Keep running up those deficits and putting us deeper into debt!  Keep making it more difficult for the dollar to actually gain its value back and for the economy to recover.

We're too big to fail.

/sarcasm

China, whose $2.45 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves are the world’s largest, is turning bullish on Europe and Japan at the expense of the U.S.

The nation has been buying “quite a lot” of European bonds, said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the People’s Bank of China who was part of a foreign-policy advisory committee that visited France, Spain and Germany from June 20 to July 2. Japan’s Ministry of Finance said Aug. 9 that China bought 1.73 trillion yen ($20.1 billion) more Japanese debt than it sold in the first half of 2010, the fastest pace of purchases in at least five years.

So if China starts dumping US Treasuries, how difficult will it be for the dollar to recover?

        

This is not my hedgehog, but it's someone's hedgehog, and it's cute.


see more Daily Squee

And it looks like a happy hedgehog, even though it's not mine, and even though I want to steal that hedgehog and cuddle it.  Prickles, my hedgie, would be happy too if I got him a huge cake. As it is, he tends to abscond with Oreos!

        

I realize my blogging is not as prolific as it has been in the past.  There are several reasons for this - most of them lame - but I'm listing them here anyway.

• I have a life
• I have a job
• I'm working on a new project at said job that has me waking up at all sorts of odd hours, getting to work when most people aren't even considering waking up, and popping Ambien (it's prescribed and legal - shut it!) just to fall asleep early enough to be functional when I wake up.
• I have kids
• I have dog

Shall I go on?

I realize the maximum effective range of an excuse is... well... zero, but it's my blog. Deal with it. 

Do I sound cranky?  Well, I am.

Why?

Reason #1: Julian Assange is one of the biggest, most rancid assbags on the planet.

WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange said Thursday his organization is preparing to release the rest of the secret Afghan war documents it has on file. The Pentagon warned that would be more damaging to security and risk more lives than the organization's initial release of some 76,000 war documents.

That extraordinary disclosure, which laid bare classified military documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010, has angered U.S. officials, energized critics of the NATO-led campaign, and drawn the attention of the Taliban, which has promised to use the material to track down people it considers traitors.

The Pentagon says it believes it has identified the additional 15,000 classified documents, and said Thursday that their exposure would be even more damaging to the military than what has already been published.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell described the prospective publication as the "height of irresponsibility."

I'm all for freedom of the press.  I understand and respect the importance of the First Amendment, and I fully support it.  I do, however, believe that with freedom comes great responsibility, and just because you have access to certain information, doesn't mean you should publish it just because you can.

Assange has no idea how documents can be exploited and what kind of information can be gleaned from them by the enemy!  He looks at these records, and he probably thinks, "So what! There's nothing here that's earth-shattering! I just want to show the world that governments need transparency and accountability!"  Yeah, great.  If the enemy can glean critical information about operating procedures just by rifling through trash, what the blazing fuck do you think they can do with nearly 100 thousand reports?

Again, just because you have the information, doesn't mean you should use it. I'm sure Assange is loving the attention right now, but in the end, all he's doing is hurting people with his complete lack of responsibility.  And frankly, if one Soldier or civilian dies because of what this pestilent fuckbubble has exposed, here's hoping he burns in a special kind of hell for it.

Reason #2: Obama defends the right to build a mosque at Ground Zero.

This is again one of those things... Just because you have the right to do something, doesn't mean it's a decent idea.

Standing up for the right to put a mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, President Obama on Saturday warned that the country risks losing its distinct identity if it ignores basic American values such as religious freedom.

Obama spoke about the proposed mosque for the second time in two days, breaking a long silence on the controversy.

He told reporters after an event in Florida that his purpose in speaking out was to "simply let people know what I thought."

Let's be honest here.  The murdering sub-human scum that flew planes into those buildings were FUNDAMENTALIST MUSLIMS.  Yes, they were Muslims. Yes, they practiced the kind of Islam that likes to chop heads off its victims, dress women in gunny sacks, because God and Goddess forbid they tempt some hairy, goat-smelling motherfucker into raping them, and wants to subjugate non-believers.  It is a bad kind of Islam, but it's Islam nonetheless, perverted though it may be.

