Recession Ends; No One Notices

WASHINGTON D.C. The National Bureau Of Economic Research (NBER)'s Business Cycle Dating Committee held a meeting yesterday, and agreed that the Great Recession, which started in the Fall of 2007, actually ended in June of 2009, or the end of Second Quarter.

There was little hoopla. The news was greeted with silence and laconic stares from passersby (a neat trick, as the meeting was conducted by phone).

"It was over a year ago?" Said Anna Loftgren, a mother of three who has been unemployed for 87 weeks and currently living in a friends' lawn mower shed. "I don't see there's any difference." Ms. Loftgren recently sold her children as test subjects in the cosmetics industry to pay down her credit card debt.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Robert Hall, Stanford University economist and Chairman of the NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee, announced to the other members that he was very sorry, but that the NBER had considered various consolidation and reduction-in-force plans, and determined that they would all have to be let go.

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Anchored

"First and foremost, I’m a businessman. My first goal is to attract the largest audience possible so I can charge confiscatory ad rates. I happen to have great entertainment skills, but that enables me to sell airtime.” Then he added -- as if he had to after a rare moment of honesty -- "But in my heart and soul, I know I have become the intellectual engine of the conservative movement."
John McManus, "The Flap Over Limbaugh", New American, April 2009


(Photo: Courtesy Knowledge Rush.com -- No Joke)

Lard Boy, 63, racist homophobic misogynistic junkie and self-described shill "intellectual engine" for America's Rightist movement, was reeled in and moored over the weekend to wed 33-year-old Kathryn Rogers in a 'Hawaiian Themed' celebration at a Miami Beach hotel.

This the Blimp's fourth time into the Swine Unit mating chute, and the first for Ms. Rogers.

Guests at the wedding included Karl Rove, Rudy Giuliani, Lard Boy's personal anesthesiologist, and the reanimated corpse of Dean Acheson, who caused a moment of dismay when, as he stood up during the ceremony, his lower jaw fell off.


Lard Boy Salutes The Crowd With Bride And Undead Acheson

When the classic question was raised, If anyone here present knows of any reason why these two may not be joined in holy matrimony, the nose of Rove and a number of other conservatives who sat quietly grew in length by approximately 200 per cent.


Embraced By The Horror: The Couple At A Celebration Of Scotch

The most-remarked part of the celebration in the media was the evening's premiere entertainer, Sir Elton John.

After years of applauding Lard Boy's gay-bashing on-air -- just as they applaud his racist remarks and incitements to defy the government bordering on sedition, even revealing anti-semitism -- many conservatives and evangelicals were "dismayed" that Sir Elton's appearance at the wedding seemed hypocritical.


A Color Guard At The Wedding: Official Photo

However, Zav Chafets, the official biographer of the Michelin Man, hurried to defend his meal ticket remind us that not many people knew it, but Slobodan Milosevic was a deeply sentimental man; and that in his heart, Nikolai Chaucescu really loved dogs and children. A whole a lot.



In an interview last summer [Limbaugh] told me that he regards homosexuality as most likely determined by biology, considers other people’s sex lives to be none of his business and supports gay civil unions. I’m pretty sure that Elton John’s sexual orientation never even crossed Limbaugh’s mind.

I'm sure these samples of the Blimp's comments are proof of his deeply-held personal beliefs.

The new couple have made pleas for privacy. "We try to live our lives as normal people," Lard Boy said in a message on his website. We do not seek media attention. We do not want it, especially for this."


This government is governing against its own citizens.
This president and his party are governing against us.
We are at war with our own President, we are at war with
our own government.
Voice Of The Blimp, January 9, 2010

The media is, aber natürlich, all a-gog and a-twitter. The New York Daily News (competitor to Little Rupert's New York Post) reported "Rush Limbaugh marries gal pal Kathryn Rogers"; USA Today, always insightful, asks "But Will She Love His Cars Too?"

And, everyone, just everyone, wanted to see photos of the event. The Blimp allowed a controlled release, each with his tasteful trademark "Excellence In Broadcasting" stamp.


Excellence In Broadcasting Man Will Save Us From The Scary Awful
Evil Illegitimate Negro Leader, For Ten Gallons Of Fudge Ripple

Psychology Today also weighed in on the event:

Rush Limbaugh's multiple marriages is a 21st century American story... we Americans are crazy about both pair bonding and breaking up...

