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So you wanna f*ck a Republican?: Dirty political confessions (NSFW)

I can honestly say I’ve never been aroused by the thought of having sex with a politician. Not just because most politicians are middle-aged guys with halitosis, bad hair and ego problems, but because politicians are on that “no fly zone” of occupations (along with dentists, proctologists and genitourinary doctors) who for me can never ever be hot, sexy, or remotely attractive. I know, I know, it’s my loss, but you know, I don’t mind—I can live without their alleged charms.

However, it would appear that I am in a minority—as there are many, many people out there who do fantasise about politicians and how they’d like these SOBs to fuck ‘em till they bleed, or reciprocate by tonguing and fingering their oval office. If that’s the party you’d vote for, well three cheers, for there’s a place where you can cast your vote and ‘fess up your secret political desires.

Once it might have been an App, but now it’s a Tumblr—this time a page called Playing Dirty, where peeps anonymously share their “Dirty Political Confessions.” These secret soundbites are plastered over a suitable image of the fantasy object and posted for everyone…enjoy. Admittedly a lot of the naughty secrets involve British politicians like Prime Minister David Cameron—even after all that pig-fucking nonsense—and Margaret Thatcher (apparently someone’s idea of a “MILF”) but there are plenty of unbridled fantasies about Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, “Tricky Dicky” and Hillary Clinton.

It begins with me being hired to have sex with Bush Jr. I discreetly enter his hotel suite where I find him laying in bed wearing nothing but his socks. I start by tonguing his sweaty taint and asshole until he can’t take it anymore and shoves his cock down my throat, calling me a slut while I gag on his forceful plunges. He then throws me on the bed and fucks me in various positions throughout the night.

I want to sit Hillary Clinton on the desk of the Oval Office and make her come with my tongue and fingers so many times she wouldn’t know her own name any more.

Paul Ryan is a sexy beast. The moment I laid eyes on him I wanted him to fuck me. The way he fights for control and resists his angry urges is a huge turn on. I want him to tie me up in shackles and whip me, bite me, and fuck me till I bleed.

More wet dreams of our noble leaders, after the jump…

Posted by Paul Gallagher | Leave a comment
Bizarre, expensive porcelain stereo speakers in the form of political dictators

Russian artist Petro Wodkins is behind the design, manufacture, and sale of these hand-made porcelain “Sound of Power” speakers in the shape of five powerful heads of state. The group consists of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Kim Jong-Un of North Korea, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Barack Obama of the United States. I find it almost refreshing that Obama could make this list, it smacks of a certain contrarian je ne sais quoi.

The craftsmanship on these beauties is purported to be impressive: as the PR materials brag, “The figurines are crafted by artists and we put a lot of attention to the authentic details, like the small stars on the buttons on the shirt of Kim Jong-Un.” I have to admit that when I do shop for international dictator audio equipment, I do look for that sort of attention to detail.

The speakers come in three sizes. The 10-inch model costs about $1,200 and is appropriate for use with a desktop computer. The largest is the 43-inch model, which runs roughly $39,000 and will instantly become the most attention-getting object of almost any room in which it is present, as depicted below. As you can see, the speakers are also useful for providing a surface upon which the spoiled children of plutocrats can lean comfortably.

If you don’t like speakers in the shape of meanie dictators, you can opt to get speakers custom-made of your own head or anyone whose head you can subject to a 3D scanner. The custom model is available in “white or gold” and “prices start” at around $165,000.
Kim Jong-Un
via The World’s Best Ever

Posted by Martin Schneider | Leave a comment
Slavoj Žižek: Ayn Rand’s ‘John Galts’ are the idiots who crashed the economy & they’ll do it again

I had to laugh at the way Slavoj Žižek so masterfully ended his Guardian op ed piece, “Who is responsible for the US shutdown? The same idiots responsible for the 2008 meltdown.”

Žižek’s subtitle is “In opposing Obamacare, the radical-populist right exposes its own twisted ideology” and in the essay, he poses a provocative question that I’ve been wondering about a lot myself recently: “Barack Obama is accused of dividing the American people instead of bringing them together. But what if this, precisely, is what is good about Obama?”

I’d like to read Žižek—or Jonathan Chait, Brian Beutler, Alex Pareene, Michael Tomasky, Charles Hugh Smith, Frank Rich or the great Charles P. Pierce—taking on this topic in further detail once the dust has cleared.

The conclusion Žižek draws at the close, though, is simply sublime:

One of the weird consequences of the 2008 financial meltdown and the measures taken to counteract it (enormous sums of money to help banks) was the revival of the work of Ayn Rand, the closest one can get to an ideologist of the “greed is good” radical capitalism. The sales of her opus Atlas Shrugged exploded. According to some reports, there are already signs that the scenario described in Atlas Shrugged – the creative capitalists themselves going on strike – is coming to pass in the form of a populist right. However, this misreads the situation: what is effectively taking place today is almost the exact opposite. Most of the bailout money is going precisely to the Randian “titans”, the bankers who failed in their “creative” schemes and thereby brought about the financial meltdown. It is not the “creative geniuses” who are now helping ordinary people, it is the ordinary people who are helping the failed “creative geniuses.”

John Galt, the central character in Atlas Shrugged, is not named until near the end of the novel. Before his identity is revealed, the question is repeatedly asked, “Who is John Galt?” Now we know precisely who he is: John Galt is the idiot responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown, and for the ongoing federal government shutdown in the US.

Standing ovation!

Posted by Richard Metzger | Leave a comment
‘The Bible’ trolls Christian America: POTUS or Satan incarnate?
12:30 pm

Barack Obama

Separated at birth?

