Underneath The Hood

Just a reminder this morning that we've made some improvements to Podcast Versus The Stupid, and we now have an archive page with all the PVTS episodes in mp3 and Windows Media Player format that you can download or listen to on your PC or mobile device, so we can get MOAR LISTENERS.  Tell your friends.  You DO have friends, right?  Maybe?  I'm hoping?  C'mon, even I have friends.

We've got big plans for PVTS in the coming weeks and months, first to get the show on iTunes so you all can get the latest episodes in one place automatically, and second, as we get better at this, we're going to expand the show to an hour and try to have guests on a regular basis.

As the hip kids say, stay tuned, true believers...

StupidiNews!

• On the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on NYC and the Pentagon, Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo say that budget issues for the planned 9/11 museum/memorial have been resolved.
• The central figure in a campaign scandal involving Florida GOP Rep. David Rivera has vanished, as campaign strategist Ann Alliegro has failed to appear before federal prosecutors.
• Somalia has finally selected a new President amid allegations of vote-buying and election rigging, to replace outgoing head Sheikh Sharif Ahmed.
• Ireland's tiny Dorinish Island is on sale again, signifying that Ireland's real estate market may finally be coming around as the island once owned by Beatle John Lennon is on the market.
• Web hosting giant Go Daddy is denying that yesterday's outage that knocked thousands of domains offline was caused by hacker attacks.

Last Call

Things are beginning to all line up as green lights for the Obama bus heading forward.  Or at least, greenbacks are lining up.

President Barack Obama's re-election campaign and supporting committees brought in more than $114 million last month – the first time the incumbent has outraised his opponent, Gov. Mitt Romney, since April.

Obama’s Campaign Manager Jim Messina announced the figure for August late Sunday night.

Romney’s campaign brought in $111 million last month.

But for three months in a row – June, July, August – Romney’s camp brought in more than $100 million, with $106 million in June and $101 million in July.

“No celebrating, because they're going to have an even bigger September. But now we know we can match them, doing this our way,” tweeted the Obama campaign.

Part of that was me, darnit.  The Republican convention was so awful, I made sure to donate last  month, especially after seeing Team Obama get beaten on.  Romney's sitting on hundreds of millions here, and the last two months of the campaign are going to be vicious.

Proud to help them.  Let's go...forward!

Deaf Dolphin Moving To New Home

NEW ORLEANS (AP)  A deaf dolphin found stranded in March off the Louisiana coast is being taken to live among other dolphins at a facility in Mississippi.

Suzanne Smith is the rescue coordinator at the Audubon Nature Institute. She says the 2 ½-year-old dolphin will be taken Tuesday to the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies because he would be unable to survive in the wild.

His deafness was likely the reason he was lost, and will live a happy life of comfort and love.   Since guaranteed suffering and death was the other choice, we'll call this one a happy ending.   I hope it made you smile, it made my day.

Ebola Travels Between Towns

GOMA, Congo — An outbreak of the Ebola virus has killed 15 people in northeastern Congo and the local communities are quickly learning how frighteningly deadly the disease is, and how to prevent its spread.

"Ebola entered my house and I did not know what it was," said Gabriel Libina Alandato, who survived the hemorrhagic fever. "My three daughters and their mother died in August, but it is only when I was taken to the quarantine center that I learned about the disease."

Health officials say the population lacks knowledge of Ebola and must learn that the tradition of washing of corpses before funerals spreads the epidemic.

Although it is the ninth Ebola epidemic in Congo, it is the first one in the Haut-Uélé territory, in northeastern Congo. Ebola has no cure and is deadly in 40 percent to 90 percent of cases. The disease causes severe internal bleeding.

They believe a woman who traveled for a funeral touched the body and brought it back to her town.  The longstanding traditions create a perfect chance to spread the disease. If any of you ever read The Hot Zone you are surely squirming right now.  Once Ebola crops up, it continues to do so.  Oh yeah, and once it landed in the U.S. in a couple of trash bags.

The difference between here and there is education and resources.  These people have no idea they are risking their lives, and how to prevent outbreaks.  This is something the world should pay attention to, as Ebola is only one of many risks that threaten the population.

Ann Romney Does Him No Favors

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's wife Ann said that her husband has been unfairly 'demonized,' during a joint appearance on NBC's Meet the Press aired on Sunday.

Ann Romney said she took to the GOP convention stage to convey that her family has faced struggles even though they have been well off financially.

“Well, I think the thing that I want to communicate to people, and that it's so important that people understand, is that Mitt and I do recognize that we have not had a financial struggle in our lives. But I want people to believe in their hearts that we know what it is like to struggle. And our struggles have not been financial, but they've been with health and with difficulties in different things in life,” she said, in an interview aired Sunday.

