The USA Oligarchy-Austerity-Schadenfreude Thread

[AhabsOtherLeg]

[justdrew]

balltaping reported by Bob Seagull (thanks to 82_28 for me knowing what that is). LOL. coyote stalks

[AhabsOtherLeg]

balltaping reported by Bob Seagull (thanks to 82_28 for me knowing what that is). LOL. coyote stalks

Are you saying this is some sort of fake meme? It can't be, 'cos we did it, to an extent.

You're going all hermetic on me here, and I don't like that.

I pray thee. What dost thou mean?

[justdrew]

balltaping reported by Bob Seagull (thanks to 82_28 for me knowing what that is). LOL. coyote stalks

Are you saying this is some sort of fake meme? It can't be, 'cos we did it, to an extent.

You're going all hermetic on me here, and I don't like that.

I pray thee. What dost thou mean?

yeah, I guess that wasn't too clear. according to the word on the street, kids in Britain are cuming in their hands and smacking it onto other boys heads. as a 'joke' - This act is termed, "seagulled" (like bird poo dropping on your head) which is kinda like balltaping. and the name of the reporter on that video story you posted is, oddly enough, Bob Segul. So it seems to me this whole thing is being organized by the cosmic tricksterism. but of course, "one thing I can't stand, it's people what play tricks with fruit! and don't pay their parking fines!"1

(1) line from an early scene in S2H.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

.
I'm pleased to see that my resolute obtuseness has finally driven people to using footnotes in their posts.

See. I win!

Ball-tapping, seagulling, and even totally "normal" activities such as happy-slapping strangers and setting fire to tramps are all beyond me though. The Overton Window of casual cruelty has passed me by.

[justdrew]

.
I'm pleased to see that my resolute obtuseness has finally driven people to using footnotes in their posts.

See. I win!

Ball-tapping, seagulling, and even totally "normal" activities such as happy-slapping strangers and setting fire to tramps are all beyond me though. The Overton Window of casual cruelty has passed me by.

worst I ever heard of growing up was to be given a swirly in the toilet. kids today seem to be knocking the ball out of the park.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

They've learned their lessons well, I suppose. Everything would be better if the teachings were better.

[Bruce Dazzling]

Poll reveals Americans clueless, ignorant, confused; lost in a sea of information they can neither comprehend nor understand

No wonder so many are permanently redundant.

Poll: Most don't know what GOP won
By: Meredith Shiner
November 19, 2010 07:45 AM EST

Fewer than half of all Americans know that Republicans will have a majority in the House next year but not the Senate, according to a new poll.

Only 46 percent of respondents in a Pew Research poll released Thursday knew that the GOP had taken over only the House, while a mere 38 percent can identify Ohio Republican John Boehner as the incoming speaker. Three times as many young people, under age 30, could properly identify Google's new phone software, Android, as could identify Boehner.

Additionally, 27 percent of Americans do not know if the Republicans won either chamber of Congress while 5 percent believe the Democrats kept both chambers. Fourteen percent said the Republicans won both chambers.

Most respondents said Republicans generically did better than Democrats this cycle. Seventy-five percent of all respondents regarded the GOP as "doing the best" in the 2010 elections.

The Pew poll was conducted Nov. 11-14, surveying 1,001 Americans.

[Montag]

More US households short of food
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11761970

excerpt:

Almost 15% of US households experienced a food shortage at some point in 2009, a government report has found.

US authorities say that figure is the highest they have seen since they began collecting data in the 1990s, and a slight increase over 2008 levels.

Single mothers are among the hardest hit: About 3.5 million said they were at times unable to put sufficient food on the table.

Hispanics and African Americans also suffer disproportionately.

The food security report is the result of an annual survey conducted by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Households deemed "food insecure" experienced a period of inadequate food supply as a result of their economic situation, but did not necessarily remain without sufficient food for the entire year.

Although the number of food insecure households has risen sharply since the recession, the USDA says the growth rate has slowed, particularly toward the end of 2009.

The BBC's Katie Connolly, in Washington, says the results will be seen as somewhat surprising in a developed country that is also facing the problem of rising obesity rates.
Shielding children

Almost 60% of those experiencing food shortages were eligible for assistance to purchase food through a government food stamps program.
food security graph

Since the recession, the Obama administration has expanded food stamp funding. In 2009, around 34 million Americans participated in food stamp programs each month.

Among those categorized as having "very low food security" - that is, those who experience the most severe food shortages - 28% of adults said that there were times in 2009 when they did not eat for an entire day because they could not afford to buy food.

Ninety-seven percent reported either skipping a meal or cutting the size of their meal for the same reason.