And putting a mosque near that site is insulting, insensitive and downright indecent.

Yes, I know I'm the last one who should be talking about sensitivity issues, seeing as my idea of sensitivity involves actually refraining from punching someone who annoys me in the face, but really... this is a little much even for me.  It's about as decent as us building a gargantuan monument to Fat Man and Little Boy in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Is it legal?  I'm sure it is, although I'm no attorney, and I wouldn't know.  Do they have a right to do it?  Sure, I guess so.  Not sure how the zoning laws work in NYC, but probably.  Is it a matter of exercising freedom of religion?  No. Fucking. Way.  No one is preventing Muslims from exercising their faith in New York City, and prohibiting this mosque from being built wouldn't be a First Amendment violation. Preventing the erection of a structure does not in any way establish a national religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof.  It's a zoning issue, nothing more.  But hey - they have the right to build it, and that has apparently been confirmed.  OK, fine. Let's go with that premise.

But is it decent to do so, right near a site where those who practice a version of your faith murdered thousands in cold blood?  Is it right?  I don't think so.  This is not a matter of the free exercise of faith, it's just a matter of decency.  The same people who go apeshit over some cartoons of Mohammed have absolutely no sense of sensitivity when it comes to shoving their faith into the faces of those to whom some practitioners of that faith did irrevocable harm.  These same people who screech at the top of their lungs that the First Amendment shouldn't protect insults to their prophet have absolutely no problem using that same amendment to protect their lack of respect and sensitivity to those who were killed on my son's fourth birthday.

Hypocritical assholes.

Reason #3:  Some conservative bloggers are just downright embarrassing. When asked for a list of the worst figures in American history, most of them came up with this?

 The list, compiled from the responses of 43 right-of-center bloggers by John Hawkins:

        * 23) Saul Alinsky
        * 23) Bill Clinton
        * 23) Hillary Clinton
        * 19) Michael Moore
        * 19) George Soros (8)
        * 19) Alger Hiss (8)
        * 19) Al Sharpton (8)
        * 13) Al Gore (9)
        * 13) Noam Chomsky (9)
        * 13) Richard Nixon (9)
        * 13) Jane Fonda (9)
        * 13) Harry Reid (9)
        * 13) Nancy Pelosi (9)
        * 11) John Wilkes Booth (10)
        * 11) Margaret Sanger (10)
        * 9) Aldrich Ames (11)
        * 9) Timothy McVeigh (11)
        * 7) Ted Kennedy (14)
        * 7) Lyndon Johnson (14)
        * 5) Benedict Arnold (17)
        * 5) Woodrow Wilson (17)
        * 4) The Rosenbergs (19)
        * 3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (21)
        * 2) Barack Obama (23)
        * 1) Jimmy Carter (25)

Really?  No Robert Hanssen, who sold sensitive information to the Russians? No Ted Bundy? No Jeffrey Dahmer?  I would think that killing people and eating their body parts would at least earn you the consternation of the vast majority of Americans - more so than Barack Obama or even Skeletor Pelosi, ferpetessake!

Some perspective would be nice, people!  As Jim Geraghty rightly points out:

I’m no fan of most of the Democrats on the list, and there are some good picks. But most of the modern political figures look ridiculous when we compare their actions to some of America’s most really notorious figures.

[...]

No Charles Manson? Come on. You’re really telling me Al Sharpton and Michael Moore outrank somebody like Jeffrey Dahmer, who ate people? Race-baiting and rabble-rousing outrank cannibalism?

Let's gain some perspective here, people.  Really.  Nancy Pelosi may be a daft, power hungry, clueless twit, but does she really deserve to be on the list of the worst figures in American history?  When we knee-jerk into reactions such as the inclusion of the obese, unwashed, untalented and less than influential Michael Moore on the list of the worst figures in American history, is it any wonder that we get tainted with the broad brush of idiocy?

