every adversity and, if it attempts to, it can only do so at an enormous cost to liberty. A society in which you’re free to choose your cable package, your iTunes downloads and who ululates the best on “American Idol” but in which the government takes care of peripheral stuff like your body is a society no longer truly free.

Gratuitous, Juvenile Swipe of the Day

Reuters

" No, no, Mr. President, the First Lady' ass really is this big."

Chart O' the Day

Says the Chart:

Today's chart presents the Dow divided by the price of one ounce of gold. This results in what is referred to as the Dow / gold ratio or the cost of the Dow in ounces of gold. For example, it currently takes 9.8 ounces of gold to “buy the Dow.” This is considerably less that the 44.8 ounces it took back in 1999. When priced in gold, the US stock market has been in a bear market for the entire 21st century and is currently trading 78% off its 1999 highs. The recent five-month rally, however, has the Dow (priced in gold) putting in a significant test of resistance of an accelerated downtrend that began in mid-2007.

Dinner

Tonight's dinner is dedicated to Meme Roth, Food Fascist and All-Around Rude, Arrogant Bitch.

Hey There Obama

Beer Summit

The news out of Washington is that President Obama will be hosting a summit on race relations between whites, as represented by Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley, and blacks, as represented by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

President Obama's highly anticipated sit-down with Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. over some brews is expected to take place early this week, administration officials said Sunday.

The President has selected the theme of “beer” to set the stage for a friendly discussion. Although the President’s inclination will be to offer Sgt. Crowley and Prof. Gates cold Heinekens wrapped in two ply cocktail napkins, Sydney Brillo Duodenum urges the President to direct the White House Bartender to seek out and procure some microbrews.

Because Sgt. Crowley and Prof. Gates are both Massachusetts-based, SBD offers the following two selections:

For Sgt. Crowley, who caught a really big fish, we recommend that the President offer him the following:

Harpoon IPA

For Professor Gates, the President could not go wrong by offering his close friend the following:

John Harvard's Nut Brown Ale


Anything with the name "Harvard" in it should appeal to the professor.

And, of course, the President should have something special for himself, which is why this presidential hometown brew is sure to please His Coolness:

The Blue Cat Brew Pub Off the Rails Pale Ale

Increasing Long-Period Hedonic Adaptation

Now that the global economic catastrophe is over, Capitalism has been squashed, Socialism proven, and the small details of government control of markets and economies remaining for clean up by squads of graduate TAs, the economics academy is turning its wizened eye to those few remaining economics issues that continue plaguing mankind.

To wit, Sydney Brillo Duodenum found a new landmark study in his morning e-mail of Social Science Research Network Microeconomics - Intertemporal Choice and Choice Abstracts. Sandwiched between no less important studies on "Life-Cycle Variations in the Association between Current and Lifetime Earnings - Evidence for German Natives and Guest Workers" and "Estimating Intertemporal and Intratemporal Substitutions When Both Income and Substitution Effects are Present: The Role of Durable Goods," we are relieved to find attention finally being brought to bear on:

Swinger Economics

Swinging is a sexual behavior of increasing relevance but substantially ignored in theoretical economic investigation. This paper has two major goals. The first is to describe what swinger is, discuss its economic relevance and single out the main characteristics of swingers’ behavior. To this end, the Italian situation has been considered as a type of case study. The second goal is to use standard and less-standard tools from economic theory to propose some preliminary assessments of the causes and consequences of swinger couples’ behavior. In this respect, some contributions on two-sided markets, hedonic adaptation approaches and equilibrium matching models have proved particularly useful.

This study by Fabio D'Orlando of the University of Cassino and Cream (!?!?!) Economic Center focuses on the Italian swingers market, as it were. With precision exposition, D'Orlando addresses this two-sided market (yuck, yuck) and even includes auto-economic erotic imagery:

Oh, baby.

SBD does not want to rob his readers of the pleasures of this study, but given the importance of this subject to the preservation of western civilization, he understands that the more known now about this, the better his readers will sleep tonight. D'Orlando concludes:

. . . the theoretical approaches which seem best suited to capture the empirical data are those based on the concept of hedonic adaptation. These approaches suggest that it is consistent with maximizing swinger strategy to begin from soft swinging and only later engage in “harder” swinging, and that also the search for ever new sexual experiences delays long-period hedonic adaptation and hence increases swingers’ long-period well being. Both these theoretical predictions seem to find confirmation in the empirical data on swinger behaviour.