 "But I want people to believe in their hearts that we know what it is like to struggle."  She says this after acknowledging that they have not.  Nobody's life runs smoothly all the time, and they are no exception.  However, she has never faced her challenges and wondered how they were going to afford food next week.  She never had to go through cancer as a single parent on $12 an hour, though I watched two brave women go through that, in freakishly similar circumstances.  

So yo, poor people, she's had a hard time of it, too.  I mean, she always had insurance, and a staff to help with the house and the kids, and a comfortable bed to sleep in.  She has never had to choose between a dollar box of mac and cheese or a single piece of fruit.  But somehow, she knows where we are coming from, and we should be gosh-darned happy to have Mitt deciding what is right for us, rather than representing us.  

If she had a clue she would be dangerous.  

One Lucky Kid

Swooped up by rushing water, Jeffrey was forced more than a quarter-mile through multiple storm sewer pipes, at times completely submerged, before finding enough breathing room to wait for rescuers, the Associated Press reports.

"It was dark, it was scary, it was nasty," Jeffrey says. "It was like somebody is putting you in a big whirlpool and spinning you around and getting your head knocked on the ground."

As emergency crews got to the scene, they started taking off sewer lids, yelling into the sewers waiting for a sign of Jeffrey.

"The water was moving so quickly it sucked him into the drain," said Doug Turner, a Parma Fire Department spokesman. "It sucked him in and pulled him probably 100 yards, full of water, where he couldn't take his breath."

The full story is pretty scary.  One second, everything is fine, the next he is in underground in a tube full of water.  It doesn't get much scarier than that, folks.  He is fine, and knows how lucky he is to be alive.

On a side note, in a land far, far away a bunch of horror writers were sitting at a table, brainstorming.  We were trying to think of things to meditate on that put you in that mental place.  I threw out being water in a pipe underground, waiting for someone to turn the tap and let you out.  We all successfully freaked ourselves out and had to move on to another topic. This kid lived that.  I can't say I would have been sane coming out of that.

Good for you, kid.

Money Where Your Mouth Is

As I mentioned in the podcast on Sunday, Hustler Magazine owner Larry Flynt is now offering $1 million for Mitt Romney's tax returns.

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt has offered up to $1 million to anyone who releases details of Mitt Romney’s tax returns.

In a full-page ad to be featured in The Washington Post and USA Today, the porn mogul offers the huge sum of cash to anyone who can provide verifiable information regarding the Republican presidential candidate’s “unreleased tax returns and/or details of his offshore assets, bank accounts and business partnerships.”

“What is he hiding?” Flynt asks in the ad. “Maybe, now, we’ll find out.”

As I said Sunday, I agree with Bon's take that we will see Mitt's dark secret before the campaign is out, it was always inevitable.  Flynt's just speeding up the process, because now whoever breaks this news first gets a million bucks.  Go capitalism!  What's more American than good ol' supply and demand?

The demand price is now one million dollars.  I'm betting someone's going to supply the info, and soon.

Part And Parcel

Mitt Romney, call your office.  Now.

Mitt Romney said Sunday that he likes parts of ‘Obamacare’ and will keep key provisions involving pre-existing conditions and young people.

“I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform. Of course there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place,” he said on NBC’s “Meet The Press. “One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage. Two is to assure that the marketplace allows for individuals to have policies that cover their family up to whatever age they might like.”

The remarks could have huge implications as they signal a marked shift from Romney’s strong, unequivocal support for full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which he has consistently held since the Republican primaries.

Politically, the pivot risks drawing the ire of conservatives, who have been adamant that Republicans repeal the law in its entirety if elected. It’s a major gamble that could reflect Romney’s need to win over more independent voters, who support those provisions.

And with that, the Romney post-convention meltdown is pretty much complete at this point.  Obama is up significantly now over the last several days, and now Romney has dropped this bombshell on the base after signaling that he was going to go hard after Obama.

It's ridonkulous.  Mitt Romney is atrociously bad at campaigning.  He really is the only guy who could have taken what should have been a decent chance of a Republican win and totally screwed it.  I mean the rest of the GOP pack would have either have already alienated the base to the point of getting filleted in the primaries (Huntsman, Huckabee) or never gotten above 40% in the general (everyone else).  Romney was the best shot they had...and he was screwed from day one.

Here's the thing however.  Mitt Romney didn't even make it through Sunday without completely flip-flopping on that position.