As seen on The History Channel mini-series The Bible last night. It’s interesting to note that while the popular show is taking a lot of heat for the way they cast all of those white European-looking actors to portray the olive-skinned desert-dwelling people of biblical times, Satan isn’t just a black guy, he’s a ringer for a very specific black guy…

Posted by Richard Metzger | Leave a comment
Best Obama speech ever: ‘I’ll do the spaceman boogie’
02:27 am

Barack Obama

I can never get enough of these bad lip reading things and this is a particularly funny one.

Listen ladies, romance is deception. Romance is a parody. It’s how we get you cuddly and naughty naughty and not questioning men more than a two nights window.”

Best inauguration speech ever!

Posted by Marc Campbell | Leave a comment
‘Why I’m Voting to Re-Elect President Obama’

There is no doubt in my mind that the single best writer covering the 2012 election, numero uno, is Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce. I admire Pierce’s insight, his craft and the fact that he actually has a deep knowledge of 20th century history and politics.

He’s also hilarious. Real bust-a-gut, laugh out loud funny with tears running down your face stuff. There was really no competition this year, I don’t think, for the best writing on politics, although I rate The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi and Salon’s Alex Pareene very highly, also. But when it comes to the writing, Charles P. Pierce is, I think by far, the finest political prose stylist in American life, in a rarefied class with Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, Ambrose Bierce, Gore Vidal before he became a crank and Hunter S. Thompson before his brain got soft.

I don’t hesitate to make that claim for Charles Pierce’s writing, read him for just a week and I’m sure you’ll agree. I find myself in awe of his talents on pretty much a daily basis. No one has him beat for creative ways of calling idiots idiots and I love him for it. I only wish I could write as well as he can. For his coverage of the 2012 election, the guy deserves not only a Pulitzer prize and a lucrative new book contract, but his own TV show. He’s my dream guest to see on Moyers & Company.

Reading Charles P. Pierce is a privilege. Pierce wrote the best piece, bar none, on the reason to vote for Barack Obama tomorrow. Reposting it here in its entirety, since it doesn’t lend itself to an easy exceprt. I hope he won’t mind.

To sum it up, the most compelling reason to vote for Obama has got less to do with Obama himself or his record and everything to do with making sure Mitt Romney and his fellow passengers in the Republican clown car don’t get the keys to the White House

Because I am going to be in Florida on Election Day, I am voting this morning here in the Commonwealth (God save it!). There is only one vote that I am casting with any measurable amount of enthusiasm. That is the vote I am casting for Elizabeth Warren to be my next United States senator. This enthusiasm is based not solely in my personal affection for her, nor solely in my admiration for the things she’s already accomplished, nor solely as a reaction against the unnecessarily crude and boorish campaign waged against her by incumbent Senator Scott Brown, nor solely even in the fact that I think this race is still agonizingly close and that I think Warren has it in her to be a great United States senator on behalf of many of the issues that I think are important to the country. The enthusiasm derives from the fact that, when she was asked in a debate what her policy would be toward our groaning (and increasingly futile) military adventure in Afghanistan, she answered quickly and simply. Out. Now.

I am also going to vote for Barack Obama. Without enthusiasm. And without a sliver of a doubt in my mind.

To be fair, this won’t be the most unenthusiastic presidential vote I ever have cast. The prize for that one remains Jimmy Carter in 1976. I spent a year chasing that grinning peanut-farmer around the country on behalf of Mo Udall’s campaign, organizing in the field in New Hampshire and Massachusetts and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, until the money ran out. All we did was finish second, over and over again. Hell, we finished second to him by an eyelash in Michigan after Mo had dropped out. Voting for Carter that fall was like draining my own blood with a turkey baster. I wasn’t particularly ginned-up over Mondale in 1984, either. Neither did Bill Clinton make my lights shine either time he ran. And, to be perfectly honest, the only real enthusiasm I felt for this year’s incumbent in 2008 came largely from being around people who were so transported by the idea of him. That and the fact that George W. Bush no longer would have anything to screw up.

However, I am casting my vote for him (again) because of something that Dr. Jill Stein said the other night on TV, when she was being interviewed in the wake of that third-party candidates debate that Larry King hosted. I’ve known Jill socially for some time, and I admire her, and I agree with her on a marginally greater percentage of the issues than I do with the president. I think a lot of the snark aimed her way is unjustified. She’s not responsible for the wankerific fantasies of renegade “progressives.” I do not, however, think she is any more likely to become president — or any more qualified to be president — than I am. For example, I take a back seat to nobody in my scorn for the president’s apparent naïvete concerning the virulent nature of his political opposition. But, listening to Stein talk about the glories of the “Green New Deal” she’s going to pass through a Congress that is unlikely to differ much one way or the other from the one we have now, well, that makes Barack Obama sound like Huey Long. Still, I thought long and hard about tossing her my vote, because I live in the bluest of blue states, and I felt that, in casting my vote that way, I would absolve myself of complicity in the drone strikes, and in the inexcusable pass given to the Wall Street pirates, and in what I am sure is going to be an altogether dreadful Grand Bargain while not materially damaging the most important cause of all: making sure that Willard Romney is not president. And I might have done it, had Jill not gone on TV and talked about how those people who are voting for the incumbent president simply to make sure that Willard Romney is not president are doing so out of “fear.”

Horse hockey.

It is not fear. It is simple, compelling logic. We have two major political parties. Until that great gettin’-up morning, when purists on both sides of the ideological ditch manage to create workable third parties that look like something more substantial than organized unicorn hunts — which won’t happen until we have proportional voting, and I wish you as much luck with that as Lani Guinier had — we always will have two major political parties. One of them is inexcusably timid and tied in inexcusably tight with the big corporate money. The other one is demented.

