Sarah Palin Blunder Women

A little something something from MAD magazine's 20 Dumbest of 09 edition. VIA jezebel.

Barack Obama defends bad Jeans

“Those jeans are comfortable, and for those of you who want your president to look great in his tight jeans, I’m sorry — I’m not the guy. It just doesn’t fit me. I’m not 20.”

— President Obama speaking with Meredith Viera in an NBC “Today” show interview about the jeans he sported at baseball’s All-Star game last week.

At first I wondered why Michelle didn't dress him that day, but then I realized that Barack Obama is just like the rest of us, he was just having a fat pants day.

death by politics

Apparently not only will same-sex marriage be a huge burden on small business in the "wise words" of RNC chairman, Michael Steele. But “liberalism will kill you“. I must say, that's pretty....ridicu..lou...


... goodbye world.

The Matroshka Campaign

New campaign for Sonntagszeitung , a newspaper in Switzerland. I kind of find it interesting. What say you?

political chucks

VIA MAX-O-MATIC

The New America

Advertising creatives rebrand America. Alex Bogusky's poster I kind of get. An ironic t-shirt of an ironic t-shirt perhaps?

Saatchi's or Kevin Robert's rendition leaves me feeling all kinds of strange.

VIA Gawker

ICE COLD CASH

“The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based watchdog group that pressures food companies to make healthier products, plans to propose a federal excise tax on soda, certain fruit drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks and ready-to-drink teas. It would not include most diet beverages. Excise taxes are levied on goods and manufacturers typically pass them on to consumers.”

Now here's the good part. The tax would be part of a way to help fund a healthcare system overhaul.  The counter arguments (surprise, surprise) are coming from PepsiCo, Kraft, and Coca-Cola, who argue that this tax would unfairly target lower-income Americans. 

Perhaps, less soda consumption will mean people will switch to bottle water.  Except, the government is also trying to wean us off that. "New York Gov. David Paterson has issued an executive order restricting the use of bottled water at state facilities and promoting executive agency sustainability."  Plus, bottled water prices are getting kind of ridiculous. Remember when bottled water used to be a dollar?  And a bag of chips was only 25 cents. How I miss the 90's.

 Soon we all will have to decide between New York City Tap and Two Buck Chuck. I choose Two Buck Chuck.

rebranding America

VIA Animal New york

leave Bristol alone

I'll admit it. I've jumped on the bandwagon from time to time. It was so easy to. Why not use Bristol Palin as the posterchild of why abstinence education doesn't work? Why not make Levi Johnston our whipping boy, after he proclaims himself a redneck on MySpace. It felt pretty good for a while. Sarah Palin was a piss poor excuse for a presidential candidate, and we took it out on her daughter. But why are we still doing it?

Bristol Palin isn't a celebrity.  She's just a teenager. She did not sign up to be paparazzid and scrutinized and have her every utterance torn apart. Today on gawker they posted a link to palin's deceptions. The author of which has been tracking every lie, ever stated by Bristol and Mom since 2005, all through stalking her MySpace page and beyond. 

In all honesty, I feel sorry for the girl. She got impregnated by a loser who is now going around the talk show circuit trying to profit of the fact that he wham bammed thank you mammed the girl. And her mom put her in public spotlight through it all. I think she's dealt with enough. We really don't need websites devoted to analyzing the girls entire sexual history. I mean if any of our high school flings were analyzed, it wouldn't look pretty either.

tar and feathers for everyone

Why are popular conservatives up in a tizzy about AIG and the likes? Bonuses never seemed to bother them before. In fact, the AIG bailout began under the bush administration.

But now, the fox news pundits are ranting and raving at every turn, suddenly they are all overcome with populist rage. Apparently when taxpayer money is involved corporate greed is suddenly a no-no. But shouldn't it always be a no-no? Wouldn't this crisis have been prevented if corporations were regulated? If capitalism wasn't just allowed to do what it will and  corporations didn't put short-term profits ahead of long-term progress ? Why is it all the rage for republicans to rage now.

In the upcoming weeks, Republican groups are planning to run a slew of attack ads based on AIG bonuses.  Some of the criticism is warranted. Yes, Chris Dodd and the Obama administration made mistakes with the package, and they took responsibility for them. But, I for one, think the discrepancies between executive pay and the pay for average american workers is always an issue, not just an issue during the recession. When you turn populist rage toward singular government actions, it distracts people from raging about the inequities that always exist. The American people being ripped off, while corporations profit, isn't an entirely new phenomena.