In his public comments about his marriages, Limbaugh seems to fall right into this conventional pattern of explanation for marital failure... Real insight into a divorce involves understanding one’s own role. Limbaugh at one time did show potentially deeper insight into why he was not good love material.

“I’m too much in love with myself,” he said once between marriages. I wonder if his new wife saw that quote, or this one: "If you want a successful marriage, let your husband do what he wants to do," he once said.

What seared me at the end of a troubling week is the public story line that it’s wonderful to keep trying to find a lifelong mate despite any evidence that the newlyweds have learned squat from past divorces.

Unless she's a brainless, Inflate-o Love Doll with no sense of self, taste, or personal hygiene, I sentence the happy couple to no less than two, and an absolute maximum of four, years.

Take a look at Rogers' body language in photographs of Limbaugh and herself; you could read her body tension as discomfort with the unfamiliarity of being a 'public person' and the focus of photographers. But when in that situation, the tendency would be to relax or lean closer to someone loved and yearned for; where you would feel safe. And -- sorry to harsh your extreme buzz, Rush -- I don't see that in Rogers' posture. Quite the opposite.


Blimp's End: 'Tucked In With A Spade' ; Or, A Large Crane

All I look forward to is seeing the Zeppelin's obituary in Little Rupert's papers ("Giant Of The Age Passes - And The World Mourns"). And (depending upon the language in the inevitable pre-nuptial she will have to sign), in my opinion, Rogers may be keeping that day in mind as she, uh, 'experiences' the connubial embrace of The Blimp. Over and over and over.

But, who cares? I'm much more interested in this.

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The Fire Next Time

I clothe my naked villainy with old, odd ends, stolen forth from holy writ -- and thus I seem a saint when most I play the villain. William Shakespear, Richard III


Glenny Tells Us To Revolt Against Scary Socialist Black Man --
Oh, And Buy Lots Of Bullion -- Through Goldline...

Little Glenn Beck, one of America's Taliban, went on the air today in his ClearChannel-syndicated raido program to say he wants people to know "the good news" that "a blaze is coming [that will] burn everything down" (Want to listen to this drivel? Go here).

Beck also said he believed we were about to enter into a time like Steven King's novel, "The Stand" -- in which an influenza virus, created as a bioweapon, escapes from its containment lab to destroy 99% of humanity; and puts the survivors in two camps: On the side of God and a 100-plus-year-old woman as His spokesperson; or with the devil, acting through a grinning psychopath named Randall Flagg.

At the same time, Beck is losing viewers on his Little Rupert Network program: Huffington Post reports "Beck's Fox News program saw its worst ratings of 2010 on May 14th, averaging just 1.776 million total viewers."

This is more than his competition pulls in on MSNBC, CNN, and HLN combined, but represents a continuation of a deterioration in Beck's marketshare that began in April. Beck's May 14th number of viewers was "50% off [his] peak audience of 3.4 million" total viewers, said Politicususa's Jason Easley.

That decline in viewers coincides, strangely enough, with Beck's shift in April toward more religion and more religious references in his broadcasts, and a statement that he is delivering a message inspired directly from god about current events.

And, god's message just seems to tie in with the political agenda of the American Far Right -- and with Goldline, a business which sells bullion and gold stocks, and for whom Beck is a spokesman. In today's broadcast, Beck said flatly that "Goldline is the escape" from the coming economic collapse he predicts.

Sigh.

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Anthony Hopkins Gets Life Plus 51

Not This One -- But Wouldn't It Be Weird If It Were?

My personal opinion is that often, fervent and public professions of religious faith are only an excuse for an abuse of power, personally, or on a broader scale. Ask the Office of the Holy Inquisition. Ask any of the local 'pastors' who participated in lynchings in the American South. Ask the Taliban, or their U.S. equivalents. And ask the families of people like Anthony Hopkins (no, not that one).

In Jackson, Alabama, a 37-year-old evangelical 'pastor' and "model church-goer and worship leader" named Anthony Hopkins was arrested for the murder of his wife. Herr Hopkins had kept his wife's corpse in a freezer, for four years -- thoughtfully preserving evidence for forensic and homicide investigators.