Yes, it's all about long-period hedonic adaptation.

Next, SBD will look at this ground breaking study:

How Do Policy-Makers Actually Solve Problems? Evidence from the French Local Public Sector.

No doubt wine, some brie, and a baguette are involved. And a nap, too.

First Taste - The Red Seal Ale

North Coast Brewing Red Seal Ale

Brewer: North Coast Brewing Co., Fort Bragg, CA

Location: Black Salt Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

Marketing BS: “Malt and hops are beautifully married in this full-bodied, copper-red Pale Ale. Red Seal is generously hopped for a long, spicy finish. An excellent accompaniment to grilled meats and rich sauces.”

Marketing Translation: Our beer is as gorgeous as a newly mated pair of wet, seaweed fouled, slime-eyed seals. The hop count will have you barking like a seal and will leave a taste in your mouth ten times better than dead fish. We recommend you drink our beer with real food and not that pussy stuff you find in Southern California restaurants.

Bottle/Label: A stout little bottle with a label having the look and feel of a char broiled steak that’s rare on the inside. Oh, and there’s a picture of feisty red demon seal on the label.

The Pull: No clue as it was brought to the table already opened by an officious waitress.

Alcohol Content: 5.5%

Method of Imbibation: Something like a “Stella chalice pint,” but the sides of the glass were a little too straight, resulting in a gigantic frothy head, sort of like sea foam, which is fine for seals.

First Swig: A total ambush; explodes onto the pallet like a Great White shark slamming into a Cape fur seal at 25 mph from below. You’ll try to bite back a few times before the beer eviscerated your tongue. Your only choice at that point is to plead for a second hit to put you out of your misery. Before you know it, this beer will disappear below the waves and you’ll be ordering a second before your appetizer has arrived.

Competition: Any pale ale featuring water-based mascots.

Recommendation: If you can balance a ball on your nose, then this is the beer for you.

Harsh Mistress? No, just a bitch.

When Sydney Brillo Duodenum was four years old, he sat on his parent’s bed in his jammies at the unbelievable 23rd hour of the day, nestled among his siblings and parents, watching some hullabaloo on the television involving men, rockets, space, history, odds, American Exceptionalism, technological progress, hope, the future, Commies, gravity, fear, guts, and the Moon. Of course, Sydney Brillo Duodenum doesn’t remember any of that. He does remember a particularly good repeat episode of Ultraman from earlier that day, the one concerning the holocaustic intentions of Memphilas, whom Ultraman battles to a draw, despite his use of the Slash Beam. In any event, Memphilas escapes but not before promising to return and destroy humanity another day. We’re still waiting, although one suspects his minions may be presently at work in the Nation’s capital preparing for his arrival.



And we’re still waiting to return to the Moon.

We were told that the Moon was the Holy Grail of exploration. The story went that man had explored every corner of the Earth, was in the process of laying it to waste and extracting its bounty, raping and exploiting the indigenous, and was scant decades from turning the Earth into either a near barren cinder (it was as if global thermonuclear war had occurred) or a vast flooded plain. Since it has been essentially too late for close to 50 years now to save Earth, we must flee it, or rather a select group of elites are going to have to flee it and take their chances Out There. If Man was to survive in this Universe, and by survive, we mean explore every corner of it, lay it to waste and extract its bounty, rape and exploit the indigenous alien populations, and leave behind a sting of cinders, then it was imperative that the bright gray barren cinder overhead should fall first.

None of that’s true, of course. The simple truth is that the Moon couldn’t be allowed to fall to the Commies and that’s the best and only reason we needed for having made it to the Moon first. Every dollar spent defeating Soviet Communism was worth it and if you think going to the Moon had nothing to do with stepping on Commie face, then you’re a moron. The Velcro and freeze dried beef stroganoff and wireless headsets and electronics and computers and pens you can write with upside down and metal blankets for Marathon runners are just the side benies compared to Kicking Commie Butt.

