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social democrat, ca. 1930 trade-unionist, and professor of alleged history

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Sunday, September 09, 2007

A new low, or high, depending on how you look at it

In my time, I’ve seen examples of just about every scam possible via the Internet. It takes a lot any more to even get my attention as I’m one-button flushing my spam folders.

However, when someone goes above and beyond the call of scum-baggish presumption in reader/recipient stupidity, I think it deserves to be highlighted. I’m a “giver” that way.

Below, in its exact form, including the badly mangled HTML formatting, but minus the actual link to the scamster’s site, the silliest and least plausible piece of spam I think I’ve received in at least a couple days:

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $93.60.

Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access your tax refund online, please click here

Regards,

Internal Revenue Service

Of course, I almost fell for it, because:

The IRS always communicates with me by sending me email at my blogging email address, natch

The IRS always speaks to tax payers that way, all courtly-like, and offers its “Regards”

The IRS always gets things done in 6-9 days

The IRS claims copyright on all of its email messages, just like normal citizens do

While claiming said copyright, the IRS always makes sure the recipient knows that it’s the “Internal Revenue Service U.S.A.”, to avoid confusion with all the other Internal Revenue Services around the world.

It occurs to me that if we didn’t have Russian, Romanian, and Slobovian hackers, we’d have to invent them, for our own amusement.

[Wik] It further occurs to me that, in order to avoid appearing churlish, I should point out that if someone wants my $93.60 refund, let me know, and I’ll pass along the link.

Posted by Patton on 09/09/07 at 01:32 AM
Darwin Award Contender • Holy Shit! • Permalink

Sunday, September 02, 2007

There’s Nothing More Pathetic Than an Aging Hipster

It’s so sad.

The New York Times Magazine has a deeply depressing ten-page spread this week about the New Savior of the Music Bidness, the One Hero Who Can Save Us All From Certain Penury and Unemployment From Our Phoney Baloney Jobs… Mister Rick Rubin!!

Yep, Rick Rubin. Helluva record producer. Helluvan ear on that guy. LL, Run DMC, Slayer, Anthrax, the Chili Peppers, Johnny Cash’s comeback, Neil Friggin’ Diamond’s very good comeback… that guy knows music for sure. But to save the music industry? Rick Rubin?

Please.

More Perfidious Goodness...

The thrust of the article is that Sony has made Rick Rubin the co-Head of Columbia Records, in the hopes of injecting a little of that wyld-ass energy he’s got into the proceedings, and in the process transmogrifying the ailing Industry into something leaner, meaner, and more efficent at siphoning money into the pockets of shareholders.

Now, there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with that, really. The job of a corporation is, indeed, to “maximize shareholder value.” So good luck with that. But check out some of the “hot” “new” “ideas” that Rubin and his co-Head, a middle-aged run of the mill British record exec named Steve Barnett

(I once worked for a sharp and dapper gentleman, a young pretty thing and a rising force in the Industry, who had a taste for shiny suits, expensive haircuts, and the saddest upscale parties I’ve ever been near, lame affairs where the lower echelons sucked down furious premium cocktails on the company dime while a D-list hipster celebrity like Tricky or the guy who played drums on that Bjork record lurked sulkily in a padded banquette until enough minutes had crawled past that he could reasonably said to have performed the favor of appearing. This particular person had a penchant for arranging the firings of underlings who, in his estimation, were not partying hard enough at company outings. This man had executive power and the trust of a wealthy aging blowhard who once was a person of some consequence in music, at least until he was let go.

...but at least let go more gracefully than the one who was sacked after refusing to leave his hot tub to take an urgent call from the CFO, with an unfortunate sequence of words by way of instruction to his minion, such words being unfortunate due to their inference as to the character and moral standing of the CFO, and their audibility in the conference room at the other end of the line, the minion having failed to put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone…

... the wealthy aging blowhard mentioned two paragraphs prior recently being heard to remark an interview, “I love iPod. I think iPod is great...")

...a run of the mill British record executive named Steve Barnett have cooked up to save Columbia, save Sony, and save the World.

This summer, Columbia Records began a program called Big Red. The company invited 20 college students from Harvard, Penn State and the University of Miami to work on various music projects. The interns concentrated mostly on the digital marketing and promotions departments in Columbia’s offices in Midtown Manhattan, which are on Madison Avenue in a granite skyscraper designed by Philip Johnson.

