Wonkette
- Not everybody who works in the AIG Financial Products division is a reckless, greedy, immoral derivatives trader. There are secretaries, too! [Washington Post]
- The House will vote today on a bill that would tax the living crap out of bonuses awarded to wealthy employees of bailed-out companies. [AP]
- The dollar dropped after the Fed announced a plan to buy $1.2 trillion in Treasuries. [BBC News]
- President Obama will give a very undignified interview on the undignified late-night talk show, Goliath-Chin Tells Jokes For Old People, in an attempt to sell his economic plans. [New York Daily News]
- Up-and-coming bands and musicians such as Metallica and Kanye West will be playing shows at South by Southwest this week. [CNS]
- Huzzah, our new liberal attorney general has decided to end the Bush administration’s dumb policy of raiding medical marijuana distributors all the time. [New York Times]
“Goliath-Chin Tells Jokes For Old People”
His chin scares me.
I’m sorry, but why am I supposed to feel sorry for people that freely choose to continue to work for a criminal enterprise?
Here’s a little bit of trivia to piss off that right-winger in the cubicle next to yours:
Q: How much money would you have if you’d invested $1000 in the market back when Barack Obama suggested that the market was oversold and now would be a good time to invest?
A: $1112.99
Barry’s my new inestment guru.
Attention all AIG secretaries: I will be doling out bonuses. Because funds are limited, I am focusing my philanthropic efforts on the single ones age 25 years or younger, as they are least likely to have a safety net. PM me. Pic for a pic.
“Not everybody who works in the AIG Financial Products division is a reckless, greedy, immoral derivatives trader. There are secretaries, too”
Thanks WaPo for the “These are not the douchebags you seek” Jedi mind trick. It’s not like we didn’t know that or anything. One thing I learned early on in my working life that being friendly (in a non sexual way) to the department secretary is a great way to know what the hell is going on.
Can I haz a reefer now?
4tehlulz: At times, one must give in to the forces of Soulless Secretarialism to put food on the table. Just like Soulless Science. Bombs and memos, you know?
Serolf Divad: The market hasn’t found its bottom. Actually, I’m not sure the market *could* find its bottom if it used both hands.
Serolf Divad: Damn. If only I’d listened, I could now have … [pause for counting] … 37 hobo beans. And 1.113 shoelaces.
ph7: Well, you have the right spirit of bailout.
I need the names of those secretaries so they can help me target my death threats better.
TGY:
The market hasn’t found its bottom.
Yeah, I know. That’s why you’ve got to use this one quickly, while it’s still valid.
“Huzzah, our new liberal attorney general has decided to end the Bush administration’s dumb policy of raiding medical marijuana distributors all the time.”
I’ve been waiting for this slippery slope to start slipping for thirteen years.
About goddamn time.
Prediction re AIGFP secretaries: soon they will be greeting warrant-wielding federal agents at the office entrance. In my crystal ball I see Joseph Cassano and a world-historical monster scam. Unless congress votes to tax those bonuses at 3000% you can kiss the bailout money goodbye.
Serolf Divad: Hey buddy, I hope you don’t mind, but I submitted this to Digg. Maybe the Paultards over there will put down their hemp seed butt plugs long enough to read the article.
You call that news? How about the ban on “brazilian” genital waxing in New Jersey? Truly epoch making.
TGY: This is closer to working for the mafia than General Dynamics, though.
At least you know what a defense contractor makes; I’m not sure you can say the same with AIG.
You know, I’m disappointed in Barry the O. on many fronts. Too many Clintonistas and Israel Firsters in the cabinet, the slow handling of the economy, failure to prosecute any significant reptilians, his Iraq policy (I’d have preferred kthxbi), but I’m getting more than I expected on the reefer question.
…and that’s enough to get my vote.
The dollar dropped after the Fed announced a plan to buy $1.2 trillion in Treasuries.
Oh, please. The dollar drops, if the wind shifts suddenly.
Well, I remember back in the day (when everyone wore an onion on their belt) when you could buy a wristband for SXSW for $15, get on your bicycle and see all the bands you wanted to see (Dumptruck!) on any given night. And we didn’t need no steenkeeng Kanye, Metallica or REM nor any “showcase” for that matter.
Now it’s $2-300 for a wristband, which doesn’t guarantee you anything but a long wait in a line to one venue per night. If you are lucky to get in, stay there, cuz you won’t be gettin’ in nowheres else. Too many fucking geeks dressed in black with wristbands more powerful than yours.
I realize that compared to a lot of places Austin seems like a pretty cool place but SXSW is a music festival only in the sense that a lot of bands play every night at a lot of different places. The fact that your chances of seeing any given band on any given night are like 20% or less tends to make it more like a lottery you have little chance of winning. It used to be about the music, man, before all the suits got involved and ruined it for the little people who actually care about the music.
I’m guessing that the GOP, watching the Dodd/Geithner firefight, is kicking themselves for not remembering how fun it was when they had no actual responsibility for anything in national government and were free to just let their reactionary freak flag fly. I’m guessing there are secret handshakes being exchanged as we speak so that they never achieve major status again.
hobospacejungle: I got a wristband for five bees back in dickity-five. My favorite memory, apart from the crust of the Earth cooling, was seeing Dash Rip Rock, The Beat Farmers, and Mojo Nixon at Scholz’s Beer Garden (although I may be mashing two shows together) in 1993 or 1994.