This is not “fear” talking. I watched the Republican primaries. I went to the debates. I saw long-settled assumptions about the nature of representative democracy thrown down and danced upon. I heard long-established axioms of the nature of a political commonwealth torn to shreds and thrown into the perfumed air. I saw people seriously arguing for an end to the social safety net, to any and all federal environmental regulations, to the concept of the progressive income tax, and to American participation in the United Nations, the latter on the grounds that a one-world government threatens our “liberty” with its insurance-friendly national health-care reform bill. I saw Rick Santorum base his entire foreign policy on the legend of the 12th Imam, and I saw Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann actually be front-runners for a while. I saw all of this and I knew that each one of them had a substantial constituency behind them within the party for everything they said, no matter how loopy. When you see a lunatic wandering down the sidewalk, howling at the moon and waving a machete, it is not fear that makes you step inside your house and lock the door. It is the simple logic of survival. Fear is what keeps you from trying to tackle the guy and wrestle the machete away from him. And, as much as it may pain some people to admit it, the president is the only one stepping up to do that at the moment.

It is vitally important that the Republican party be kept away from as much power as possible until the party regains its senses again. It is not just important to the advance of progressive goals, thought it is. It is not just important to maintain the modicum of social justice that it has taken eighty years to build into the institutions of our government, though it is. It is important, too, that that you vote for one of these men based on whom else, exactly, he owes. Who is it that’s going to come with the fiddler to collect when you get what you’ve bargained for?

Barack Obama owes more than I’d like him to owe to the Wall Street crowd. He probably at this point owes a little more than I’d like him to owe to the military. The rest he owes to the millions of people who elected him in 2008 — especially to those people whose enthusiasm I neither shared nor really understood — and he will owe them even more if they come out and pull his chestnuts out of the fire for him this time around. He may sell them out — and, yes, I understand if you wanted to add “again” to that statement — but they are not likely to revenge themselves against the country if he does and, even if they decided to, they don’t have the power to do much but yell at the right buildings.

On the other hand, Willard Romney owes even more to the Wall Street crowd, and he owes even more to the military, but he also owes everything he is politically to the snake-handlers and the Bible-bangers, to the Creationist morons and to the people who stalk doctors and glue their heads to the clinic doors, to the reckless plutocrats and to the vote-suppressors, to the Randian fantasts and libertarian fakers, to the closeted and not-so-closeted racists who have been so empowered by the party that has given them a home, to the enemies of science and to the enemies of reason, to the devil’s bargain of obvious tactical deceit and to the devil’s honoraria of dark, anonymous money, and, ultimately, to those shadowy places in himself wherein Romney sold out who he might actually be to his overweening ambition. It is a fearsome bill to come due for any man, let alone one as mendaciously malleable as the Republican nominee. Obama owes the disgruntled. Romney owes the crazy. And that makes all the difference.

In his time in office, Barack Obama has done some undeniable good for people. There are auto workers in Ohio with jobs, and women making equal pay, and young people freed from the burdens of health care because of some of the president’s policies. And he is running on that record, making the case for his second term based on the good he has done for people in his first. In his only time in elective office, Romney also did some good for people. He reformed the health-care system in Massachusetts in a way that made him far more popular up here than he ever will be again. And he has spent seven years now running against the good he did for people. What kind of a politician does that? What kind of a man does that? A politician who has counted the debts he owes to the people to whom he owes them, and a man who is willing to hock everything about himself just to get even.

This is not “fear” talking. This is simply the way things are. It is important to stand against the people and the forces to which Willard Romney owes his political career. It is more important to do that than it is to do anything else. It is more important to do that than to salve my conscience, or make a statement, or dream my wistful dreams of a better and more noble politics. And that is why, today, I will vote for Barack Obama, not because of the man he is not, but because of the man his opponent clearly has become. I will do so without enthusiasm, and without a sliver of doubt in my mind.

Plus one, brother!

Read Charles P. Pierce daily at the Esquire Politics blog. Bookmark it!

You can follow Charles P. Pierce on Twitter. He is the author of Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free.

Posted by Richard Metzger | Leave a comment
Obama Vs. Romney: The Remix! (NSFW)

President Obama to fist Donald Trump if re-elected??? And Mitt Romney wants to shoot women in the head??? Really? Well only according to this comedy mash-up by Cassetteboy, a duo who are best known for their cut-and-paste comedy edits of politicians, royalty and the media. Here Cassetteboy takes comic aim at the US Presidential Elections, remixing the recent televised debates.

Posted by Paul Gallagher | Leave a comment
Oliver Stone does not like Obama

Next week sees the publication of Oliver Stone’s years in the making book, The Untold History of the United States (co-written with American University historian Peter Kuznick). The volume aims to puts forth a, uh, Stoned, I guess, counter interpretation of American history of the past century. Gallery Books is putting out the hefty, 618-page tome that apparently slams Democrats every bit as it rips Republicans.

Politico writes:

“The country Obama inherited was indeed in shambles, but Obama took a bad situation and, in certain ways, made it worse,” Stone and Kuznick wrote. “…[R]ather than repudiating the policies of Bush and his predecessors, Obama has perpetuated them.”

Obama’s election “felt like a kind of expiation for the sins of a nation whose reputation had been sullied, as we have shown throughout this book, by racism, imperialism, militarism, nuclearism, environmental degradation and unbridled avarice,” they wrote.

But on subjects from Wall Street reform to health care to Afghanistan, Stone and Kuznick rip Obama for breaking campaign promises and continuing the policies of President George W. Bush — who’s roundly condemned throughout the book. In some instances, they write, Obama went further than Bush’s White House toward anti-progressive policies.

Obama is basically Bush-lite. Anyone not blinded by partisanship can see that. You thought you were getting FDR, but you got a guy to the right of Nixon on both economics and civil liberties! It shouldn’t be a controversial thing to say out loud, but other than Daniel Ellsberg, actor John Cusack and Oliver Stone, few on the Left are saying it.

This, however, is just waggish conjecture:

“Obama asserted presidential power in ways that must have made Dick Cheney jealous,” they wrote.

Well, I laughed.