At the end of their paid internships, the students took part in focus groups that were closely observed by Steve Barnett, Rubin’s co-head at the label, and Mark DiDia, whom Rubin brought in as head of operations, as well as by other Columbia executives. The focus groups may have been the real point of Big Red â€” Barnett and the New York executives, especially those who had been at Sony for years, wanted to try to take the pulse of the elusive music audience. “The Big Red focus groups were both depressing and informative, and they confirmed what I â€” and Rick â€” already knew,” DiDia told me afterward. “The kids all said that a) no one listens to the radio anymore, b) they mostly steal music, but they don’t consider it stealing, and c) they get most of their music from iTunes on their iPod. They told us that MySpace is over, it’s just not cool anymore; Facebook is still cool, but that might not last much longer; and the biggest thing in their life is word of mouth. That’s how they hear about music, bands, everything.”

Well, duh. But wait! There’s an idea here!

At Rubin’s suggestion, [Barnett] has also set up a “word of mouth” department, which will probably employ some members of the Big Red focus group along with dozens of other 20-somethings. The “word of mouth” department will function as a publicity-promotional arm of the company, spreading commissioned buzz through chat rooms across the planet and through old-fashioned human interaction. “They tell all their friends about a band,” Barnett explained. “Their job is to create interest.”

Wow. Damn. The secret to rescuing one of the greatest labels in the history of the world, and the flagship of one the big five… four… three sir! record companies is, pay some teenagers to go on the internet and pretend to give a shit about bands to their friends.

Shit! If only someone’d tried that eight years ago, set up a guy as, I dunno, the “internet marketing manager” and given him money and access to interns eager to tell their buddies all about the next big never-gonna-be, an’, an’, indie companies that you could pay to get content on dorm-room televisions, an’, an’ on campuses and into high schools and skate parks! If only every label in the world had tried that exact strategem back at the advent of the decade, the ship mighta been wrenched around by that critical arc minute to swing it juuuuust wide of the iceberg!

Oh, wait. They all screaming goddamn well did.

Brilliant, gentlemen.

But what else have they in mind?

Rubin has a bigger idea [I bet he does (-Johno)]. To combat the devastating impact of file sharing, he, like others in the music business (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal, for instance), says that the future of the industry is a subscription model, much like paid cable on a television set. “You would subscribe to music,” Rubin explained, as he settled on the velvet couch in his library. “You’d pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you’d like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home. You’ll say, ‘Today I want to listen to ... Simon and Garfunkel,’ and there they are. The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now.”

So, say I’m somewhere like, I dunno, my buddys fire pit in Northeastern Ohio. We got a bale of primo bud and a cooler full ale. And we wanna rock the fark out to Motorhead. All we gotta do is… wait… dude, do you get broadband out here?

But at least Barnett sees reason here:

Steve Barnett is nervous about the subscription model. “Smart people have told me if the subscription model is not done correctly,” he said, “it will be the final nail in our coffin. I’ve heard both sides of the argument, and I’m not convinced it’s the solution to our problems. Rick wants to be a hero immediately. In his mind, you flick a switch and it’s done. It doesn’t work like that.”

So, what you’re sayin’ is, your highly paid guru who has no office, no shoes, no phone number you can reach him on, and an oracular perspective on the Future of the Industry, is halfway fulla shit. Noted.

But this is where the antics spill over into full-on Larry/Curly/Moe madness. Check this shit out!

Barnett has other ideas, which he is discussing with Rubin. For instance, asking Columbia artists to give the record company up to 50 percent of their touring, merchandising and online revenue. This is unprecedented â€” even successful artists like the Dixie Chicks make a large percentage of their income from concerts and T-shirts.

So let’s break this down good so even the dim kids in the back of the class get it. Artists signed to major labels get this much money from album sales:

Zero.

If they go reaaaaaaly far, shift a few million units, that number can rocket all the way up to

A little.

Artists, every artist, from the overly earnest hairy-legged songbird down at your local coffe joint, to Buckethead’s wife’s excellent band, to Cheap Trick, to the Rolling Stones, Prince, and Barbra herself, make money in these ways:

Touring and appearances

Merch (t-shirts, keychains, beer coozies, etc.)

Whatever b.s. online revenue streams they can dig up.

If the artist also happens to be a songwriter, or to control their own publishing, they may also get decent to spectacular paydays off of that as well, and forego some of the above. (The rap and electronic worlds also have their alternate revenue streams, but at the end of the day they amount to a new flavor of touring, merch, online B.S., publishing, or songwriting.)