In reference to how Romney would deal with those with preexisting conditions and young adults who want to remain on their parents’ plans, a Romney aide responded that there had been no change in Romney’s position and that “in a competitive environment, the marketplace will make available plans that include coverage for what there is demand for. He was not proposing a federal mandate to require insurance plans to offer those particular features.”

Pull up a chair.  This is going to get ugly.  Romney's a complete laughingstock.  The last 96 hours have been an utter disaster for the man.  He's fading into "done" territory at breakneck speed here.  Watch this week carefully.

StupidiNews!

• Congress returns from summer recess for a couple of weeks, but neither side expects any significant legislation to pass during a bitter campaign season.
• The Afghan Taliban is promising to kill newly deployed British Prince Harry, four years after his original Royal Air Force deployment was cut short due to security reasons.
• Royal Dutch Shell becomes the first company to drill offshore along Alaska's Arctic Chukchi Sea coast, with the first wells expected to go into full production next year.
• More government austerity in the UK continues as Business Secretary Vince Cable plans to eliminate "thousands" of health and safety regulations.
• California biologists are tracking honeybees infected with a fly parasite to try to discover how to save hive populations from so-called infested "zombees".

Last Call

Paul Krugman vs. Rand Paul, folks.  On live teevee.

PAUL: The thing I don’t understand is that your arguing that the government sector is struggling. Are you arguing that there are fewer government employees under Obama than there were under Bush?
KRUGMAN: Of course. That’s a fact. That’s a tremendous fact.
PAUL: No, the size of growth of government is enormous under president Obama.
KRUGMAN: If government employment had grown as fast under Obama as it did under Bush, we’d have a million and a half more people employed right now — directly.
PAUL: Are there less people employed or more people employed now by government?

Well, Rand...umm...about that, yeah...




About half a million less or so, Rand.  That Census spike there?  Totally temporary, and since then, government employment has in fact dropped like Rand's IQ.

My Senator is a moron, folks.  Don't blame me, I voted for Jack Conway.

Podcast Versus The Stupid!

This week Bon and I tackle the Barack and Big Dog show at the DNC, Mitt Romney being arguably the worst campaigner in history, and Larry Flynt offering a million bucks for Mitt's tax returns.

Listen to internet radio with Zandar Versus The Stupid on Blog Talk Radio

You can click on the ITunes button there to put the episode in your podcasts, you can download the mp3 here, or the Windows Media file here.  Take us with you and give a listen! Check out our previous episodes at our episode archive page too!

Here We Go Again

A Springfield City Council member is drafting language that would ban over-the-counter sales of a key methamphetamine ingredient.

Zone 1 Councilman Jeff Seifried said he intends to “start a discussion” on the topic and asked city legal staff to work on language for a bill that would likely require a prescription for the purchase of a popular cold and allergy tablet, pseudoephedrine.

These measures are failing all over the place, and for good reason.  Thousands of families aren't able to afford a co-pay or a day off to see the doctor for cold medicine.  Nor should they have to.  The drugs are safe for normal consumption, and the failure on the part of law enforcement should not result in a burden on people who are already struggling to make ends meet.  Those same people can't afford sick days, and may be going without something else just to get the medicine.

One proposed solution has been a database where you are forced to provide your driver's license to purchase "dangerous" OTC medicine.  No, that's not unnerving at all.  Meanwhile, delivery trucks are moving it to criminals by the case, and citizens are forced to sign and pay for the expense of having their right to privacy squashed.

Fight the battle a different way.  This will just send people over city or county lines, idiots.

Your Insanity Is Exquisite, Sir

John Hinderaker's clean break with political reality is so snowflake-intricate, so crystalline perfect in its construction, that part of me feels bad stomping all over the thing like a drunken brontosaurus with a restless leg syndrome having a panic attack during an earthquake.  I mean, it takes serious and sustained, considerable effort to build a Fortress of Denial like this, each brick lovingly collected from the fetid swamps of internet bullshit that he resides in, much like Yoda's Dagobah home (only without all the personable rustic charm) and held in the hefty walls by the mortar of utter cluelessness.

And yet inside this seemingly impervious shell of manufactured nonsense, the tiniest cracks are beginning to appear...for our brave Hindrocket is facing the first gnawing echoes of doubt that Romney might...might actually lose.  Madness is seeping in the edges of Johnny's vision, things he can't explain, vexatious ideas that he thought were long buried have come bubbling slowly up to the surface like a gigantic fart in a tar pit.

And so, steeling himself like the Neanderthals of old, he stands beneath the open sky, looks up into the face of the heavens, and asks "Why?"