So what's the deal? Are Republicans really infuriated by executive bonuses or as Bruce Reed's points out in his latest slate article on lemon populism,  are conservatives just trying " to poison the well on government action". I have to go for the latter. 

If the world were 100...

Found this over at brainpickings and I absolutely love it. Sometimes we have a hard time recognizing the disparities that exist in the world, that's why these visual representations are so interesting.Toby Ng’s poster series The World of 100 — is an experimental graphical representation of statistical information about the world, based on the allegorical scenario of reducing the world to a village of 100 people.

The dirty boys of banking or bye bye Britney...

... and hello Madoff.

As of late, celebrity baby-making and limo side vajayjay has been bad business. According to the New York Times, celebretards are out, and bankertards are in. 

Apparently, sites like TMZ and shows like Extra are switching from coverage about the antics of wayward celebrities to exposes from the corporate underbelly of society.

Bankers gone wild, if you will. Paparazzi are flashing their bulbs at every corporate scam artist, AIG executive,  and stockbroker's broken-hearted girlfriend they can find. And the American people are loving it.

TMZ, drove mainstream media coverage with a blog post late last month " Bailout Bank Blows Millions Partying in L.A", your tax dollars, hard at work". And that was only the start. Apparently, now all that other stuff is fluff and the time for childish things is gone, even for the paparazzi? Does this mean that the days of  best beach bodies is over? Because,  I really don't want to see bank managers in their skivvies.

Now, instead of stalking NOBU the paparazzi wait for corporate jet landings, snapping pictures of taxpayer money wasted, inducing "shame in the shameless".In theory, this seems like a step up to serious issues for the tabloid press. But is it just me, or does creating celebrities out of crooks, just poise them for book opportunities and lifetime movie fame? 

Oh, canada.

So apparently, George Bush expected to be greeted with open arms on the Canadian lecture circuit, instead his upcoming St. Patricks Day appearance is being met with more shock then awe. Human rights lawyers in Canada are hoping their government will greet Bush with handcuffs or at least bar him entry to the country.

Vancouver lawyer, Gail Davidson, claims that Canada has a legal obligation to deny him entry under Canada's Immigration and Refuge Protection Act. The law says foreign nationals who have commited war crimes or crimes against humanity, including torture, are "inadmissible" to Canada. Apparently, a person doesn't even have to be convicted to qualify, there just needs to be reasonable evidence. If he does make it in, Calgary activists will be waiting.

You'd think after having a few shoes thrown at him, George Bush would not feel entirely welcome gallivanting around the globe, spreading his doctrine. But Bush claims he's going to be making "ridiculous money" on the lecture circuit. 

I guess everything is bigger in Texas, after all, including the egos.

Why I no longer rage...

If Daily Obsessional was written a couple months ago, it would have been all politics, all the time. I was obsessed: I read every blog, watched every stat, waited with bated breath as the CNN map lit up, county after county, and now weeks after a democrat has actually won, I’ve lost that spark.

Sometimes, I think maybe it was the rat race that fired me up. Now, that Barack Obama embarks on the day to day work of being president, I can’t say I’m full of hope. It feels like politics for the next few years will just be about making the best from the worst of times. Now, when I read about politics, I’m not angered or riled up, I'm just sad. Sad, that the problems seem so pressing, but the solutions seem so far off.

We’re putting out stimulus after stimulus package, bailout after bailout, and the banks are still not lending out money; “dead men walking” according to some. Morale is down and every day you meet someone that has just lost a job. I read the news about new appointments and old feuds, and I feel that for all the changes, and Barack Obama is doing a lot, probably more in his first couple weeks then Bush did for months, there’s not that much to cling to. Every day there is a new setback, a new burden. One day Barack Obama puts out a statement to the Middle East. Hope. Within weeks, we have to send more troops into Afghanistan and Iran further develops their nuclear program. Reality.

The problems don’t end. The problems don’t even mitigate, and the pace of progress is a crawl. And a crawl is almost painful to watch, after the elation of change in theory. I’m still watching, still reading, but I’m only registering a whimper about it all.

Private jets made out of rubies and veal.