So, basically, leaving aside songwriting and publishing which are separate pillars of the business, with their own contracts, deal structures, and support agencies, the magic bullet that’s gonna save Sony/Columbia from disappearing up their own anii while simultaneously collapsing in a fiery heap while offstage a muted trumpet plays “waaah-waaah” is, WE’LL FIND OUT WHAT MONEY OUR ARTISTS ARE EARNING, AND MAKE THEM GIVE IT TO US INSTEAD!!!

(While, one presumes, twisting their moustaches in glee and twisting their monocles deeper into their eye sockets, the better to see the young immigrant boys they hired straight off a plane at JFK for a nickel wrestle each other to their deaths. Sweet suffering Jesus; there’s villainy, and then there’s incompetent cartoon villainy.)

So, while the money man is looking at grade-skool level larceny as a viable corporate survival strategy, what’s the GURU up to, Stu?

[Rubin is] always on a quest to find just the right thing, whether it be a book or a building. Recently, he hunted down the brand of water that claims to have the greatest level of purity (Ice Age); he pored over architectural manuals to determine what kind of hinge would have been used in 1923 (for his house); and when Johnny Cash was ailing, Rubin discovered a kinesiologist whom Cash credited with extending his life. And so on. Rubin has always been passionate, even compulsive, about his interests.

Gentlemen, I say with mingled regret and pleasure that you all deserve everything you get.

[Wik] Oh, and another thing about that “Big Red” focus group? Isn’t it a truism that kids these days (kids these days!!) have finely tuned bullshit detectors that can see right through most forms of marketing known to man and many which haven’t even been invented yet? And a bunch of teenagers on the intarnets getting paid in free.... what.... free CDs??? Free “subscriptions” to whatever music download service Sony pukes up?... are going to somehow outwit their peers?

I’ve seen it a hundred times. Pimping music is wonderful and even fulfilling when you can really believe in the quality of the record you’re working. Then it’s no so much like whoring, and more like evangelizing. But nine times out of ten, you’re actually getting paid to pretend that some giant steaming turd is really a tasty sandwich, when everyone from Prague to Paducah can see the difference. And that not only sucks the soul right out of you, it’s how record companies and their hacks become hacks. The stink of hack clings to the hacky hacks like cigar smoke and drug store perfume clings to the upholstery in the $20 lapdance room out at the Moonlight on old Route 11. And you don’t really come back from that.

Too Goddamn Much Perfidy...

Posted by Johno on 09/02/07 at 11:20 PM
Darwin Award Contender • Entertainment • Filthy Lucre • It'll Be a Cold Day in Hell • Music Wonkery • Unmitigated Gall • Permalink

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Q: Why Is the Ground Sticky in Europe?

A: Because the muslims just won’t stop coming!!!

So, check out this utterly entertaining tale from Britain’s Independent of one journalist’s voyage on the National Review’s recent reader cruise. Every sentence contains a new nugget of outrageousness that should have sprung from the pen of a young Tom Wolfe, or T. Coraghessen Boyle, or any other fiction writer whose stock in trade is wacky cruelty, not from a publication that despite its biases still must cling to some version of reality-as-lived.

The set-pieces are iconic: William Buckley, the founder of the magazine and grey eminence of American Conservatism, sulking shunned and mocked in his cabin as his movementarians flock around the spittle-flecked beard of Norman Podhoretz. The leggy blonde suntanner advocating gassing a few liberals to show them the consequences of treason, in the same distracted way as one might wonder if they could go for a nice mojito right about now. Mark Steyn at a table of admirers, holding forth on the brown tide threatening to subsume the white purity of Albion, and the rest of Europe too.

Go read this, and get a glimpse of a world in which George Bush is a steel-spined visionary hero, ululating hordes of sandaled beasts spit Betel nuts (or date pits… it’s so hard to know what these brown people chew… do they chew Betel nuts or is that hashish?) at the very feet of l’Arc de Triomphe, and American liberals wake every morning with their hearts rising toward Mecca, fresh for another day of materially supporting America’s sworn enemies.

Posted by Johno on 07/17/07 at 03:40 PM
Darwin Award Contender • Partisan Politics • Permalink

Saturday, July 07, 2007

A potential new item for Bud Lightâ€™s â€œReal Men of Geniusâ€ series?

I bring you David Gross of San Francisco, who not only:

...asked his bosses for a radical pay cut, enough so he wouldn’t have to pay taxes to support the war.

but

In any event, his employer turned him down and he quit.