Now in this age of establishing naval gazing anniversaries divisible by ten are we directed to think long and hard about returning to the Moon. Frankly, SBD would rather do this on the 50th anniversary of the Moon Walk, but NASA and the Euros and the Japanese and the Chinese are all in the process of surveying, smashing stuff into, and observing the Moon. Just today NASA released pictures taken by a new surveyor of the Apollo 14 and 11 landing sites, complete with little helpful arrows pointing to tiny footprint tracks and scientific instruments still gleaming in the sun. The stills look like something taken off of a Youtube video. The image quality is horrendous and a conspiracist’s wet dream because apparently after 40 years and despite the ability of black ops NSA satellites to count Kim Jong-Il’s pubic hairs while he’s banging an enslaved French model meth addict, NASA hasn’t received enough funding to nail down the optics problem. If we can land a man on the Moon, then certainly we can develop a camera capable of taking a crystal clear image of where they bloody landed! Jeez, almighty.

It seems to SBD that there are two futures for space travel. One involves Man spending gargantuan sums of money and stretching the absolute limit of Man’s engineering genes to journey vast distances, which in just our solar system – 240,000 miles to the Moon; 35 million to 233 million miles to Mars, depending on orbit - are staggeringly short in relation to the incomprehensible distances separating our solar system from the next one, which houses, um, oh right . . . NOTHING OF USE TO US RIGHT NOW! Barring the introduction of alien technology, we can’t go much further than our own solar system. We are trapped in time and there’s not a damn thing to do about it. It was out of those cold hard facts that the multi-billion dollar science-fiction industry was born. Only in our imaginations can we travel afar. Since we are trapped in time, we should use our time wisely. We must have very good reasons for building a Moon base other than that we might find ice crystals which can be used to make water for the Moon base. Great, now that you can piss into a bowl of water on the Moon, filter it and then drink it, what else are you going to be doing there? Oh, right, examining Moon rocks to see if they can be mined and used as power source for the Moon base. Mmm, hmm. Yes, well, great. Then what? Well we’re going to see if we can find some Helium 3 that can be mined and then sent back to Earth to make fusion drives. What?!? Which leads us to our second option.

The second future of space travel involves Man spending less gargantuan sums to send robots and UAVs and super-Hubbles into space. Ironically, when Man begins to understand that by removing the human factors engineering from space travel, which is what makes it so damn expensive, it can design incredibly efficient and powerful explorers, all manipulated and controlled from Earth. One of Man’s evolutionary specialties is his ability to surmount his physical limitations. Again, being trapped in time, we should use computing, optics and the electromagnetic spectrum to leap across that limitation. If we are so technologically advanced, then we must recognize that the touchstone of human achievement does not have to literally involve touch. Assuming there are no alien relics or civilization artifacts to be looked at, there is nothing on the Moon that cannot be studied from Earth through the eyes of a robot. Same with Mars. Need Helium-3? Then build a kick-ass robot, launch it on 40 year old Saturn 5 technology platform, hire some kids who rock at Halo 3, put them in a room in Houston and let them drive that sucker all over the Moon digging holes, filling containers and remotely sending them back to low earth orbit for collection. There is no reason to put a man on the Moon to mine one ounce of dust. Men would just get in the way.

We’re promised a technological renaissance if we try to figure out how to establish permanent manned stations on nearby planetary bodies. Just like the effort that went into enabling the Apollo 11 walkabout, lots of life altering googaws and transformational this, that and the other things are promised as the big payoff. But we are in a far different place now technically speaking than we were on the eve of the Apollo project.

If we shoot for the Moon again, it will take place over the course of this century. So what does this century have in store for humanity. NRO’s John Derbyshire argues that there are “two futures for the human population of Earth over the next century or so: (1) a big die-off, or (2) geezerization.” If we are to pass into the caves because a superbug wiped out Earth’s civilizations and its centers of technological progress, then having spent hundreds and hundreds of billions – if not several trillion - to fabricate a Moon base will be a further statement of Man’s folly in the face of life’s brutal reality and history’s fairly regular culling of the human species. Better perhaps to take our present powers in computing and spend half the Moon base money on biomedical research and modeling to protect the species and the other half on space robotics and optics to tell us about what’s out there, that we can’t reach anyway. Forcing life onto the dead Moon and Mars is a human vanity project.

