Zynga Exec on LinkedIn IPO - Bankers were rewarding their friends

Was LinkedIn Scammed? - NYTimes.com: "As Eric Tilenius, the general manager of Zynga, wrote on Facebook: “A huge opening-day pop is not a sign of a successful I.P.O., but rather a massively mispriced one. Bankers are rewarding their friends and themselves instead of doing their fiduciary duty to their clients.”"

Scott Perry thinks everyone is a crook

PA Republican: Change Unemployment Benefits So People Can't 'Take A Paid Vacation' | Crooks and Liars:

"'We have people that might work only one quarter of the year and are making more on unemployment than somebody that works all year long at a sustained job,' he said. 'How is that fair?'"

How the hell do people come up with this shit? It would never even occur to 99.999% of people.

Oliver Willis on Herman Cain

Admitted Bigot Herman Cain Officially Running For President As A Republican | Oliver Willis: "Cain said, in no uncertain terms, that American Muslims have no place in our government. It doesn’t matter if there were 10 or, as statistics show, 1.8 million Muslims living in America – Cain’s position is bigoted and objectively wrong. It is a grotesquely un-American position to hold for any citizen, let alone a candidate for the presidency."

Bradlee Dean using the Newt Gingrich playbook

Preacher: My Prayer Questioning Obama's Faith Wasn't About Obama! | TPMMuckraker: "Bradlee Dean -- the controversial preacher who on Friday questioned President Obama's Christianity in a prayer on the Minnesota House floor -- went on his radio show Saturday to say his prayer 'didn't have anything to do with Obama.'"

QOTD - Charles Barkley Edition

Badass Quote of the Day : Dispatches from the Culture Wars: "Any professional athlete who gets on TV or radio and says he never played with a gay guy is a stone-freakin' idiot. I would even say the same thing in college. Every college player, every pro player in any sport has probably played with a gay person. ... They always try to make it like jocks discriminate against gay people. I've been a big proponent of gay marriage for a long time, because as a black person, I can't be in for any form of discrimination at all.'"

On Sex and Religious Folk

Greta Christina's Blog: Atheists Do It Better: Why Leaving Religion Leads to Better Sex: "A new study shows that religious people have as much sex as atheists, but with less sexual satisfaction and more guilt."

Zandar gets it just right

Zandar Versus The Stupid: The FDL 10: Oh For Frak's Sake, Guys:

"But I am under no illusions that any of these folks -- especially Jane Hamsher -- could ever keep the White House out of GOP hands right now. And that's the most important part. This is nothing more than the political equivalent of fantasy football or 'Who would play you in the movie version of your life?' It's not going to happen, people."

This also has the best tag at ZVTS that I have seen in a while so I am stealing it (the tag).

Randy Savage Dies in Auto Accident

'Macho Man' Randy Savage dead after car crash – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs:

"Poffo died after the 2009 black Jeep Wrangler he was driving jumped a median barrier and hit a tree, the highway patrol said. His wife was in the front seat and expected to be released from the hospital soon, officials said."

No, he wasn't a brain surgeon and he didn't stop all wars but he entertained a lot of folks and that isn't a bad thing to be able to say.

RIP

The CDC has a sense of humor - who knew?

CDC EPR | Social Media | Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse - Blog: "There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency."

On sticking by your friends

INSTAPUTZ: Israel uber alles.: "So, if your friend was blowing all his money on hookers and cocaine, and gambled his house away and was beating his kids to a pulp -- the right thing to do is 'stand by' him because that's what friends do?"

Newt's new Story - I wasn't talking about Paul Ryan or the budget

Gingrich: 'And By The Way, It Was Not A Reference To Paul Ryan' (AUDIO) | TPMDC: "Newt Gingrich appeared on Rush Limbaugh's radio show this afternoon to explain the whole dust-up since he blasted Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) Medicare-privatizing budget proposal as 'right-wing social engineering.' Gingrich's latest explanation: He wasn't talking about Ryan or the budget at all!"

Krugman on Gingrich and Media Complicity

The Fascist Octopus, Having Sung Its Swan Song, Needs to Retire - NYTimes.com: "Now you may ask, how did a once-powerful figure become such a clown? But that’s the wrong question: what you see now is what he always was. The real question is why so many media figures pretended, for so long, not to notice."

Strange Interviews - Victor Conte Edition

Just watched the most strange interview by Martin Bashir of Victor Conte. Was jabbering on trying to link the Governator's womanizing to his steriod use.