Which, I guess, good for him, standing up for his convictions that way and all. Left unanswered, at least for now, is whether federal taxes are levied on the wages of “guests of the Federal Government”. Why would I be curious about that? Because

Gross, 38, now works on a contract basis, and last year he refused to pay self-employment taxes.

Pre-mug-shot

All by itself, that doesn’t distinguish him from a lot of people. The AP story notes that between 8 and 10 thousand people fail to pay their taxes for reasons similar to those of Gross. Contained in the story, at a meta-level, is the fact that this particular non-Rhodes Scholar allowed the AP to write a story about him evading taxes. Nothing like calling out the IRS by name to get them to leave you alone. Posing in two pre-mug shots for the story? A priceless addition, though I’m sure the Feds could already have found him whenever and wherever they needed to.

Of course, these days, he won’t end up becoming a guest of the Federal Government:

Unlike the days when Thoreau was sent to prison in a tax protest against the Mexican-American War, modern war tax protesters rarely go to prison, according to tax resisters. The IRS may take their money from wages and bank accounts - with penalties and interest - after sending a series of letters.

“They’re very polite, which makes it a little boring,” said Rosa Packard of Greenwich, a longtime anti-war tax protester.

But if he thinks he is going to avoid collection of his taxes owed, by hook or by crook, after having trumpeted his resistance on a national newswire, he’s perhaps not smart enough to be gainfully employed, as a contractor or otherwise.

Will his protest, and others like his, have the desired effect? As James Taranto said in the OpinionJournal piece where I first saw this story, “Something tells us the economy will survive.”

(also posted at issuesblog.com)

Posted by Patton on 07/07/07 at 12:37 AM
Darwin Award Contender • Unmitigated Gall • Permalink

Thursday, June 28, 2007

I Was Having Such a Good Time, I Shit Myself

One gauge of a person’s moral fiber is how they treat animals.

Mitt Romney, for example, supports “extreme measures” for interrogators, and apparently thinks it’s fine to strap the family dog to the roof of the car and drive from Massachusetts to Ohio. The shit rolling down the back windshield? That’s doggy laughter.

Just sayin’.

Posted by Johno on 06/28/07 at 11:50 AM
Darwin Award Contender • FakeBlogging • Lead Pipe Cruelty • Partisan Politics • Perfidy Attacks • Permalink

Sunday, June 24, 2007

I Hate You Jericho Hill

Jericho Hill, one of the list mods at Get Rich Slowly forums went to the happy hour for PF bloggers I hosted last week. I extended an invitation when I saw he was from DC. My bad. He is a prime Casey Serin Hater, so he brought me up to date on Mr. Serinâ€™s sad travails.

And all I could do is pray that God would not kill me for my schadenfreude.

JH then told me to visit caseypedia.com, the wiki for the Casey Haters. I fear I am one and will have to join this elite club of people who pay their bills on time and have integrity. How many of the ministers and their fine minions are secret Casey Haters as well?

It’s people like Mr. Serin who ought to be jailed for fraud. Having worked a bankruptcy case for a fraudulent flipper in Baltimore, it disgusts me that people who get liar loans and then end up in foreclosure on multiple properties are going to bring the economy down with their stupdity. It’s the greedy mortgage brokers and banks who need to tighten credit a little and exercise a little fiscal responsibility and stop idiots like Mr. Serin from even getting into the position of being irresponsible. I’d love to let him hang himself, but apparently he’s quasi-homeless in Australia. Most likely he’ll get a free trip back courtesy of extradition papers. (OMG, I hope so. That would be frickin’ awesome! Eek. I am sure Mr. Serin would use those exact words to describe the experience of being violated in federal prison. It seems to be one of his favorite phrases.)

N.B. this is a modified cross post of something on Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge.

Posted by Mapgirl on 06/24/07 at 09:35 PM
Darwin Award Contender • Filthy Lucre • Perfidy Attacks • Permalink

Friday, June 08, 2007

This Jail’s For You!

I am sure you all know by now, but Young Miss Hilton is going to jail!

More schadenfreude for me!

I love the pictures of her crying. Save it for the runway or your big acting break.

Someone toss her a sandwich to shut her up.

Mommy? Mommy? How OLD are you that you still need your mommy? You never should have moved out of your mother’s house.

I am certain your parents are still so very proud of you, your sex tape and your irresponsibility.