Ugh.

Reason #4:  This crazy bitch needs to go away.  Far away.

No, I'm not calling Justice Alito a crazy bitch.  I'm calling Orly Taitz a crazy bitch.  Although, I'm really questioning Alito's sanity on this one.

A request to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito by “birther” attorney Orly Taitz asking that $20,000 in sanctions against her be reversed was referred on Tuesday to the entire court.

U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land imposed the sanctions last year after he warned her and then gave her a time limit to explain why he shouldn’t fine her in the September 2009 case of Capt. Connie Rhodes, who questioned the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency.

Taitz appealed the sanctions to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. That court upheld the sanctions in March, and Taitz sent an application for stay to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on July 8. Thomas denied it a week later.

Taitz then refiled it with Alito on Aug. 4. That request was referred on Tuesday to the entire nine-member court, the Supreme Court’s website states.

The beauty of this nation is that even the crazies get their day in court.  But why, oh why is this nutbag is being allowed to waste the time and resources of the U.S. judicial system?

There are other things that are pissing me off:  the economy (no, you can't blame it on Bush any longer!), Rangel, Waters, the Congressional "swamp," the list goes on... No, I don't have PMS.  I'm just kind of appalled at what's going on around us.  And tired. 

Averaging 3 hours of sleep is no way to spend your life. Trust me.

        

To abhor this talentless, classless, ignorant, attention-seeking, coke-snorting whore.

"I think it's important that people understand that it's a state of emergency for this place and this state," she said.

But Lady Gaga stopped short of dumping her Arizona tour dates like big name acts Kanye West and Rage Against the Machine who boycotted the state in protest of SB 1070.

Several notes here:

The spurious claim that this twat gazer actually thinks.

Would the "state of emergency" to which she refers be the slew of kidnappings, murders and other crimes committed by illegal aliens who cross the border into Arizona and wreak havoc in that state?  And others...

Illegal aliens such as this piece of oozing ass drippings, who killed a nun while enjoying the federal catch and release program and driving drunk.

The man, Carlos Montano, a county resident, had been arrested by police twice before on drunk-driving charges, and on at least one of those occasions county police reported him to federal authorities.

"We have determined that he is in the country illegally. He has been arrested by Prince William County Police in the past," said Officer Jonathan Perok, a police spokesman, who said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was notified at the time of one of those arrests.

But hey - what's a dead nun in comparison to some kid Lady Gaga knows who had his brother deported?  Really!  Also note the refusal to put her money where her mouth is and cancel tour dates in Arizona. Because as much as she hates the state enforcing actual laws she certainly isn't willing to give up the cash for her principles!

Note to Lady Gaga:  Put on some goddamn pants, and shut your yap until you've actually read the bill, you daft bint.

        

...and why is it in the news? And why does it matter for what politician it votes?  And why is it so revoltingly orange, that orangutans in a zoo are hurling their excrement in a jealous rage?

First, Snooki took on Obama over Twitter. Then, Obama said he didn't even know who she was. And on Thursday night's second season premiere of MTV's "Jersey Shore," Snooki took the ball back, and went after Obama again.

In one scene, Snooki — with her impressively orange tan — broke the shocking news that she's been staying away from her home away from home: Tanning salons.

"I don’t go tanning anymore because Obama put a 10% tax on tanning. McCain would never put a 10% tax on tanning. Because he’s pale and would probably want to be tan," she said.

Congratulations, America.  This is what votes for politicians in this country, and that's why you're left with the shoddy choices at election time.

And you wonder why this country is so monumentally fucked?  Because this insipid twat's vote counts as much as yours!

        

I'm very much pro-capitalism. I believe every company has the right and responsibility to maximize its profits.  This, however, equates to theft in my book.  Soldiers pay insurance premiums that are withdrawn from every paycheck. They have a right to expect that their regular monthly premiums will result in payment for their families should they die in combat.

So when the cocksuckers at Prudential and other insurance companies mess around with the families of Soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifices for this nation, it's triply repugnant!