Comment of the day at Gawker - Bristol Palin Edition

Bristol Palin: Yes, I Got Surgery, And My New Face Looks Awesome - Gawker: "FUCK HER. Anyone who has endured maxillofacial surgery should be seriously insulted by Bristol's flippant attitude. Girl got a fucking chin implant, brow lift, and lipo."

so much for the BS about "up or down votes'

Cloture failed on confirming Goodwin Liu.

Comment of the day at Balloon Juice - Clarity Edition

Balloon Juice » Someone Make Sense of This: "Maybe twitter is to writing what powerpoint is to cognitive style."

On Pearl Clutching across Cultures

No More Mister Nice Blog: "I would have a bit more sympathy for your complaints about Dominique Strauss-Kahn's perp walk if your nation's best-known newspaper hadn't acting in violation of our sense of propriety by publishing the accuser's name."

Booman on The GOP Field

Booman Tribune ~ When Mitch Daniels is Your Adrenaline Boost...: "Plus, personally, I am beginning to get offended by the Agnews, Quayles, Cheneys, and Palins the GOP keeps throwing at us. How about someone who isn't a crook and/or an idiot for a change?"

On Marriage Proposals

I don't care if this is real or a hoax. Is well done.

Appalling Patent of the day - Facebook Edition

United States Patent: 7945653: "A method for tagging digital media is described. The method includes selecting a digital media and selecting region within the digital media. The method may further include associating a person or entity with the selected region and sending a notification of the association the person or entity or a different person or entity. The method may further include sending advertising with the notification."

Another Sovereign Citizen in the news

Sovereign Citizen Resists Traffic Stop Arrest As A 'Free Citizen On A Free Highway' | TPMMuckraker: "A sovereign citizen in Virginia was arrested and charged with five misdemeanors after a bizarre encounter with a state police officer where he called himself a 'free citizen on a free highway' and gave multiple fake names."

Stephen Harper Gives Middle Finger To Voters

PM rewards three defeated Conservatives with Senate seats - The Globe and Mail:

"Stephen Harper wasted no time in bringing back three defeated candidates, appointing former Quebec cabinet minister Josée Verner to the Senate and reappointing Larry Smith and Fabian Manning."

On Glee

Yglesias » ‘Glee’ Has a Down Syndrome Problem:

"If Glee was just a stupid dramedy about stock high school characters it would be banal, but not offensive. The fact that it is a stupid dramedy about stock high school characters that also includes ear splittingly-bad mashups sung by tone deaf automatons who couldn't sing in tune in the actual world if you replaced their vocal chords with fixed length piano wire is what makes Glee so pernicious."

I have never had the urge to watch Glee but whenever I have seen clips from it this was about my reaction to the "music" as well.

Why I am not a fan of Freakanomics in one paragraph

Freakonomics » The “Daughter Test” of Government Prohibitions (And Why I’m so Angry About the U.S. Internet Poker Crackdown):

"If the answer is that I wouldn’t want my daughter to do it, then I don’t mind the government passing a law against it. I wouldn’t want my daughter to be a cocaine addict or a prostitute, so in spite of the fact that it would probably be more economically efficient to legalize drugs and prostitution subject to heavy regulation/taxation, I don’t mind those activities being illegal."

The level of argument is seldom much above this.

Dumb.

Bryan Fischer on "The Homosexual Agenda"

Fischer: Gays Are Nazis | Right Wing Watch: "Ladies and gentlemen, they are Nazis. Do not be under any illusions about what homosexual activists will do with your freedoms and your religion if they have the opportunity. They'll do the same thing to you that the Nazis did to their opponents in Nazi Germany."

On Newt

Balloon Juice » Grifters attract grifters…: "That was over 25 years ago and Mr. Carter was correct—Newt Gingrich was a danger to America. He still is. How this self-absorbed nihilist has been a political survivor all these years is amazing. Gingrich is a top shelf Grifter—always has been and always will be. He survives by playing the gullible as easy marks. The Mother Jones article showed that Newt was focused on the gullible way back them:"

PZ Meyers undresses Deepak Chopra

Chopra challenges eloquence with pretentious gobbledygook : Pharyngula: "This was a tough one to address thoroughly, because every sentence, practically every phrase in Chopra's essay is foolish and wrong, so I've instead taken the path of annotating the central chunk of Chopra's chunder. My comments are in red; Chopra's are in Comic Sans, of course."

Let's default on that debt - Paul Ryan Edition

Eschaton: The Voices In His Head: "Holders of US government debt would be willing to miss payments 'for a day or two or three or four' if it put the US in a stronger position to pay them later on, Rep. Paul Ryan told CNBC Tuesday."