An accompanying 12-hour documentary series, Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States, will air on Showtime beginning November 12th. I can’t wait to see it. One of my best friends, composer Adam Peters, scored the series, and I myself worked on conceptualizing a similar project with Stone’s Ixtlan production company (note Carlos Castaneda reference there) back in 1994 that had the working title “History Inside Out.” (Without going into the how or why of it here, this project didn’t happen, but Disinformation did, a year later). Stone has wanted to do something like this for a long time, obviously—and he’s a brilliant guy, passionate about history—so I fully expect this to be Stone at his most inspired. Adam told me it was really amazing.

Politico summarized some of the harsher Obama critiques from Stone and Kuznick’s book:

On Wall Street reform: “The biggest winner under Obama was Wall Street.”

On health care: “Obama’s failure to articulate a progressive vision was also apparent in the fight over health reform, which was to have been his signature initiative…Obama’s health care reform effort, marked by the inability to even refute Republican charges of death panels, was so unpopular that it became an albatross around the necks of Democrats in the 2010 election.”

On a troop surge in Afghanistan: “When it finally came down to decision time, Obama didn’t have the courage or integrity of a post-Cuban Missile Crisis John F. Kennedy. He settled on a 30,000-troop increase, giving the military leaders almost everything they wanted and more than they expected.”

On civil liberties: “Among the greatest disappointments to his followers was Obama’s refusal to roll back the expanding national security state that so egregiously encroached on American civil liberties.”

On ‘imperialism’: “[He] was not offering a decisive break with over a century of imperial conquest. His was a centrist approach to better managing the American empire rather than advancing a positive role for the United States in a rapidly evolving world.”

On defense spending: “While cutting defense spending, pulling combat forces out of Iraq and beginning the drawdown in Afghanistan represented a welcome retreat from they hypermilitarism of the Bush-Cheney years, they did not represent the sharp and definitive break with empire that the world needed to see from the United States.”

Posted by Richard Metzger | Leave a comment
Obama on Ayn Rand
02:35 pm

Class War

Barack Obama
Ayn Rand

In the new Rolling Stone cover story, out today—yes the same one where Obama says Mitt Romney is a “bullshitter”—we get to hear the President’s take on reichwing icon Ayn Rand:

Q: Have you ever read Ayn Rand?

Obama: Sure.

Q: What do you think Paul Ryan’s obsession with her work would mean if he were vice president?

Obama: Well, you’d have to ask Paul Ryan what that means to him. Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we’d pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we’re only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we’re considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity – that that’s a pretty narrow vision. It’s not one that, I think, describes what’s best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a “you’re on your own” society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party.

Posted by Richard Metzger | Leave a comment
‘Please proceed, Governor’: Jon Stewart on the Presidential debate’s most dramatic moment

Although Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” comment was obviously the comedic highlight of the debate, Stewart draws out the laughs nicely here on the Libya question like the satiric maestro he is. Brilliant!

Why The Romney Campaign Stopped Talking About Libya

Posted by Richard Metzger | Leave a comment
Obama is Ralph Kramden on ‘The $99,000 Answer’
01:29 pm

Current Events

Barack Obama

Thee single best comment I’ve seen anywhere on the Internet, the one that totally sums up the horrifying experience of watching the Obama/Romney face-off. This in response to a great piece written by Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce titled “How to Recover from a First Presidential Debate.”

Barry Friedman, of Tulsa, Oklahoma writes:

Last night reminded me of the episode of THE HONEYMOONERS where Ralph goes on the “$99,000 ANSWER,” picks the popular music category, rents a piano, and has Norton play musical selections all week to prepare for the event. Thing is, Norton always “warms up” by playing the first few bars of SWANEE RIVER, a tune which annoys Ralph, even though he just knows the melody; so, the night of the show, first tune Ralph is given, of course, is “Swanee River,” which he can’t name; thus, he loses on the easiest, most obvious point. Last night, Romney played SWANEE RIVER over and over and, while we sat in our living rooms, screaming IT’S SWANEE RIVER, IT’S SWANEE FUCKING RIVER—or, more to the point, “47%... The Ryan budget which includes the $750-million… vouchers… women’s issues… ACA… you can’t balance the budget cutting ‘Sesame Street… 36 months of job growth… quote the RNC platform!”—Obama stood there like Ralph, dumbfounded, fully briefed, yet inexplicably, comically unprepared.

P.S. Did anyone else get the email from the Obama Campaign last night, the one that started “I hope I made you proud out there explaining the vision we share for this country”? Maybe next debate, they’ll wait until the debate is over before sending out self-congratulatory messages.

How fuckin’ true is that?

Posted by Richard Metzger | Leave a comment
Идиот: Vladimir Putin cracks sarcastic put-down of Mitt Romney’s foreign policy prowess
06:15 pm

Mitt Romney
Barack Obama
Vladimir Putin

What’s Russian for “pwned”?

It’s been another horrific, shitty, awful week for GOP nominee Thurston Howell III Mitt Romney. Now, even Russian President Vladimir Putin can’t resist piling on the insults aimed at the increasingly hapless Republican standard-bearer.

Yesterday Putin said he was “grateful” to Mitt Romney for saying Russia remained the United States’ “No. 1 geopolitical foe” because this idiotic statement of non-fact aimed at the GOP’s abundant pool of cud-chewing low information voters, actually helped Putin in missile defense negotiations!

According to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Putin told reporters:

“I’m grateful to him for formulating his stance so clearly because he has once again proven the correctness of our approach to missile defense problems. The most important thing for us is that even if he doesn’t win now, he or a person with similar views may come to power in four years. We must take that into consideration while dealing with security issues for a long perspective.”

Seems reasonable enough to me!

Way to go, Mittens! That’s what happens when you pander to people who get their information from ALL CAPS EMAILS. Yet another reason why Mitt Romney will never be the President of the United States.