But it now appears that the election will be very close after all, and that Obama might even win it. It will require a few more days to assess the effects (if any) of the parties’ two conventions, but for now it looks as though the Democrats emerged with at least a draw, despite a convention that was in some ways a fiasco. In today’s Rasmussen survey, Obama has regained a two point lead over Romney, 46%-44%. Scott Rasmussen writes:

The president is enjoying a convention bounce that has been evident in the last two nights of tracking data. He led by two just before the Republican convention, so he has already erased the modest bounce Romney received from his party’s celebration in Tampa. Perhaps more significantly, Democratic interest in the campaign has soared. For the first time, those in the president’s party are following the campaign as closely as GOP voters.

So the Democrats’ red meat, over-the-top attacks on Republicans apparently worked at least as well as the Republicans’ more positive, low-key approach. 

Do you see now why I feel pangs of guilt about destroying this sweet, sweet marzipan castle of utter derpness?  One plows through the spider's web in between those bushes on the front lawn near the mailbox in the dew-kissed morning stumble to check for your junk mail all the time, but the spider built that himself dammit, and you are destroying something real even if it was ephemeral and obnoxious in the grand scheme of things.  It was very real to the spider, at least.

Meanwhile, John has his answer as to why.

On paper, given Obama’s record, this election should be a cakewalk for the Republicans. Why isn’t it? I am afraid the answer may be that the country is closer to the point of no return than most of us believed. With over 100 million Americans receiving federal welfare benefits, millions more going on Social Security disability, and many millions on top of that living on entitlement programs–not to mention enormous numbers of public employees–we may have gotten to the point where the government economy is more important, in the short term, than the real economy. My father, the least cynical of men, used to quote a political philosopher to the effect that democracy will work until people figure out they can vote themselves money. I fear that time may have come.

And so the exquisite Castle Derp is now a tomb, replete with catacombs worming through the earth, ready to receive the shattered corpse of the America That Only Exists In John Hinderaker's Head, as it comes home to rest quietly along with the ghosts of empires past.  Already the cables and tubes of the Gubment Matrix Machines are snaking their way in, ready to turn the people in John's mind into batteries for the infinite Agent Obamas that will consume us all!  Mammon rises!  Mammon rises!  Give witness and despair!

Or, you know, a much easier explanation that Romney is losing other than that we're all simulacra existing inside the fever dreams of a failed think tank stooge is the notion that America has kind of figured out that the GOP really did spend the last four years opposing everything the President and Democrats tried in order to sabotage the economy in order to try to win.

President Obama and the Democrats have succeeded at convincing voters that Republicans are trying to delay economic recovery, according to a series of recent polls.

The new data suggests that about half the country, including a majority of self-identified independents, believe that congressional Republicans are using their political power to thwart Obama’s efforts to reduce unemployment, presenting Democrats an opportunity to make this argument more explicitly as the 2012 campaign moves forward — to undercut Republicans’ claims that Obama and the Dems bear full responsibility for the economy, and to make their pattern of obstruction a real liability for them.

So there's that.  But...shh...don't tell John.  It'll ruin his beautiful nightmare.

Saving Ryan's Cuts To Privates

I wonder if Paul Ryan knows that Mitt Romney just threw him under the bus.

Mitt Romney said his fellow Republicans were wrong to agree to a deal last summer that included a series or automatic cuts to defense spending in exchange for an agreement to raise the nation's debt ceiling.

The Republican presidential nominee said in an interview airing Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that GOP lawmakers made a "big mistake" in signing off on the deal, which prevented a U.S. default on its borrowing obligations.

"I thought it was a mistake on the part of the White House to propose it.  I think it was a mistake for Republicans to go along with it," Romney said.

That deal included a series of automatic cuts, including $55 billion in cuts to defense spending, set to take place automatically in January. The automatic cuts, known as the "sequester," were designed to be so politically distasteful so that lawmakers would have an incentive to reach some alternative compromise. But they reached no deal, and the sequester looms just a few months on the horizon.

Umm...Mitt?  You are aware who the numbers guy for the Republican side on this deal was, right?  The chair of the House Budget Committee? Your pick for Vice-President?  Paul Ryan?  Is that ringing any bells with you, man?

Republicans are trying as hard as they can to get out of these defense cuts, but Obama has them over a barrel and they know it.  He's outsmarted them AGAIN and they're simply counting on the media saving them.  A real journalist would have immediately asked if this means Romney was disagreeing with the votes of his own veep pick, but of course, David Gregory.

But guess what?  This time, if nothing is done, the GOP loses.  Big time.

Have fun with that, guys.