If we are instead facing geezerization – the non-replacement of populations because they have simply stopped reproducing adequately, e.g., Japan, parts of Europe – then those decreasing numbers of young people facing a huge responsibility for supporting multiple generations of geezers by being taxed up the ass may prefer to take their chances on the Moon and Mars, particularly if there are no western democracies worth emigrating to because freedom has been traded for a false certainty. This assumes a great leap forward in terms of off-planet engineering and fabrication of facilities capable of supporting, in high comfort (has to be – it’s the future, damnit), an increasing percentage of humans on Moon bases. Call it the Great Off Migration. They will leave behind the oldest and weakest, as well as the least technically competent. They will also doom the planet to a Dark Ages because if no one is there to defend the cultures and civilizations responsible for the Moon base and everything that went into its feasibility, then the Earth will fall into ruin. Ironically, hedging a bet that humanity has no Earth-based future by allowing its best and brightest and most free to abandon it and spending humungous sums focusing on establishing off-planet settlements, is what actually kills Earth. It’s more likely, though, that the Geezer World will prevent the spending of massive sums on Off Planet facilities. We have just this year spent close to $4 trillion, attempting to shore up a massive Ponzi scheme, and the Obamanauts plan to spend trillions more creating a Comfy Cozy Command Economy here on Earth.

A third consideration is that this is supposed to be China’s century, where it becomes a true technological, economic, military and social superpower. Maybe. In both the above scenarios, China is uaffected. They have enough people to find a core population resilience to super bugs and as Communist dictatorship, they won’t give damn about their old populations. They will have a huge number of males to deal with and there’s no better place for them than sending them to the Moon and Mars. According to highly questionable sources, China is planning to establish a permanent base on the Moon by 2030 and Mars by 2050. So we come full circle as to why this country needs to get back to the Moon as soon as possible, costs be damned, and in a permanent way: to get there before the Commies do.

The Silence of the Meat Bones

I picked up a meat order Sunday that I placed prior to moving. Our current freezer is smaller than our last freezer, so unfortunately I do not have room for my entire order. So I would like to give away three big meat bones to anyone who may want to make a soup or broth this week. These would also be great for a family with dogs who enjoy bones. The bones are from a cow organically and locally raised.

Let me know if you'd like them. I would love not to have to throw them away.

[Guilt Ridden Libtard]
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

The above e-mail was sent through SBD's neighborhood listserv. SBD's neighborhood is accurately described in Wikipedia as follows:

[Libtown] is one of the most affluent and highly educated locales in the country, placing first in Forbes list of America's most educated small towns [FN omitted] and eleventh on CNNMoney.com's list of top-earning American towns.[FN omitted] In April 2009, Forbes ranked [Libtown] second on its list of "America's Most Livable Cities." [FN omitted]

[...]

[Libtown] is a very wealthy and well-educated area. According to the 2000 Census, [Libtown] is the best-educated city in the United States of America with a population of 50,000 or more. 79% of residents 25 or older have bachelor's degrees and 49% have graduate or professional degrees. According to a 2007 estimate[7], the median income for a household is $117,723, and the median income for a family was $168,385.

From this e-mail, we learn much of the fate of [Libtown] and the larger liberal Washington metropolitan area during these lean economic times.

First, [Libtown] matrons have enough disposable income to order entire sides of beef. That's perfectly understandable given the present rationing of beef and near empty beef bins at the Whole Foods, Giant, Safeway, Super Fresh, Trader Joes and Wagshals Market that are all within a couple miles of the e-mail sender. Thus, there is no reason to believe that ordering the better part of an "organically and locally raised," and presumably locally slaughtered by Druids, cow, is any kind of vanity project. Just like there is no reason to believe that ordering too much vanity beef is any kind of ploy to demonstrate that you are in a position to order vanity beef, in fact to order more vanity beef than you can use, thus forcing you to appeal to the wider community to share your guilt at not being able to store all your vanity beef, and really to draw attention to the entire wastefulness of the non-organic and non-local beef industry.

Second, [Libtown] matrons are being forced to move into homes with smaller second freezers than those enjoyed during the go-go Bush years but taken away by the evil BushCo Inc. Such is the case when one has to move out of one's home for six months or longer into a rental while one's original home is gutted and doubled in size. Goddamn George Bush!