************

Fortunately, I’ve never had a DUI in my life. Yes, I admit to probably driving when I shouldn’t have. But I also plan my drunk-drunk so that I am relatively sober by the time I leave the nightclub/restaurant/house party/picnic. We all know the rules, stay to the right, stay between the lines and drive the speed limit.

She’s under 30 and thin as a the finely etched lines of copper interconnect on a 300mm wafer. Her birdlike-metabolism should have her right stone sober in 30 minutes!

What kind of idiot still gets a DUI these days? On top of all that, she could afford a freakin’ driver or take a cab! Sheesh. I can’t AFFORD to do 45 days in jail or the legal fees for a lawyer, therefore I sober up!

I have zero sympathy. Don’t f*ck with the law. You had your chance. You do the crime. You do the time.

Dumbass.

Posted by Mapgirl on 06/08/07 at 07:48 PM
Darwin Award Contender • Entertainment • Lead Pipe Cruelty • Perfidy Attacks • Permalink

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Yes, this logo blows

On the subject of the 2012 olympic logo and its relative quality, I am told by the whole internets that the prevailing opinion is “it looks like Lisa Simpson giving a blowjob.”

Why yes… yes it does.

London must stand firm. They MUST NOT bow to pressure to abandon this hilarious and utterly appropriate logo! If this logo goes, the terrorists win.

Posted by Johno on 06/05/07 at 01:50 PM
Crazy Foreigners • Darwin Award Contender • FakeBlogging • Entertainment • Lead Pipe Cruelty • Perfidy Attacks • Permalink

Sunday, June 03, 2007

The purity of essence of our precious category tags

Patton has accused me of being overly concerned about wasting a scarce natural resource. The category tag. In this, of course, he is completely wrong. Naturally, I could have argued that over-categorizing a post dilutes the utility of tags. And I would have been right. But that wasn’t the point. I was attacking him on aesthetic grounds, and just to stick a stick in his eye.

Just to prove that I am not some sort of homo-tree-hugging-enviro-commie, this post, which really is about everything, is tagged with every category we have. And, when I have a free moment, I’ll add some new categories, and add them to this post.

So there.

Posted by Buckethead on 06/03/07 at 09:34 PM
No Category • Crazy Foreigners • Darwin Award Contender • FakeBlogging • Entertainment • Filthy Lucre • Holy Shit! • It'll Be a Cold Day in Hell • Just So You Know • Lead Pipe Cruelty • NaNoWriMo • Music Wonkery • Partisan Politics • Perfidy • Perfidy Attacks • Perfidy Responds • That Buck Rogers Stuff • The Miracle of Science • Unmitigated Gall • War • Permalink

Monday, May 14, 2007

Clearly the Democracy in Iraq is Undermining our Effort to Establish a Democracy in Iraq

Via Hilzoy of Obsidian Wings, I have found a site that appears to be nothing but the Sunday morning talking head shows translated into l33t$p3@|<.

Ch-ch-check it:

Russert: dood teh American people think the Iraq war was a mistake

McCain: well you know the American people think failure is teh suck

Russert: well why not

McCain: yeah but teh people dont get teh consequences of failure

Russert: teh people hate u and yur policies

McCain: kurds, turks, Saudis will go to war and then we’ll have to partition bedrooms in Iraq if we do that they’ll follow us in to American bedrooms

Timmeh: wow

McCain: i luv shock and awe but its true bush is a terrible president and it was all mismanaged - for that i blame Donald Rumsfeld

Timmeh: but not Bush of course

McCain: at the time we went to war given what the British said we had to invade iraq

Timmeh: thats it?

MCcain: also the Oil-for-Food program was breaking down

Timmeh: yur joking right

McCain: hey if we had known we’d fail well sure you wouldn’t invade

Timmy: sorry yur confusing me

McCain: Al Qaeda is in Baghdad but we’re making progress - they’re in other areas too

Timmeh: excellent but iraqi parliament wants us to leave

McCain: yeah but its in our interest to honor teh troops by not debating over and over and over again teh stooped boring Iraq war

Tim: huh?

McCain: fuck the Iraqi parliament

Tim: oh ok

McCain: those fuckers are just playing to their base Iâ€™ve had it with this fucking democracy i saw all this in vietnam

Tim: yeah like in Platoon and the Killing Fields

McCain: clearly the democracy in Iraq is undermining our effort to establish a democracy in Iraq

Tim: how the fuck long is it going to take

McCain: well we fought a bloody civil war 100 years after the Revolution in 1776 so you figure it out

That’s about the tone of ‘em, neh?