The report says that children in low food security households are often shielded from such behaviour by adults.

[nathan28]

More US households short of food
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11761970

Okay, this isn't about our laughable oligarchs, it's about something pretty serious in the most obese nation in the world. If the story was

Skinny Poor Longpig: the Newest Cocktail Party Appetizer!
Hottest trend in food world promises to solve poverty!

Maybe you've seen quivering, emaciated junkies shivering outside subway stops, or lines of hungry-looking young men smoking cigarettes outside outreach centers, waiting for them to open. A new trend among the glitterati promises to change all that! Commenting on hors d'œuvre menu preparations for an upcoming fundraiser for the Financial Human Rights Defense League gala, Chef Fabio Bataglio told us that "Adolescent homeless are best. The have just the right balance of chemical astringency and bitterness combined with the sort of tenderness that can be released by slow methods."

[more after the jump!]
http://heypamperedfascists.gofuckyourselves.die

then, yeah, it'd qualify, but my super-secret KWH Decoder Ring says the CIA-Media won't be running that story for at least another five to ten years.



Back on topic:




TLC provides the world's most embarrassing presidential campaign event ever: http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/sarah-palin-alaska/

[Montag]

[Montag]

Minimum wage is worth less than in 1968
http://lifeinc.todayshow.com/_news/2010 ... ?gt1=43001

If you’re one of the several million Americans earning minimum wage, here's a sobering fact: Your grandpa had more spending power earning minimum wage four decades ago.

Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage was worth $8.54 per hour in 1968, according to calculations by the Economic Policy Institute. The current minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.

The value of the minimum wage has risen in the last few years, following a three-year government effort to boost the lowest allowable hourly wage in the United States. The final stage, which took effect in July of 2009, brought the minimum wage up nearly 11 percent to its current rate.

In addition, some states have mandated that minimum wage be higher than the national rate.

Still, the data from EPI show that the value of minimum wage has not, in the long-term, kept up with rising inflation, which boosts what things cost and lowers the value of money. (For more fun with inflation, check out this inflation calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

About 3.6 million workers earned wages at or below the minimum wage in 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That equates to nearly 5 percent of all hourly paid workers.

People who earn minimum wage are more likely to be under 25 and to have less than a high school diploma, according to the BLS. They also are more likely to work in service occupations such as food preparation. Some of these workers may actually take home more than that base pay, because of tips or commission.

[nathan28]

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/11/congressional-members-personal-weal.html

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, lawmakers’ personal wealth increased an average 16 percent between 2008 and 2009. The number of millionaires rose to 261, nearly half the total members of Congress.

Must be one of those "statistical anomalies", possibly even of the Fortean variety!

SP500_2008-2010_11.png

[wintler2]

OT: Have to attribute BruceD's "stupid american people?" video, it is by The Chaser, thank you australian public television. There is some possibility the 'fix was in' for that vid, as savage comedy is their thing, but they denied it at the time (4? years ago). Amongst Chasers other acheivements is sneaking an Osama Bin Laden look alike into the security 'ring of steel' set up in Sydney for APEC conference & Bush II.

[Jeff]

End of American dream a nightmare for Obama

Fri Nov 19 2010
Richard Gwyn

As was bound to happen, an article has just appeared, in the Washington Post and so in a respected, mainstream newspaper, calling on President Barack Obama to declare he will not run for re-election in 2012.

According to political commentators Douglas Schoen and Patrick Caddell, “America is suffering a widespread sense of crisis and anxiety” that Obama is magnifying because he “has largely lost the confidence of the governed.”

In order to “galvanize the public for the hard decisions that must be made,” they urge that Obama make an “explicit” announcement that he will be “a one-term president.”

...

The core of the change of life America is undergoing is that it is ceasing to be an exceptional nation.

It will remain for a long time more powerful and richer than anyone else, and continue to exert immense cultural appeal, for a long time.

But it’s in a phase of inescapable decline. This sense of contraction, of children’s lives no longer being better than those of the parents, was, surely, as much the cause of the anxiety and anger expressed in the mid-term elections as the specifics of unemployment, mortgage foreclosures and wage cutbacks.

Decline has happened before to Rome and Britain and France and Spain. And, as is worth noting, to China also.

As was the case with these national empires, and others, this phenomenon has mostly been self-inflicted.

...

And there’s the cruellest deficit of all, that of the gap between rich and poor. America’s top 1 per cent now get one-quarter of the national income. Their gain has come mostly from the middle class. Again, it was the Tea Partiers who best understood the American Dream has passed them by.

...

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editoria ... -for-obama