Anthony Hopkins of Jackson, Alabama, 2008

Hopkins' wife, Arletha, had not been seen since 2004; he had told friends that she had died in childbirth and was buried in Georgia. As it was later reconstructed by investigators, Hopkins' wife arrived home one day in 2004 to find him in flagrante with a young girl; after the girl fled, Hopkins killed his wife and stored her in a large freezer.

Plainly, not an individual who stops to ask himself, "What would Jesus do?"

Details emerged during his trial that Hopkins had terrorized his family for nearly a decade with alternating threats of heavenly punishment -- and sexual and physical abuse, which intensified after murdering his wife.

Hopkins was arrested in 2008 after one of his oldest children apparently approached police with a statement that their mother was stored with the Christmas ham and bags of Ore-Idas ("Timmeh, get me that bag of frozen peas" "Where, Daddy?" "Don't know -- lift your Ma's feet and look around under there, or god will strike you").


Portion Of 2004 Announcement From Hopkins' Church,
Reporting His Wife's Alleged Death In Childbirth

As I used to say in another job role, this guy's a real solid citizen.

Hopkins was convicted, primarily on the basis of physical evidence he had preserved and his own family's testimony. This week, he was sentenced to life imprisonment plus fifty-one years for the murder, and additional counts of rape, sodomy, child abuse, and poor sanitation in food storage.

As someone who committed acts of child molestation in addition to murder, he should have an interesting time in the Joint. Hope you enjoy being locked down 23 out of 24 hours a day, segregated in population, Tony! Otherwise -- hoo boy; you're dead, greymeat.

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Bitte; Schiessen Sie Mich

You Won't Hear This Discussed On 'Charlie Rose'



In college, someone once handed me a small glass of milk. I put it in my coffee. It wasn't bad. Then, they told me that they'd gotten it by milking a dog, which had been nursing puppies.

You know this shtick. Idiot screenwriters have built entire films around it: Lets-Get-This-Guy-To-[Fill In The Blank], Then Tell-Him-What's-Really-Happening, afterwards... Because witnessing that moment of dawning awareness, when their hand goes into the bag and touches the dead rat or fresh animal dung, really is the point, isn't it?



Well, I wasn't that upset. I finished my coffee. I am a Dog, after all. And, it was very good coffee.

But, this? This freaks me out, man. I mean, you can do this; and you could make cheese out of dog's milk, too -- though I wouldn't vouch for its quality when stacked up against even Safeway, vat-created, mass-processed "Monterey Jack" cheese.

Then, there's the question of methodology: How many dogs would you have to milk in order to obtain enough to actually make the cheese? And, how many breasts... well, you get the idea.

Man; that's Psycho Cheese, Qu'est Que C'est? / Fa fa fa fa / fa fa fa fa / better / Run run run run run run / run away...


Janet Leigh Brie: Don't Eat It In The Shower

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Stuff Out There

Dude; Where's My Spacecraft


Extraterrestrial Pere Ubu; Or, The Klan In Space
(Alien Captured On Someone's Cell Phone Video)

I rant and rave about the world's hereditary wealthy and that The Fix Is In ©; but, that's nothing. In an attempt to put our fingers on the truth behind how the world operates; to answer The Big Questions, many people are drawn to varying degrees of conspiracy theories. You go down the rabbit hole of the Intertubes, and don't be surprised at what you find.

For example: Did you know that we are all "soul cattle", and that Grey Aliens and "The Nordics" ( ! ) are battling it out in the skies above, over whether to guide us as carriers of souls, or harvest us for what we're dragging around?

Or, that 'The Elites' are preparing for a round of nuclear exchanges and bioweapon releases to eliminate 50% of the world's population, and ensure the worldwide rule of Caucasians of Northern European extraction?

And This is just the tip of the scary events coming. There are tons of things you need to know. Like how all kinds of ancient cultures have always known. Polar shift has happened before and so has global destruction. We aren't bigger than the universe! If Planet X Nibiru is going to come, they can't control what the solar system does to Earth.

Because ... it's all perfectly clear now - after being up all night thinking about it: Everyone is nothing more than a small captured 'piece of Light Being' in a bag of skin and bones. And, since light has both wave and particle functions, the expression of this duality in real life must be exemplified in the air conditioning conundrum. I hope this helps. Have a snick and think about it.