Posted by Johno on 05/14/07 at 09:15 AM
Darwin Award Contender • FakeBlogging • Partisan Politics • Permalink

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Ill effects

Bad things can happen when you treat “An Inconvenient Truth” as an authoritative documentary.

And no, of course the link has nothing to do with Algore’s movie.

I hope this doesn’t become commonplace, because it’s already been done, to a tee, by Johnny Knoxville.

Posted by Patton on 05/13/07 at 12:51 AM
Darwin Award Contender • Just So You Know • Permalink

Monday, April 30, 2007

Queer

Really, queer.

Posted by Buckethead on 04/30/07 at 06:48 PM
Darwin Award Contender • Permalink

Sunday, April 08, 2007

The Prettiest President

Welcome to the Ministry of Minor Perfidy’s series Meet Your Candidates!

With the 2008 Presidential season already in full swing, it is important that interested voters be out in front of the ever-evolving cast of characters vying for a place at the big table. With that mandate in mind (man-date… isn’t that a little gay? Someone find out where Brownback stands on mandates!), we here at the Ministry will be profiling each of the very early candidates for the 2008 Presidential election over the next few weeks for your general edification and amusement. With such an absurdly long and diverse cast of characters (from Tancredo to Kucinich), it’s hard to know who’s for real and who’s just a white shirt stuffed with ambition and the souls of dozens of big donors. We’re here to help.

I myself will be profiling the following contenders: US Congressman and composting enthusiast Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Former Massachusetts Governer and yachting type Mitt Romney, former Saturday Night Live host and Mayor of 9/11, excuse me, New York City Mayor Rudy ~~9/11~~ Guiliani, retired General and George Clooney stunt-double Wesley Clark, former fatty and the other Man from H.O.P.E., Arkansas Governer Mike Huckabee, and Savior Made Flesh Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

First, some little known facts about your candidates:

The combined candlepower of Romney’s, Edwards’, and Obama’s smiles could provide enough energy to power Bangladesh for a full day. Obama has produced a white paper exploring this phenomenon as a practical solution to Southeast Asia’s energy crisis.

Places you could safely hide all the candidates: Mitt Romney’s hair; Newt Gingrich’s self-regard; Bill Clinton’s ballsack (with room to spare).

Of all the candidates, Mike Huckabee has the sweetest smell.

WTC 7 did not collapse, as widely believed, due to damage sustained in the collapse of WTC 1 and 2. Neither was it deliberately demolished by Jews, the CIA or the Trilateral Commission. Rather, it collapsed when Rudy Guiliani, in the heat of his 9/11 crisis-management mode, roundhouse kicked it for being, as he tells it “goddamn insolent.”

Newt Gingrich once gave a homeless man $20 to dance for him.

Sam Brownback’s safe word is “peaches.”

John McCain once carried a litter of wolf pups to term and nursed them to adulthood after accidentally killing their mother while hunting in the Rockies.

Dennis Kucinich is a top-notch shooting guard, especially dangerous from the high post.

Tom Tancredo broke up with his first high-school girlfriend for ordering a burrito for lunch.

Barack Obama has only one kidney. The other currently belongs to a Guatemalan orphan named Paco.

Fred Thompson has repeatedly sought counseling for uncontrollable rages. Onlookers mistake for avuncular pauses the times when he must take a moment to master his urge to crush his coffee mug into dust and, as his children put it, “Hulk out.”

Rudy Guiliani practices “Hulking out” in the mirror nightly before bed.

First, let’s meet the stormin’ Mormon, the man with the million-dollar smile and perfect hair, former Massachusetts Governer Willard “Mitt” Romney.

More Perfidious Goodness...

The first thing to remember about Mitt Romney is that he’s a second-generation politician, his father being the Michigan Governor, HUD Secretary, American Motors chairman, Presidential candidate and victim of Asian brainwashing, George W. Romney. It is an iron law of American politics that talent is not cross-generational, and it is this warning that should shape America’s perception of Romney. Witness such prodigies of witlessness as John Quincy Adams (a strong contender for our worst President of all time), and George Walker Bush (ditto?) - parental ambition and a childhood familiarity with the political world are no substitute for actual talent, integrity, and all the other bullshit that should be for real but isn’t that goes on yard signs during election season.