President Obama drew blood with his own viciously witty riposte to Romney’s idiotic/politically suicidal statement about the crisis in Libya:

“There’s a broader lesson to be learned here: Gov. Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later and as president one of the things I’ve learned is you can’t do that. It’s important for you to make sure that the statements that you make are backed up by the facts and that you’ve thought through the ramifications before you make them.”

Dropped. Romney really tossed that ball right over the fuckin’ plate, didn’t he?!?!?

Fox News viewers who have never heard of any of this and who have no idea what any of this means can go here, here and here for more information.

Posted by Richard Metzger | Leave a comment
What if Obama had called a real marijuana user?
02:53 pm

Barack Obama

I have to laugh at people who think the Obama/Kumar video is a “secret message” dog-whistle to potheads that he’s going to make reform of marijuana laws a priority during a second term. Based on what readily available evidence? A “hunch”? It can’t be about looking at what’s actually happened during his administration thus far, that’s for fucking sure.

Stick with it. The footage of the raids is breathtaking.

Thank you Michael Backes!

Posted by Richard Metzger | Leave a comment
Meatheads: Obama and Romney portraits made out of beef jerky

We always get a kick out of San Francisco artist Jason Mercier’s witty portraits of pop culture icons made out of junk, garbage and recycled materials. His creations are often the very definition of “form is an extension of content.” In this case, Mercier may be making a statement regarding the current state of politics in America - the USA is being run by jerks and meatheads and we’re all headed for the slaughterhouse. Stampede, anyone?

In this instructive video, Mercier shows us the process of turning dead flesh into art.

Posted by Marc Campbell | Leave a comment
Unemployed steelworker in anti-Romney ad not voting for Obama, either

“We didn’t know who the hell Mitt Romney was when all that stuff started. It wasn’t until later we found out who Romney was. We just knew he was just another guy with money. It wasn’t until his boys came and started gutting the place that we found out he was an asshole.”

—Former GS Technologies steelworker Donnie Box, of Kansas City, Missouri

Although Donnie Box is the star of a pretty darned effective anti-Mitt Romney web ad produced by Priorities USA, that doesn’t mean he’s voting for Barack Obama in November, as Mike Elk reports in In These Times:

For Donnie Box, it doesn’t matter whether Romney had a direct day-to-day managerial role when Bain Capital closed his plant. Box feels Romney was still in a position to change things and that Romney had no problem profiting from his suffering. And Box notes that it was the actions Bain took before 1999, when Romney was indisputably head of the company, that led to the plant closing.

“There is no doubt in my mind when he came in with Bain Capital, he was the President and CEO of that corporation,” Box says. “He was responsible for the people who came in there and started loading up on debt. They knew with that much debt that there was no way that the place could survive.”

The scandal has led to a serious credibility problem for Romney among working-class voters. But being disillusioned by Romney is one thing; voting for Obama is another. And Box, for one, says he won’t be doing the latter.

Despite appearing in a controversial ad for the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA, denouncing Romney’s role in the GS Technologies plant closing, Box, a lifelong Democrat, says he won’t be voting for the first time since 1971 because he has lost faith in politicians.

“I could really care less about Obama,” says Box. “I think Obama is a jerk, a pantywaist, a lightweight, a blowhard. He hasn’t done a goddamn thing that he said he would do. When he had a Democratic Senate and Democratic Congress, he didn’t do a damn thing. He doesn’t have the guts to say what’s on his mind.”

Box’s refusal to vote for Obama shows the challenges that organized labor faces in convincing its members to vote for Democrats. Many union members like Box feel the party hasn’t pushed hard enough for jobs bills or labor law reform while making sure to pass trade pacts, like the South Korea Free Trade Agreement, which the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers opposed.

As the son of a life-long union member who retired early in disgust at the way he and his co-workers were being treated—and I’ve briefly been in a few labor unions myself when I was younger—I can easily see why Donnie Box would say “Fuck it” to Obama. Who could blame him? The White House hasn’t done much of anything for the unions (except talk) and labor gets next to nothing out of its unquestioning support for the Democratic Party. Although I believe that it most certainly is worth voting this year, if only to keep the GOP wolves at bay, I fully understand where Mr. Box is coming from and I wouldn’t argue with him that I think he’s wrong, either. Because I don’t.

As far as I’m concerned, the best thing that Obama and the Democrats have got going for them in 2012 is that they aren’t fucking Republicans. That isn’t enough for Donnie Box and god bless him for having the guts to say so.

Read more of Mike Elk’s
Laid Off Steelworker in Anti-Romney Ad Says He Is Not Voting for Obama (In These Times)

After the jump, see what ABC News is calling “The Bain Ad That Romney Should Fear the Most”

Posted by Richard Metzger | Leave a comment
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Annex Key

In Game Description

Key to the annex in the
Painted World of Ariamis.

In the wintery painted world,
there is a structure resembling an
old cathedral; its annex serves
as a type of storehouse.

Behind an illusory wall in the sewers/tunnels in the Painted World of Ariamis. These are accessed via the well in the courtyard with the Phalanx. The solid looking section of wall around the left of the first turn is the one to look for.

Alternatively, destroy the wall to the left of the switch in the large sewer area (with the Skeleton Wheels). Turn right, past the illusory wall, then left. You will encounter another Skeleton Wheel. The key is the item at the end of this corridor.

The storage annex in the Painted World of Ariamis

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License


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  • Dashboard Insight Newsletter Sign Up

All Data Is More Valuable Than Big Data

by Dashboard Insight, Dashboard InsightTuesday, November 19, 2013

Despite the big data hype that's out there many, if not most, are not even dealing with big data. Unfortunately there so much focus on the 'big' when the focus should really be on data. Matt Quinn, CTO of TIBCO, writes on dealing with all data, not just the 'big' kind.