My God; if it wasn't "stayin in denial by being co-oppted by the Power Struktur", I'd say it's probably better that people be employed full-time.

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How The World Works

Daring Anyone To Be Surprised By This



Salon's Andrew Leonard posted a short piece in the vein of one of my favorite rants -- that America's extremely wealthy have done so very, very well, while the rest of us can live on Alpo -- if we can afford it -- for all they care.

Or, not: This useless level of human traif "doesn't give two fucks" (as Bela Lugosi [Martin Landau] in the film 'Ed Wood', noted) whether we live or die.



Leonard's post was prompted by another article, Tax Rates for Top 400 Earners Fall as Income Soars, from Tax.com, by David Cay Johnston (former tax reporter for the New York Times and a member of the faculty at Syracuse University College of Law). Apparently, Johnston noted, the top 400 families in America, "who boasted an average income of $344.8 million, paid an effective tax rate of 16.2 percent".

The long-term data show [Johnston said] that under current tax and economic rules, the incomes of the top earners rise when the economy expands and contract during recessions, only to rise again.

Their effective income tax rate fell to 16.62 percent, down more than half a percentage point from 17.17 percent in 2006, the new data show. That rate is lower than the typical effective income tax rate paid by Americans with incomes in the low six figures...

(An amount in the low six figures, incidentally, "is what each taxpayer in the top group earned in the first three hours of 2007. [emphasis added])

What this means is, on an annual income of $345,000,000 (rounded up, this was the median earnings of Our Elders And Betters), these, uh, people paid roughly $37,000,000 in taxes. Leaving them with Three Hundred and Eight Million Dollars (about $26,000,000 a month, or a net $162,500 per hour @ 20 working days/month).

Now, let's look at another income: A family of two, earning $71,000 in straight, wage income, will pay a roughly 33% tax rate -- or, about $23,400. Leaving them with roughly $47,500 (about $3,964 a month, or a net $24.77 per hour @ 20 working days/month).

What would be fairer; a Flat Tax? No; not at all. A progressive tax, with a 50% upper limit for the useless, parasitical, inbred scum? Well... that would be a good start...

But, all that wasn't the really fun part of the Salon article:

The annual top 400 report was first made public by the Clinton administration, but the George W. Bush administration shut down access to the report. Its release was resumed a year ago when President Obama took office.

Because you know [Leonard said], if you are going to reward the richest Americans with tax cuts, it's best if you keep the rest of us in the dark as to just how much money they're making, and how little they are paying Uncle Sam.

This is an impressive crowd of the haves, and -- have mores.
[laughter] Some people call you the elite; I call ya my base.
-- George W. Bush, 2002

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Verrückt Wie Ein Ballon Voller Ratten

I'd like to inaugurate a new category here at Before Nine. And, an explanation is in order as to how it came about.

There are few phrases I've generated in my life that are wholly original, and that's probably true for most people. I'm not being paid, currently, to invent aphorisms or the telling bon mot that punctuates or underlines some expression of acerbic wit. I'd like to be; but, I'm not.

As brilliant as it gets for me is sitting around my tiny living room in my underwear, drinking coffee, and listening to Steve Roach's Immersion:Four at 9 o'clock in the morning. Your mind tends to drift with Roach's music, and I found myself considering that this week marked the thirtieth anniversary of my moving to The City By The Bay (it was actually on Thursday, the 28th).

In thinking about that, I had to shake my head (long, strange trip so far, man), and when I tried remembering what it felt like to be the Me who showed up here to take a new job, I shook my head again; Jesus; I felt like a balloon full of rats.


Rat Balloon, Used By Unions To Protest Hiring Practices
At Various Businesses In New York City (Photo: Gawker.com)

When I stopped laughing, I decided to apply this phrase to a new Blog category, wherein you can find the really really wacky stuff. We already have Tubby The Nutter Presents Whack Jobs On Parade, and When Buffoons Walked The Earth -- but, that's for stories involving people in the news, for the most part.

We all know individuals in our own lives, or see things going on in the day-to-day world, of manifest weirdness. Crazy, in fact. As crazy as... a balloon full of rats.

Bingo.

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