(And before we go any farther, let us stop a moment to wonder if, after eight years of ‘70s-era Harvard MBA leadership from son-of-a-politician George W. Bush, we want four to eight more years of ‘70s-era Harvard MBA son-of-a-politician leadership from Mitt. Call me crazy, but that particular, shall we say ‘strategery,’ hasn’t worked out quite as well as might be hoped so far.)

Anyway, back to the facts… Mitt Romney’s biggest claims to fame, prior to his election as GOV, were as head of Bain Capital (where he oversaw a wildly successful run of 113% yearly growth) and as CEO of the 2002 Olympics.

Like other candidates with a business background, Romney claims that this experience makes him an ideal fit for the managerial demands of the Presidency. Truth be told, I’d place more trust in my local School Board chairman to run the United States then a CEO. Note to all hopefuls: Presidents can’t fire anybody, restructure or spin off any of the fifty operating divisions, or attempt LBOs of rival firms by way of entrenching market share, and the shareholders and entrenched interests are notoriously tetchy. When Germany stops importing American-made goods in protest of a new policy, there isn’t anything in any HBS Case Study (not even PeoplePower, Inc.) to help you power through the issue. Frankly, a turnaround specialist is the worst person to step into control of what is still the most powerful and stable economy the world has ever seen - why fix what ain’t broke on that level?

As for his Olympic experience, see above regarding the fitness of CEOs for the Big Seat, and add to this the mistaken equivalence between mediating among the two hundred nations participating in a multinational sporting event and engaging in trilateral talks with North Korea, China and Japan about just where Pyongyang is thinking about landing those nukes that are achieving apogee right about… nnnnnnow.

From the moment of his election to GOV in 2002, Romney openly telegraphed his intention to look past the job to bigger and better things. He was a johnny-come-lately carpetbagger with the air of a Republican in search of a state to win, in order to get that on his resume ASAP. While in office, he openly mocked the people of Massachusetts (as in a 2005 appearance in South Carolina). He practically disappeared from public view, emerging only to pick losing fights with entrenched state interests, to chime in on hot-button issues, or to howl for the heads of Turnpike Commission authorities whenever the Big Dig sprung a leak or killed anyone. If there’s any justice in this world, Mitt will be branded a bigger “flip-flopper” than his Bay State nemesis, John Kerry. Mitt was against gay marriage before he was for it, and then against it again, for abortion choice and stem-cell research before he declared that life begins at conception, a lifelong hunter who has hunted once or twice, and against big-government mandates before he passed the nation’s first state-funded universal health care scheme.

Truth is, nothing is as important to Mitt Romney as politics itself. As I recently wrote in a comment,

Mitt Romney is a mealy-mouthed walking haircut, an empty suit whose political instincts to find the nearest camera and beam into it are as acute and uncontrollable as a dog in frantic search of a leg to hump.

As governor of Massachusetts (and letâ€™s not forget that getting elected governor of Massachusetts as a Republican hasnâ€™t been any kind of feat since Bill Weld in 1992) he did, well, practically nothing. He lost most of the big showdowns, and tied the rest. Billy Bulger retired from the Senate to take a sinecure of equal if more subtle power as head of UMass. The turnpike commission smacked him around like a skinny third-grader. The stateâ€™s finances failed to improve measurably by any standard. Although he didnâ€™t actively *hurt* the state, Romney showed absolutely no spark, no genius for leadership, nothing indeed except for a genius for pandering to whatever audience was in front of him at the time. I donâ€™t give a ratâ€™s ass that heâ€™s a Mormon. What matters is that he thinks failing to outmaneuver the Massachusetts Turnpike Commission qualifies him to enter into deep negotiation with Iran (not to mention Senate Democrats).

Next time you see Mitt in front of a camera, look for two things: a statement that exactly contradicts something he said in the past, with no apology or acknowledgement, and that slightly spastic bending-over thing that men in suits do when they need to surreptitiously move a raging erection from one side of the zipper to the other.

Mitt Romney is the worst possible Republican candidate for President, aside from all the others. He is a big-government moral conservative who readily panders to more libertine interests when it’s convenient to poll ratings, a smug and overtrained businessman whose governance playbook consists of scribbled quotes from “7 Habits of Highly Successful People,” Bain Capital annual reports from the Reagan era, and headshots of himself, and a foreign-policy novice whose positions at this point seem reducible to five words: “I agree with the President."

Too Goddamn Much Perfidy...