The package arrived at Cindy Lohman’s home in Great Mills, Maryland, just two weeks after she learned that her son, Ryan, a 24-year-old Army sergeant, had been killed by a bomb in Afghanistan. It was a thick, 9-inch-by- 12-inch envelope from Prudential Financial Inc., which handles life insurance for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Inside was a letter from Prudential about Ryan’s $400,000 policy. And there was something else, which looked like a checkbook. The letter told Lohman that the full amount of her payout would be placed in a convenient interest-bearing account, allowing her time to decide how to use the benefit.

“You can hold the money in the account for safekeeping for as long as you like,” the letter said. In tiny print, in a disclaimer that Lohman says she didn’t notice, Prudential disclosed that what it called its Alliance Account was not guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its September issue.

Lohman, 52, left the money untouched for six months after her son’s August 2008 death.

“It’s like you’re paying me off because my child was killed,” she says. “It was a consolation prize that I didn’t want.”

As time went on, she says, she tried to use one of the “checks” to buy a bed, and the salesman rejected it. That happened again this year, she says, when she went to a Target store to purchase a camera on Armed Forces Day, May 15.

I'd be voicing my displeasure with my wallet right now if I was in any way a customer of Prudential.  Just saying....

        

I've been searching teh Intertubez for something to write about today, and as I peruse, I'm beginning to realize there's something fundamentally wrong with our society. We're the freest nation in the world. We offer the most opportunities, we protect personal liberties, we are a generous, courageous, honorable nation overall. 

Despite all this, however, I have to ask myself what the flying hell is going on here?

Why does this shitbag still have a job - a job that pays him money out of the pockets of the very people he abuses on a regular basis?

Tammy Fox is Agent Chu's latest victim. She was in the dirt near Elmhurst Hospital, trying to fix her flat tire, when Agent Chu sauntered up. Instead of offering help, like most New Yorkers would, he slapped her with a ticket.

"I said to him, 'are you kidding me? You're very insensitive. I'm going to visit my friend in the hospital who had cancer, and I'm trying to fix my flat tire, and you're standing here writing me a ticket?'" Fox said.

Tammy hit the nail on the head when she used the word insensitive. The very day she got the ticket, CBS 2 told you that NYPD brass docked Chu's pay and ordered him into sensitivity training for a raft of run-ins with the public and Queens Councilman Daniel Halloran.

"Apparently, the sensitivity training didn't work," Councilman Halloran said.

Halloran caught Agent Chu breaking enough traffic laws to lose his license – speeding, going through stop signs, using flashing lights, talking on a cell phone – just to get a cup of coffee. Halloran then received hundreds of complaints from constituents about Agent Chu, who even reportedly slapped tickets on members of a funeral procession.

Why did Southwest Airlines boot a normal-sized passenger who paid for her seat from an aircraft, so that a sow whose girth overflowed into the next seat, but who only paid for one seat, could take up two seats and overflow in peace?

 The local woman was flying standby, paid full fare for the last available seat, got on board, stowed her bags and sat down – only to be told she would have to deplane immediately.

The reason?

A late-arriving passenger required two seats because of her girth.

The Sacramento woman, a frequent-flying sales rep, was stunned.

"It didn't seem right that I should have to leave to accommodate someone who had only paid for one seat," she tells us. (She has asked to remain anonymous for fear some may regard her as insensitive.)

She's even more miffed because she says Southwest personnel berated her when she questioned the decision to boot her from the plane.

Worse yet, there's something seriously wrong with a society where a woman can't even voice her opposition to this type of injustice without fearing being called "insensitive" to some fat fuck.

        

After ramming trillion dollar health care "reform" down our throats...

After the nearly $900 "stimulus" that did nothing to stimulate anything other than my ire...

After borrowing trillions to pay for yet more government spending...

After demolishing our economy to such an extent, that the Chinese are considering dumping us...

NOW, the White House is all of a sudden concerned about our fiscal situation?