Mean Spirited Assholes - Scott Walker Edition

Daily Kos: Walker moves to ban hospital visitation rights for same-sex couples: "Gov. Scott Walker believes a new law that gives gay couples hospital visitation rights violates the state constitution and has asked a judge to allow the state to stop defending it."

So Long Thrashers?

CBCSports.ca | Elliotte Friedman | Thrashers' rollercoaster ride hurtling toward Winnipeg?: "Last year, the Phoenix Coyotes were about two days from moving to Winnipeg. Now, according to several sources, Commissioner Gary Bettman has -- for the first time -- given True North permission to close a deal with Atlanta Spirit, the owners of the Thrashers. (Bettman made this move with the approval of the NHL's Executive Committee, meaning the league's most powerful owners agreed with the decision.)"

Things that amuse me - Climate Change Deniers edition

Climate study gets pulled after charges of plagiarism - USATODAY.com: "Evidence of plagiarism and complaints about the peer-review process have led a statistics journal to retract a federally funded study that condemned scientific support for global warming."

Not Fleeing

Via the New York Times comes this bit of silliness from DSK's  lawyer.

Benjamin Brafman, one of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers, argued that “there is a very, very defensible case and he should be entitled to bail,” asking that his client be allowed to post $1 million bail. He said his wife would provide the money. She was scheduled to arrive in New York from Paris at 1 p.m., Mr. Brafman said.
He added that his client was not trying to flee when he was arrested on an Air France plane that was about to take off from Kennedy International Airport on Saturday.        

Medicare != Welfare

Ryan Defends Medicare Privatization As Strengthening 'Welfare For Those Who Need It' | TPMDC: "Though billed as an effort to revamp his widely criticized budget, Ryan avoided describing his health care plans in specific detail, eschewing even the friendly terms he and other Republicans have used to explain it since he first unveiled it earlier this year. Instead, Ryan reframed the entitlement cuts in his budget as 'strengthen[ing] welfare for those who need it,' and accused Democrats who have attacked his budget as engaging in class warfare."

Ronald Reagan On Raising the Debt Limit

Political Animal - WWRD (What Would Reagan Do) on the debt limit: "If they’re not willing to listen to economists, American business leaders, the financial industry, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department, maybe they’ll listen to Reagan, who decried policymakers who would “bring the government to the edge of default before facing [their] responsibility. This brinksmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar.”"

Bon The Geek on Assisted Suiicide

Zandar Versus The Stupid: Suicide Tourism Survives Vote:

"I'm a fan of choice. I've also seen what happens when desperate and terrified people take matters in their own hands. I've seen the devastation of cancer and other terminal illnesses firsthand. I think everyone has the right to make decisions for themselves. Nobody owns anyone else's life. The exceptions to that should be radically few and far between. "

I have to concur 100%. Go read the whole piece (it isn't very long)

Smacked our head on the debt ceiling this morning

U.S. hits debt ceiling - Meredith Shiner - POLITICO.com: "The United States government hit its $14 trillion borrowing limit Monday, forcing the Treasury Department to begin taking a series of extreme steps to stave off default, including suspending payments into public employee pension plans."

Canadian living in China and duelling bureaucrats

Chinese vs Canadian Bureaucracy: Cage Match - The Squid Zone: "For complicated reasons related to evil banks I had a problem with my passport. The problem, you see, is that my marriage certificate (required to get a mortgage with my wife) has my old passport number on it. Naturally my new passport doesn't match. The bank, and the housing authority, are inflexible on this point. Photocopies of my old passport don't count: I need to have my real old passport so that the numbers match.Well, after careful investigation there were three options we could go with:"

On Why The Stock Market Being Up isn't good for Average Folks

Monetary policy. I'm sorry, it's just not doing it for me. | Angry Bear - Financial and Economic Commentary: "I'm going to be bold here and state right out that I'm speaking for the middle-class. (Those of this class can correct me if I'm wrong.) Five trillion dollar in new stock market wealth is not reaching us. I'm happy for you all that are now more wealthy, but really, you're only a small percentage of the population and thus your success is not representative of how well We the People in total are doing."

The Evacuation Zone Widens

Residents leave 2 more Fukushima towns : National : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri): "Most of Iitatemura is located more than 30 kilometers from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant. However, the level of radiation detected in the village was as high as that in areas within a 20-kilometer radius of the power plant, which has been designated as a no-entry zone."