Third, [Libtown] matrons are establishing micro-soup kitchens to feed their families. Again, a reasonable response to the Bush Depression.

Fourth, [Libtown] matrons are plagued by a distinctly higher set of worries than your average suburban matron. It's a real testament to the need to judge every act of disposal and its larger morality. But these matrons are a beacon in this country, which is really nothing better than a reeking, offal layered landfill.

Fifth, dogs love a good bone! Can't argue with that. But the sender really should have made it clear that the bones would go only to families that have adopted and spayed/neutered shelter dogs. No AKC need apply.

Sixth, [Libtown] matrons are highly adept at dispersing their guilt over an excess of meat bones on to their neighborhood community. After all, if "sender" would "love not to have to throw them away," then surely you would not want her to have to throw away those meat bones and, from a community perspective, frankly you have a responsibility to find room in your second freezer in your rental that you're staying in while your real house is gutted and doubled to accommodate those meat bones and to make soup or broth (but apparently not consomme) and feed the meat bones you don't grind into garden fertilizer to your shelter dog(s).

The Silence of the Meat Bones is not the only naked story in little city. The other day this e-mail crossed the deli counter:

Teach me to weld?
I'm looking for someone in the neighborhood who might be willing to give me some rudimentary instructions about how to weld, nothing too technical.

Have got a creative itch to create yard junk from recycled steel but don't know where to start.

[Moron with too much time on hands]

Yes, indeed, if there is anything the neighborhood needs more of, it's hideous ersatz welded steel piles of crap sitting on peoples' front lawns.

SBD would much rather see an installation made out of meat bones.

Things Not Seen This Weekend

The Ass Is Always Greener . . .

Sydney Brillo Duodenum does his fair share of ass-checking. It’s normal, male behavior.

In fact, on a recent sojourn to the Walt Disney World, EpCot to be precise, he beheld this glorious gluteus.

Sydney Brillo Duodenum is an ass man but not this kind of ass man, but sadly it's the new American norm. This is the typical piece of American ass on display at Epcot, although the ass message can vary widely. Often, you may see three or four such asses galumphing next to each other making it impossible to get to the Test Track FastPass lane before your pass expires and so there is nothing to do but contemplate the horror. And when at Walt Disney World, it is to be found in all directions. It is not, of course, limited to the lassies. Usually they are accompanied by similarly-sized male variants. It’s a rare day on the Epcot pavement you won’t find yourself absolutely stumped as to whether the ass is male or female, but a half finished rose or Tinkerbell tat on an exposed shoulder blade can be a helpful clue. There is a disturbing trend, however, as more and more (and SBD spends an inordinate amount of vacation time at Walt Disney World) these Lady MacButts are taking to electric scooters to move from one grease smeared ride to the next. If you invest in anything these days, be sure to invest in the manufacturers of electric scooters.

Yes, yes, Sydney Brillo Duodenum is being cruel, but the concentration of gigantic, bumpy, dimpled swamp ass makes the mind reel.

We bring this up because the Man Child, out in the big wide world, is being confronted with all kinds of European ass, and so SBD is jealous. And those Europeans are not making it easy on the man by parading Junior G8ers around him while he attempts to keep Americans’ eyes on his taut, Pouponed ass. Oh, Mr. President, don’t worry, we are paying close attention to the ass.

Here he is allegedly mapping some Euro range.

There's video that could be interpreted to suggest he is caught in an unfair photo angle of attack. Whatever.

Given the typical American ass, we cannot begrudge the Young Commissar his side glance. As we have been instructed to believe, he is a master of nuance and we must heap praise on him when he demonstrates it. Compared to Le Sarkoze, who will noticeably lean backwards or forwards to look around some other head of state to catch a nice piece of tail, Mr. Obama, in true character, is able to use his powers of misdirection to make us think he is all confused about just where to stand, and he has to look down at his feet, when in fact it’s a ruse to give him time to put the range finder on some chick’s back nine. By acting all confused about where to stand he lowers his head and hides his eyes from the cameras, allowing a complete second of mind recording and that's all he'll need for later.

Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of Mr. Obama’s ass grazing is that the merest suggestion that he’s cataloguing contours makes us think of his wife and her current state of fitnass. That is not fair to Mrs. Obama, but once Drudge showed that picture of Mr. President imagining being a toilet seat and it spread across the intertubulations, approximately 112,785,904 Americans thought of Mrs. Obama’s ass. And they came to their own conclusions. SBD will not reveal his but he thoroughly expects Saul Menowitz to deposit a steaming pile of choice words in the comments. And they will be summarily deleted.

In any event, ass checking is the sport of men and it’s nice to see that The President, who is a complete effete pussy with respect to everything else, will not pass on ass.

Who Gives a Damn About Honduras?

Quite frankly, Sydney Brillo Duodenum has not given a damn about Honduras, and would have been at pains to briskly locate it on a map, but now he has to think twice about that, because issues relating to contitutional republicanism, the rule of law, South American fascist dictators, America's world standing, and the incoherent declamations of the Man Child have occupied the news and roused SBD from his siesta.

Miguel A. Estrada provides the definitive explanation of just what the hell has been going on in Honduras. Estrada is a wise old latino lawyer; Borked nominee for the DC Court of Appeals; and a native of Honduras, so he is not talking out of his crack the way Mr. Obama has been doing.

Unlike the experts at the State Department, Mr. Estrada accomplishes this feat of investigastive bravado by visting the website of the Honduran Supreme Court and reading, albeit in Spanish, the Honduran Constitution and the Honduran Supreme Court’s decision regarding the actions of former President Zelaya. It shocks and amazes to discover that so few in the press have these necessary investigative skills, but no one said the End Times would not be shocking and amazing.

In any event, according to Mr. Estrada:

Honduras, the tiny Central American nation, had a change of leaders on June 28. The country's military arrested President Manuel Zelaya -- in his pajamas, he says -- and put him on a plane bound for Costa Rica. A new president, Roberto Micheletti, was appointed. Led by Cuba and Venezuela (Sudan and North Korea were not immediately available), the international community swiftly condemned this "coup."

Something clearly has gone awry with the rule of law in Honduras -- but it is not necessarily what you think. Begin with Zelaya's arrest. The Supreme Court of Honduras, as it turns out, had ordered the military to arrest Zelaya two days earlier. A second order (issued on the same day) authorized the military to enter Zelaya's home to execute the arrest. These orders were issued at the urgent request of the country's attorney general. All the relevant legal documents can be accessed (in Spanish) on the Supreme Court's website. They make for interesting reading.

So, the new fascist, paramilitary Star Chambered government of Honduras has diabolically posted all of its legal reasoning on the removal of Mr. Zelaya on a public website accessible by anyone in the world with a modicum of Spanish speaking skills. And to think this is happening in our hemisphere.

What you'll learn is that the Honduran Constitution may be amended in any way except three. No amendment can ever change (1) the country's borders, (2) the rules that limit a president to a single four-year term and (3) the requirement that presidential administrations must "succeed one another" in a "republican form of government."

In addition, Article 239 specifically states that any president who so much as proposes the permissibility of reelection "shall cease forthwith" in his duties, and Article 4 provides that any "infraction" of the succession rules constitutes treason. The rules are so tight because these are terribly serious issues for Honduras, which lived under decades of military rule.

But what does that have to do with the fact that as Obama has told us, without provocation, on a whim the Honduran military arrested Mr. Zelaya in his pajamas and sent him to Costa Rica?

Earlier this year, with only a few months left in his term, he [Zelaya] ordered a referendum on whether a new constitutional convention should convene to write a wholly new constitution. Because the only conceivable motive for such a convention would be to amend the un-amendable parts of the existing constitution, it was easy to conclude -- as virtually everyone in Honduras did -- that this was nothing but a backdoor effort to change the rules governing presidential succession. Not unlike what Zelaya's close ally, Hugo Chavez, had done in Venezuela.

It is also worth noting that only referendums approved by a two-thirds vote of the Honduran Congress may be put to the voters. Far from approving Zelaya's proposal, Congress voted that it was illegal.

The attorney general filed suit and secured a court order halting the referendum. Zelaya then announced that the voting would go forward just the same, but it would be called an "opinion survey." The courts again ruled this illegal. Undeterred, Zelaya directed the head of the armed forces, Gen. Romeo Vasquez, to proceed with the "survey" -- and "fired" him when he declined. The Supreme Court ruled the firing illegal and ordered Vasquez reinstated.