Posted by Johno on 04/08/07 at 01:56 PM
Darwin Award Contender • Partisan Politics • Permalink

Saturday, March 31, 2007

How to tell you might be kinda stupid

Symptoms to look out for:

You’re a cab driver
You work in Beverly Hills, CA
You get a fare to Chapel Hill, NC
You decide to take it

Witness:

Cabbie says he was stiffed on $8,200

Fri Mar 30, 9:19 PM ET

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A taxi driver told police he was stiffed on an $8,200 cross-country fare by a female passenger he shuttled from Beverly Hills, Calif. to North Carolina.
The meter in Levon Mikayelyan’s taxi cab hit the staggering fare after a 2,600-mile journey that ended at a Holiday Inn in Chapel Hill. Mikayelyan said the rider’s family paid him only $800, Chapel Hill police spokeswoman Jane Cousins said Friday.

“We do get reports of people who are not able to pay cab drivers, but certainly not with this amount,” Cousins said.
{...}

So Cousins is saying not all cabbies are this stupid? Good - it’s been my general experience that they’re not, though they can be a thieving lot, depending on the city you’re in.

They’re often apparent refugees of Austin Powers’ least favorite group:

Carnies. Circus folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands.

But they’re not often this stupid.

Posted by Patton on 03/31/07 at 06:26 PM
Darwin Award Contender • Permalink

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Everything Old is New Again, Again

In a followup to my thoughts the other day about the self-destructive tactics of the music bidness, the New York Times has an interesting article about the sunset of the album as the dominant commercial musical medium. Last year, digital singles outsold physical albums for the first time, which is bad news for the labels as their per-unit take on digital singles is several orders of magnitude lower than on traditional album sales. In a fascinating turn of events, the Times article also profiles a young group who have signed a singles deal with Universal, and who are thrilled at the low-risk exposure they’ll get for recording three to five songs, total, for a major label. The majors in turn are contemplating turning this sort of contract, previously reserved for novelty records and one-off all star fiascos, into one of their most common deal structures. This is a surprising and ironic turn of events.

Well, perhaps it’s not surprising to you, but it sure as hell is to me. Not six years ago I sat in a room with the management team of the label group I worked for and listened to them announce that we would be getting out of the singles business forever.

To be fair, it made sense at the time. Back in early 2001, the music industry was even farther away then it is today from figuring out how to make money off of digital downloading, and sales of physical singles had dwindled. The singles floor racks of the 1960s had shrunk in the 1980s to a singles wall, and by the turn of the millennium was just a couple singles next to the checkout counter. Albums ruled the day. All across the industry, labels were getting out of the singles business as sales dried up. Sure, there were a couple markets where they still moved, but for the most part, it was dead as disco. Digital media wasn’t even a blip except insofar as it could help market traditional CDs.

And that’s the central insight that I think is missing from the usual narrative of how the music industry is hidebound, venal, greedy, etc. etc. etc. (all true anyway no matter what, but still...). For fifty years or more, the music industry has been able to dictate, or at worst, adapt readily, to major shifts in media. This is because new form factors came along at a slow pace, and were never all that disruptive to the current status quo. The grooved record had more than three quarters of a century in the sun, from its introduction in the early years of the 20th century to the late 1970s, before it was supplanted by the tape. Tapes too, had a good twenty-year or more run before they were indisputably tackled by the compact disc. And the compact disc, again, had about twenty years between its major commercial adoption and the current seven-year slow strangulation the industry is currently undergoing.

And this time, it’s not just form factor and playback technology that’s changing. This time it’s the entire distribution chain that’s been upended, the very business processes that the labels and their affiilated industries (manufacturing, distribution, commercial radio, retail) have built their success around for, in some cases, a hundred years. That’s hard to understand, much less accept. I can’t imagine any industry agile enough to turn on a dime like the record industry should have when Napster first came on the scene, so a few years delay in getting their act together is no surprise. But now that seven years have gone by, it’s still pretty clear that the industry as a whole is still trying to sell buggy whips to consumers who have never even seen a horse.

As for the irony, I do find it ironic that what seemed like a very sound business decision in 2001 - shutting down the singles shop because singles don’t sell - turns out to be an early indicator that the music industry was not only unequpped to adapt to the implications of downloadable music, but at the time the technology matured were actively shutting down the only parts of their business that could even comprehend any part of what the future would hold.

Posted by Johno on 03/27/07 at 03:16 PM
Darwin Award Contender • Filthy Lucre • Music Wonkery • Permalink

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