We constantly hear people talking about Big Data as a monstrous mess. They usually describe it as a difficult problem to tackle, as though Big Data itself has a beginning and an end, or a neat solution. I’ve been to many conferences in the last few weeks, and over and over again, I’ve heard people talking about what they think of Big Data. Speaker after speaker, it became apparent that the way we talk about Big Data is our attempt to compartmentalize it.

Compartmentalizing big data is a natural thing to do. Since we first began to track things using numbers, we had to know where the information started and ended because that’s where work began and finished. When we first computerized data, we had to know where a batch was beginning and ending because the digitized world was a transactional one, with data tracking sales, costs, inventory and other finite information.

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Source: VentureBeat

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Back to Player Index     -     Click for a random player

Eric Atkins - PG, 6'2, 182
Retired - Retired after 2016 season
       Date of birth: 12/14/1991
       Country: USA
     Drafted (NBA): Undrafted, 2014
     Out of: Notre Dame
  NBA Experience: 0 years
  Hand: Right

6th August, 2014 Greece Signed a one year contract with KAO Dramas.
27th July, 2015 Hungary Signed a one year contract with Falco Szombathely.
16th October, 2015 Hungary Released by Falco Szombathely.
25th October, 2015 NBA Signed an unguaranteed one year minimum salary contract with Utah.
26th October, 2015 NBA Waived by Utah.
2nd November, 2015 D-League Designated as an allocated player by Idaho Stampede.
16th November, 2015 D-League Waived by Idaho Stampede.
26th January, 2016 D-League Acquired by Erie BayHawks.
When: Where:
2010 - 2014 Notre Dame (NCAA)
August 2014 - June 2015 KAO Dramas (Greece)
July 2015 - October 2015 Falco Szombathely (Hungary)
October 2015 Utah Jazz (NBA)
November 2015 Idaho Stampede (D-League)
January 2016 - June 2016 Erie BayHawks (D-League)
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Philip Stark

Professor of Statistics
UC Berkeley

Philip B. Stark is a professor of statistics who has done research on the Big Bang, causal inference, the U.S. census, earthquake prediction, election auditing, food web models, the geomagnetic field, geriatric hearing loss, information retrieval, Internet content filters, nonparametrics, the seismic structure of sun and earth, spectroscopy, spectrum estimation, and uncertainty quantification for computational models of complex systems.

Stark conducted the first risk-limiting post-election audits and the first scientific study of the effectiveness of Internet content filters. He developed UC Berkeley’s first official online course. He has testified to Congress regarding census adjustment and has served as an expert in litigation over the Child Online Protection Act, consumer protection, employment discrimination, environmental protection, equal protection, intellectual property, jury selection, import restrictions, insurance, natural resources, product liability, trade secrets, truth in advertising, and wage and hour issues. He received his A.B. in philosophy from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in earth sciences from UC San Diego.

Panel Discussion:
Friday, May 9, 2014 - 3:00 pm


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Time in Almuñécar, Spain

DST begins on Sunday, March 26 at 2:00.
The clocks will be put forward an hour.

Almuñécar time zone: UTC+01:00 or CET
Daylight saving time is not in effect in Almuñécar.
See recent and expected DST changes in Almuñécar in the table below.

Daylight saving time (DST) changes in Almuñécar

The next DST change is highlighted.
Change Type Status Time and Date of DST Change Time Change
DST ended Past Sunday, October 30, 2016 at 3:00 The clocks were put back an hour.
DST begins Expected Sunday, March 26, 2017 at 2:00 The clocks will be put forward an hour.
DST ends Expected Sunday, October 29, 2017 at 3:00 The clocks will be put back an hour.

Sunrise and sunset time for Almuñécar

Sunrise: 7:12 AM
Sunset: 7:29 PM
Day length: 12h 16m 51s
Solar noon: 1:21 PM
See the monthly sunrise, sunset, and twilight table for Almuñécar

Almuñécar weather

Freemeteo.com: Almuñécar weather

Almuñécar, Spain: basic facts and figures

Country: Spain
Almuñécar coordinates: 36°44′02″ N, 3°41′26″ W
Population: 27,696
Wikipedia article: Almuñécar