The current festival is really a hellish nightmare, especially for us that have to commute across Austin during enhanced rush hour, but on the plus side there’s free shit all day long with free beer, and there’s at least a 1 in 20 chance you might like one of the five bands you’ll see dicking around. I’ve got some aging hipster houseguests who are convinced they can spot hidden gems in this vast sea of musical mediocrity and non-existent sound engineering in acoustically unfriendly arenas, but I’m skeptical.
Is it really that hard to see good bands at SXSW anymore? I was supposed to go this year but was foiled due to the Google needing my brother’s services in SF. If its not a fun wild party, I could stop being bummed about missing it.
perhaps getting high well help america more freely discuss race.
Congress is enacting an unlawful bill of attainder? Awesome! And HENNGHHH??
Also, do bongs in cali! I guess.
Min: Amen to that. Same thing with the stock market. Hell, FedEx just pooped out a David Vitter-sized diaper filler and their stock rose 5.1%.
Swampwitch: It’s easy to have fun, but in terms of actually getting good music for the exorbitant price of a wristband (if you’re only going to evening shows), you’re likely to be squashed inside of a club with no exit in sight to see Echo and the Bunnymen, but surrounded by 5 twee musical combos with tapered jeans, skinny ties, and riffs XTC threw away 25 years ago.
norbizness: Ok then. The whole wan emo hipster thing doesn’t work for me. I have no proof, but I feel like their music would be a lot better if they would just GET ANGRY.
Just as we saw an increase in children named “Barack” “Michelle” and “Senator Obama” after the inauguration, I believe that our dear Attorney General, Mr. Eric Holder, will soon see quite a number of bongs, pipes, pieces, and one-hitters named after his fine self.
norbizness: Are you joking? The fact that the bands doesn’t have a sound guy is what makes them great. Those hipsters won’t be completely happy until they find a venue that’s completely empty not despite, but due to, the band’s very best efforts.
At least here in Memphis, our annual music festival only costs like 50 bucks for the whole weekend, even if all the bands are complete dog shit these days. I haven’t even looked at this year’s lineup yet, and it’s in a month and a half.
Zadig: No kidding about the dogshit lineup for the Beale Street Music Festival. James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Al Green, and Jerry Lewis? What is this? Seniors night at the Orpheum?
queeraselvis v 2.0: James Taylor’s seen rheumatoid arthritis and he’s seen chronic constipation. But no dissing the Reverend Al Green, he brought down the house at our Austin City Limits Festival not long ago.
Oh, dear, the Fed has tripled the money supply in recent months. Quick! Spend your meager savings before we’re all wiping our asses with $100 bills! Better yet, use them as a down payment on something you can’t afford. The payments will be peanuts in the new, inflated dollars.
A rival Senate bill taxes the fuck out of bonuses awarded to wealthy employees of bailed-out companies.
Recipe for having a good time during SXSW:
1. Do not buy a wristband
2. Go to the many free unofficial shows instead, spend the money you save on beer and cocaine
or alternatively,
1. Hide inside your house until all the tourists leave town, spend the money you save on beer and cocaine
queeraselvis v 2.0: Oh jesus, I just checked it out. You wouldn’t think, to look at our music scene, that this was the birthplace of like a zillion genres of music, or anything. In retrospect, it looks like Elvis dying on the crapper here was sort of an omen.
anabellum: Sad when the best way to have fun is to avoid the official SXSW music shows. Shee-it, I remember when…
Zadig: Told ya. When I heard that Jerry Lewis was “playing” at the BSMF, I snarked that the only way he’d be able to jump up on the piano was with a walker and a gallon of Geritol.
anabellum: Hell yes, even working 50 hours last week I got to see M Ward, The Homosexuals, Beach House, Exene Cervenka, Dirty Projectors, Cursive, Lady Sovereign, King Khan, Hold Steady, and like 15 more forgettable-er bands for free, plus pizza, delicious promotional coconut water, average beer and terrible vodka. In the fresh beautiful outdoors (French Legation, Jovita’s patio, Spiderhouse). As long as you don’t kill yourself trying to get into Perez Hilton or Rachel Ray’s parties, you really can’t disappoint yourself even if you try.
I hate capitalism as much as the next guy, but it’s not a “festival” like Bonnaroo or whatever, it’s a music industry conference. Like for people that work in the music industry. Why don’t people demand free tickets to UT games, or a rent free day when there’s a real estate symposium, or free hairdos at the Cosmetology Expo or whatever?? I don’t get why people bitch about getting free music free beer free food because god forbid you have to stand in line for a while. People who really love music shouldn’t freak out because they don’t get to see Kanye - they go hear bands from all over the world, many of which don’t come to Austin otherwise, and a small percentage of which can play their instruments and have written actual songs! How can you hate that!
Of course, this is because I didn’t attend SXSW in the late 70’s and I don’t know how much better it was then.