Zelaya had the ballots printed in Venezuela, but these were impounded by customs when they were brought back to Honduras. On June 25 -- three days before he was ousted -- Zelaya personally gathered a group of "supporters" and led it to seize the ballots, restating his intent to conduct the "survey" on June 28. That was the breaking point for the attorney general, who immediately sought a warrant from the Supreme Court for Zelaya's arrest on charges of treason, abuse of authority and other crimes. In response, the court ordered Zelaya's arrest by the country's army, which under Article 272 must enforce compliance with the Constitution, particularly with respect to presidential succession. The military executed the court's order on the morning of the proposed survey.

Oh, well that is a bit of a different story than what we’ve heard, now isn’t it?

But what of this sending the pajama-clad Zelaya to Costa Rica – surely that negates the constitutionality of removing him, as he was without benefit of clothing and toiletries, right?

No. As noted, Article 239 states clearly that one who behaves as Zelaya did in attempting to change presidential succession ceases immediately to be president. If there were any doubt on that score, the Congress removed it by convening immediately after Zelaya's arrest, condemning his illegal conduct and overwhelmingly voting (122 to 6) to remove him from office. The Congress is led by Zelaya's own Liberal Party (although it is true that Zelaya and his party have grown apart as he has moved left). Because Zelaya's vice president had earlier quit to run in the November elections, the next person in the line of succession was Micheletti, the Liberal leader of Congress. He was named to complete the remaining months of Zelaya's term.

It cannot be right to call this a "coup." Micheletti was lawfully made president by the country's elected Congress. The president is a civilian. The Honduran Congress and courts continue to function as before. The armed forces are under civilian control. The elections scheduled for November are still scheduled for November. Indeed, after reviewing the Constitution and consulting with the Supreme Court, the Congress and the electoral tribunal, respected Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga recently stated that the only possible conclusion is that Zelaya had lawfully been ousted under Article 239 before he was arrested, and that democracy in Honduras continues fully to operate in accordance with law. All Honduran bishops joined Rodriguez in this pronouncement.

True, Zelaya should not have been arbitrarily exiled from his homeland. That, however, does not mean he must be reinstalled as president of Honduras. It merely makes him an indicted private citizen with a meritorious immigration beef against his country.

Why should we give a damn anyway?

Because as Andy McCarthy at National Review succinctly puts it:

Bottom line: Hugo Chavez wants Zelaya in, the law of Honduras says Zelaya must be out; Obama sided with Chavez.

A surprise and yet not surprising.

On the Monster . . . Michael Jackson

Well it's that time of the week when Sydney Brillo Duodenum gratuitously insults and sodomizes the life of a deceased celebrity. But, what else can Sydney Brillo Duodenum say about Michael Jackson that has not already been said, other than that SBD is part of the silent majority that despises Michael Jackson and feels not one whit of pain or loss or raised eyebrows at his unsurprising self-annihilation, or even wistful recollection of youthful teenaged hours lost listening to his blathering overwrought craptacular music.

Michael Jackson was a pariah; a Pied Piper whose self-created insanity served as an excuse and will continue to serve as an excuse for people to engage in narcissistic, abusive behavior; a man who has inspired too many people to believe they can be self-absorbed, disgusting divas; a man who laid a deep, thick foundation for the celebrity culture that blights and debases our society.

Mr. Jackson's rise coincided with SBDs term in high school, which now evokes only embarrassment and shame. Particularly noisome in SBD's besieged mind is an eleventh grade party in the home of a rich private school girl in Washington, D.C., completely outfitted with cable and MTV, at which all the girls had gathered on a couch to wait for the promised playing of Mr. Jackson's opus Thriller video, the video that allegedly changed all videos. The video that inspired and launched a thousand other idiots onto the airwaves and which to this day afflicts us as seen in the morons and losers standing thousands strong in long lines for American Idol tryouts. The video that a supreme prep school boy loser such as SBD had to fully immerse himself in so as to impress the rich private school girls. It did not work. The video that only now we understand Mr. Jackson crafted to show us the Dorian Gray persona he planned to unleash upon the country in the 80s and 90s. A freakish ghoul is right. He made us all freakish idiots acting outside of reason.