The Office of Management and Budget  report has ominous news for President Barack Obama should he seek re-election in 2012 — a still-high unemployment rate of 8.1 percent. That would be well above normal, which is closer to a rate of 5.5 percent to 6 percent. Private economists don't think the unemployment rate will drop to those levels until well into this decade.

The gaping deficits are of increasing concern to voters. But Obama and Democrats controlling Congress are mostly taking a pass on deficit reduction this year as they await possible recommendations from Obama's deficit commission.

While there's a slight improvement in the deficit for the current year, next year's predicted $1.42 trillion worth of red ink — that's 37 cents of borrowing for every dollar spent — is looking worse. It's about $150 billion more than previously predicted, because of still-slumping tax revenues.

White House budget director Peter Orszag said the numbers represent a "fiscal situation that requires attention."

Gee, ya think?

        

Not news: Congress sucks more than ever.

Gallup's 2010 Confidence in Institutions poll finds Congress ranking dead last out of the 16 institutions rated this year. Eleven percent of Americans say they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in Congress, down from 17% in 2009 and a percentage point lower than the previous low for Congress, recorded in 2008.

Really.  Is anyone surprised by the 11 percent? Even the country's biggest nitwits are expressing disappointment in the "leadership" of Skeletor Pelosi! 

This is the same daft bint who complained it was just fine to add $34 billion to the debt and the deficit by passing an extension of unemployment benefits.  Why?  Because Republicans did it too!  They added to the deficit with their reckless spending... you know - cutting taxes for people who actually... um... PRODUCE!  Yes, Republicans added to the deficit, but our national debt and our deficit levels are at staggering levels!  Our deficit is nearly 11 percent of GDP this year, and the federal debt is at 94 percent of GDP - up from about 56 percent of GDP just 10 years ago.

This is a Congress that doesn't give a flying rat's shit about spending, complains about Republican stonewalling of their reckless spending (when, really - they had the votes and more to pass this bill all along), and thinks that somehow, giving people more "free" money will give them incentive to go to work.

Is it any wonder that their first stimulus did nothing to alleviate the jobless rate?

But living up to the definition of insanity is Congress' forte, so they just try the same thing over and over again, hoping for different results.

        

There is a special place in hell for those shitbags who abuse or neglect innocent animals who rely on them for their very lives!  One such cocksack is Lawrence Hodgson of Washington, DC, who apparently went into a tennis dome on Hains Point  to play tennis and just turned his dog loose outside alone in the 97 degree heat to "play."

Y'all remember how hot it has been in DC this weekend, right?  This piece of festering shit left his animal buddy to just wander around. No water, plenty of traffic...  end result: dog got scared, ran until he was exhausted, then toppled into the river and would have drowned but for a police detective jumping in to save him. (Thank you, U.S. Park Police!)

Then Hodgson tried to refuse to allow the dog to be medically treated even though an hour after the incident, the dog still could not stand on his own.

The owner will probably not be charged with much, which makes me angry enough to find Hodgson and shove a live, writhing python up his ass. 

Cruel, inhuman monsters such as Hodgson should ideally be beaten with a heavy object, but should at least be charged with being a sociopathic shitslurper.

UPDATE: According to this morning's Washington Post, the bastard Hodgson showed up at the veterinary hospital where his dog was being given care and took him home against the advice of the veterinary staff.  Please, oh PLEASE let the Humane Society beat this fetid bag of rancid effluvia into a bloody pulp and find Scout a decent home - a home where he'll be well cared for and will receive medical care when necessary!  And PLEASE let Hodgson be left to fend for himself, while bleeding and incapable of getting help, and then denied care at the hospital!  If there is any justice in this world, what goes around will come around.

UPDATE THE SECOND (AND FINAL): RIP. Scout.

I consider Lawrence Hodgson a murdering piece of shit. He neglected his dog, let him run around in hellish heat without water, didn't give a crap when Scout got dehydrated and fell into the river, and then refused to allow this poor animal to get treatment.

Lawrence Hodgson - you're a murderer.  You're a pathetic, disgusting excuse for a human being.  I can only hope that whatever goes around, comes around. Wherever Scout is today, he's in a better place than with you.