text:
Born in February

February 8, 120 Vettius Valens a 2nd-century Hellenistic astrologer, a somewhat younger contemporary of Claudius Ptolemy.
February 7, 260 Qin Shi Huang the King of the state of Qin who conquered all other Warring States and united China in 221 Rather than maintain the title of king borne by the Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty from 220 to 210 The title emperor would continue to be borne by Chinese rulers for the next two millennia.
February 8, 412 Proclus a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major Classical philosophers. He set forth one of the most elaborate and fully developed systems of Neoplatonism. He stands near the end of the classical development of philosophy, and was very influential on Western medieval philosophy as well as Islamic thought
February 2, 450 Justin I Byzantine Emperor from 518 to 527. He rose through the ranks of the army and ultimately became its emperor, in spite of the fact he was illiterate and almost 70 years old at the time of accession. His reign is significant for the founding of the Justinian Dynasty that included his eminent nephew Justinian I and for the enactment of laws that de-emphasized the influence of the old Roman nobility. His consort was Empress Euphemia
February 7, 572 Prince Shōtoku a semi-legendary regent and a politician of the Asuka period in Japan who served under Empress Suiko. He was a son of Emperor Yōmei and his younger half-sister Princess Anahobe no Hashihito. His parents were relatives of the ruling Soga clan, and was involved in the defeat of the rival Mononobe Clan. The primary source of the life and accomplishments of Prince Shōtoku comes from the Nihon Shoki
February 14, 585 'Amr ibn al-'As most noted for leading the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640. A contemporary of Muhammad, and one of the Sahaba , who rose quickly through the Muslim hierarchy following his conversion to Islam in the year 8 He founded the Egyptian capital of Fustat and built the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As at its center
February 25, 586 Prætextatus (bishop of Rouen) the bishop of Rouen from 549 until his assassination in 586.
February 17, 624 Wu Zetian a Chinese sovereign, who ruled officially under the name of her self-proclaimed "Zhou dynasty", from 690 to 705. She was the only female emperor of China in more than 4,000 years. She had previous imperial positions, however, under both Emperor Taizong of Tang and his son Emperor Gaozong of Tang, of the Tang dynasty of China. Wu was a concubine of Emperor Taizong. After his death she married his successor and ninth son, Emperor Gaozong, officially becoming Gaozong's furen in 655, although having considerable political power prior to this. After Gaozong's debilitating stroke in 690, Wu Zetian ruled as effective sovereign until 705. She is the only recorded woman to rule China in her own right
February 12, 661 Princess Ōku a Japanese princess during the Asuka period in Japanese history. She was the daughter of Emperor Temmu and sister of Prince Ōtsu. As a young girl, she witnessed the Jinshin War. According to the Man'yōshū , she became the first Saiō to serve at Ise Grand Shrine. After the death of her brother in 686, she returned from Ise to Yamato to enshrine his remains on Futakami, before a quiet end to her life at age 40
February 6, 685 Hlothhere of Kent a King of Kent who ruled from 673 to 685.
February 13, 711 Emperor Jimmu the first emperor of Japan, according to legend. His accession is traditionally dated as 660 He is a descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu through her grandson Ninigi, as well as a descendant of the storm god Susanoo. He launched a military expedition from Hyuga near the Inland Sea, captured Yamato, and established this as his center of power
February 8, 785 Emperor Saga the 52nd emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Saga's reign spanned the years from 809 through 823
February 6, 884 Emperor Daigo the 60th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.
February 27, 906 Conrad Duke of Thuringia the Duke of Thuringia until 892 and the Duke of Franconia until his death. He was the namesake of the Conradiner family and son of Udo of Neustria. His mother was a daughter of Conrad I of Logenahe. He was the count of the Oberlahngau , Hessengau , Gotzfeldgau , Wetterau , and Wormsgau. He united all of Hesse under his political control and thus bequeathed to his heirs what would be the Duchy of Franconia
February 21, 921 Abe no Seimei an onmyōji, a leading specialist of onmyōdō during the middle of the Heian Period in Japan. In addition to his prominence in history, he is a legendary figure in Japanese folklore and has been portrayed in a number of stories and films
February 3, 929 Guy Margrave of Tuscany the son of Adalbert II of Tuscany with Bertha, daughter of Lothair II of Lotharingia.
February 28, 929 Adalbert I of Ivrea the margrave of Ivrea, the second of the Anscarid dynasty, from the late 890s until his death. In the intermittent civil war that effecting Italy from 888 into the 930s, Adalbert initially strove to remain neutral, but from 901 on he sided sequentially with every claimant to the Italian throne
February 6, 975 Emperor Sanjō the 67th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.
February 13, 988 Adalbert Atto of Canossa the first Count of Canossa and founder of that noble house which eventually was to play a determinant rôle in the political settling of Italy and the Investiture Controversy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
February 16, 1032 Emperor Yingzong of Song the fifth emperor of the Song Dynasty of China. His personal name was originally Zhao Zongshi but he later changed it to Zhao Shu. He reigned from 1063 to 1067. His temple name means "Outstandingly Talented Ancestor"
February 22, 1040 Rashi a medieval French rabbi and author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud and commentary on the Tanakh. Acclaimed for his ability to present the basic meaning of the text in a concise and lucid fashion, Rashi appeals to both learned scholars and beginning students, and his works remain a centerpiece of contemporary Jewish study. His commentary on the Talmud, which covers nearly all of the Babylonian Talmud , has been included in every edition of the Talmud since its first printing by Daniel Bomberg in the 1520s. His commentary on Tanach — especially on the Chumash — is an indispensable aid to students of all levels. The latter commentary alone serves as the basis for more than 300 "supercommentaries" which analyze Rashi's choice of language and citations, penned by some of the greatest names in rabbinic literature
February 13, 1067 Geoffrey II of Provence the first count of Forcalquier following the death of his father Fulk Bertrand in 1062. His elder brother Bertrand II inherited Provence, but not the title of margrave. Geoffrey himself is often counted amongst the co-counts of Provence of the era. It is not certain that his region of Forcalquier was regarded as a dinstinct entity and not merely the Provençal demesne under his charge
February 28, 1069 Abbad II al-Mu'tadid the second independent Muslim ruler of Seville in Al-Andalus. His father, Abu al-Qasim Muhammad ibn Abbad, had established the Muslim taifa of Seville, and Abbad became its ruler when Abu al-Qasim died in 1042. He initially had amicable relations with his neighbour Ferdinand I, Count of Castile and King of León, and tolerated the Christian faith in his own lands. Among other acts of friendship, he authorized the transfer of Saint Isidore's relics from Seville to the Basilica of San Isidoro of León