But his crime against humanity and SBD began much earlier. Circa 1972 or so. A very young SBD was forced to watch various variety shows featuring a very young, afroed Mr. Jackson, clad usually in white sequined spandex and white boots, maybe some fringe, a child prodigy singing and dancing with his similarly clad and obviously less talented older brothers. He was all the rage with Mother Duodenum, who never let his appearance go by without some disproving sidelong glance at her chubby, white, grubby Catholic kumbaya singing toad of a son. SBD was Cousin Oliver to Jackson's Ben. A scar deeper than anything you would find if you pulled Mr. Jackson's sutured, chiseled and implanted head out of the cryogenic chamber his crazy family has no doubt consigned to some salt mine in Indiana for future resurrection when King of Pops royalties peter out in 100 years.

Sydney Brillo Duodenum will not engage in a long discourse about Mr. Jackson's music. Suffice to say he believes it simply sucks. Over-produced, superficial, formulistic, shrieking, guttural, soul-killing, self-reverential, self-pitying crap. The Thesaurus beckons but time is limited and SBD must drop a duece before departing for the homestead.

Nevertheless, another reason why SBD hates Michael Jackson is because over time he did his damnedest to transform himself into a creature that haunted SBD’s childhood – the Child Catcher from the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Compare the photo below to the one above. How can anyone think that the Child Catcher was not a Bob that possessed Mr. Jackson? Mr. Jackson's reconstructions and associated difficulties with minors could certainly be explained by it.

Yes, yes, Jackson had a medical condition - vitiligo - certainly no fault of his own, but his efforts to mitigate it, and his obsession with repairing a broken nose and singed hair and scalp from shooting a Pepsi commercial that went awry, can charitably be described as a complete disaster. Was he damaged early as a child by his abusive father? Certainly and he admitted as much to other celebrity freaks, such as Oprah Winfrey. But Mr. Jackson never grew up and surrounded himself with children and grifters who aided and abetted the narcissicm and selfishness. Mr. Jackson willingly embraced his problems, aggravated them, compounded them and built them into an industry. His stories, his drama, his entourages, his fucked up brothers and sisters, his poor business sense, his rage at being successful (boo, hoo), his sexual pecadillios, his absurd military style outfits and gloves and silly boots and face masks, and that insipid whispering voice in the rare interview. It went on and on. Insufferable, juvenile nonsense. Years of it! And for all of that he is too many peoples' hero. Imagine that? This monster a hero! Adults weeping in the streets. We're to believe he was on a comeback. He had a new tour and new music ( tired and derivative no doubt of his other shit tunes) and, well, . . .Bullshit! A life of unceasing bullshit and absurdity. And people are shocked, shocked that he died at the hands of one of his quack doctors, pumping the ghoul with narcotics to keep the dancing money machine going.

Jackson was a man who could have anything and did have everything he wanted. Like many absurdly wealthy people, no one ever said no to Michael Jackson. And apparently, Mr. Jackson never said no to anyone else and they spent his money as perversely as he did, despite the shrewed purchases of libraries of Beattles music and such.

And what other eccentricities has he entertained us with?

Accusations of pederasty and blackmail and hush-up payments.

A chimp as best friend.

A sprawling ranch with carnival rides to lure children not his own (see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)

"His" children named Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, Prince Michael Jackson, and Prince Michael Jackson II. (Oh, OK George Foreman).

The King of Pop was the King of Debt.

A possible conversion to Islam in exchange for debt relief.

It goes on and on, and yet multitudes gather to weep for the Monster, lead by shameless race hustlers, hangerson, freaks and others occupying the court of Celebrity Castle.

And the corrupting influence is deep. Not two days ago, while depositing Sydney Brillo Duodenum Jr. at Boy Scout Camp, and following a camp wide gathering of Troops on the parade field, he walked in front of a small group of high school aged Scouts who arranged on the fly a rendition of Billie Jean, complete with backup chorus and dance moves. Boy Scouts, ladies and gentleman, Boy Scouts singing Billie Jean a capella, in class A uniforms, in the deep woods. That is deep societal corruption on full display on the dirt road of a 100+ year old Boy Scout Camp.

All of this is to say that SBD despised Michael Jackson, hated his music, loathed his persona, decries his lasting, deep influence on our culture, and is deeply discouraged that any would call him hero.

He was a monster.

Boom