February 22, 1071 Arnulf III Count of Flanders a.k.a Arnulf 'the unlucky' became Count of Flanders as a minor in 1070 and until his death in 1071.
February 12, 1074 Conrad II of Italy the Duke of Lower Lorraine , King of Germany and King of Italy. He was the second son of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Bertha of Savoy, and their eldest son to reach adulthood, his older brother Henry having been born and died in the same month of August 1071. Although Conrad's rule in Lorraine and Germany was nominal, he spent most of his life in Italy and there he was king in fact as well as in name
February 27, 1076 Godfrey IV Duke of Lower Lorraine a son of Godfrey the Bearded, whom he succeeded as Duke of Lower Lorraine in 1069. His mother was Doda and his sister was Ida
February 16, 1084 Siegfried I (archbishop of Mainz) the Abbot of Fulda from 25 December 1058 until 6 January 1060, and from January 1060 until his death in February 1084, he was Archbishop of Mainz.
February 7, 1102 Empress Matilda the claimant to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. The daughter of King Henry I of England, she moved to Germany as a child when she married the future Holy Roman Emperor Henry She travelled with her husband into Italy in 1116, was controversially crowned in Peter's Basilica, and acted as the imperial regent in Italy. Matilda and Henry had no children, and when he died in 1125, the crown was claimed by Lothair II, one of his political enemies
February 24, 1102 Constantine I Prince of Armenia the second lord of Armenian Cilicia or “Lord of the Mountains”. During his rule, he controlled the greater part of the regions around the Taurus Mountains, and invested much of his efforts in cultivating the lands and rebuilding the towns within his domain. He provided ample provisions to the Crusaders, for example during the difficult period of the siege of Antioch in the winter of 1097. He was a passionate adherent of the separated Armenian Church
February 24, 1103 Emperor Toba the 74th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.
February 28, 1119 Emperor Xizong of Jin reigned from February 10, 1135 to January 9, 1150 as an emperor of the Jin Dynasty which controlled northern China from 1115 to 1234. His birth name was Wányán Hélá. His Han Chinese name was Wányán Dǎn. During his reign, the Jurchens were engaged in a war with the Song Dynasty
February 12, 1128 Toghtekin a Turkic military leader, who was atabeg of Damascus from 1104 to 1128. He was the founder of the Burid dynasty of Damascus
February 28, 1155 Henry the Young King the second of five sons of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine but the first to survive infancy. He was officially King of England; Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou and Maine
February 14, 1164 Sviatoslav Olgovich the Prince of Novgorod ; Novgorod-Seversky ; Belgorod Kievsky ; and Chernigov. He was the son of Oleg Sviatoslavich, Prince of Chernigov with an unnamed daughter of Asaduk, Khan of Khumans
February 7, 1165 Stephen of Armenia the Marshal of Armenia, the son of Leo I, Prince of Armenia and Beatrice de Rethel.
February 22, 1169 Shirkuh a Kurdish military commander, and uncle of Saladin. His military and diplomatic efforts in Egypt were a key factor in establishing the Ayyubid family in that country
February 23, 1187 Ferdinand Count of Flanders reigned as jure uxoris Count of Flanders and Hainaut from his marriage to Countess Joan, celebrated in Paris in 1212, until his death. He was born in Coimbra, and he was an Infante of Portugal as the fourth son of King Sancho I of Portugal and Dulce of Aragon
February 23, 1187 Peter I Count of Urgell the second son of King Sancho I of Portugal and his wife Dulce, infanta of Aragon, and would eventually become Count of Urgell and Lord of the Balearic Islands.
February 8, 1191 Yaroslav II of Vladimir the Grand Prince of Vladimir who helped to restore his country and capital after the Mongol invasion of Russia.
February 20, 1194 Tancred King of Sicily King of Sicily from 1189 to 1194. He was born in Lecce an illegitimate son of Roger III, Duke of Apulia by his mistress Emma, a daughter of Achard II, Count of Lecce. He inherited the title "Count of Lecce" from his grandfather and is consequently often referred to as Tancred of Lecce. Although a member of the Hauteville family, due to his illegitimate status he was known by the surname, Fitz Roger, meaning "son of Roger"
February 17, 1201 Nasir al-Din al-Tusi a Persian polymath and prolific writer: An architect, astronomer, biologist, chemist, mathematician, philosopher, physician, physicist, scientist, theologian and Marja Taqleed. He was of the Ismaili-, and subsequently Twelver Shī‘ah Islamic belief. The Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun considered Tusi to be the greatest of the later Persian scholars
February 2, 1208 James I of Aragon King of Aragon, Valencia and Majorca, Count of Barcelona and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276. His long reign saw the expansion of the House of Aragón on all sides: into Valencia to the south, Languedoc to the north, and the Balearic Islands to the east. By a treaty with Louis IX of France, he wrested the county of Barcelona from nominal French suzerainty and integrated it into his crown. His part in the Reconquista was similar in Mediterranean Spain to that of his contemporary Ferdinand III of Castile in Andalusia
February 12, 1218 Kujō Yoritsune the fourth shogun of the Kamakura shogunate of Japan. His father was kanpaku Kujō Michiie and his grandmother was a niece of Minamoto no Yoritomo. He was born in the year of the Tiger, in the month, on the day, and so his given name at birth was Mitora
February 20, 1243 Romano Bonaventura a Catholic Christian prelate, Cardinal deacon of Sant'Angelo in Pescheria, his titulus , bishop of Porto-Santa Rufina , a cardinal-legate to the court of France.
February 1, 1261 Walter de Stapledon Bishop of Exeter 1308–1326 and twice Lord High Treasurer of England, in 1320 and 1322. He founded Exeter College, Oxford and contributed liberally to the rebuilding of Exeter Cathedral. His tomb and monument, of great architectural importance, survives in Exeter Cathedral
February 11, 1261 Otto III Duke of Bavaria Duke of Lower Bavaria from 1290 to 1312 and disputably King of Hungary and Croatia between 1305 and 1307 as Béla V.
February 28, 1261 Margaret of Scotland Queen of Norway Queen of Norway as the wife of King Eric II.
February 24, 1265 Roger IV Count of Foix the seventh count of Foix from 1241 to his death. His reign began with the south again at war with the north in France and, though he was reluctant to join his father's old ally, Raymond VII of Toulouse, in revolt and he did not aid the king of England, Henry III, in his Saintonge War
February 21, 1267 Baldwin of Ibelin Seneschal of Cyprus the fourth of five sons of John I of Beirut and his second wife Melisende of Arsuf.
February 16, 1270 Otto von Lutterberg the Ordensmeister of the Livonian Order of the Teutonic Knights from 1266 to 1270, and was in command of the Livonian Order in 1268 when the Knights were heavily defeated by a Russian army at the Battle of Rakvere.