Nobel Prize for mRNA work

No, not the COVID vaccine, but the scientists who first developed the idea of using messenger RNA as a transmission vector in a vaccine. #Schadenfreude for the antivaxxers in general and Dr. Robert Malone in particular, eh?

That said, I won't do quite as many huzzahs and handsprings at the Nobel Committee, let alone the old Skeptical Raptor. Let us remember on COVID, while an mRNA vax is better than nothing, contra what the presser at the first link indicates, it appears to be less effective than other types of COVID vaccines. Will this be true of other new plagues that visit us? Let us also remember the -100C or whatever temperatures these vaxxes need to be stored at, versus other COVID vaxxes that can be kept at something closer to conventional freezer temperatures, and also have longer lifespans.

I worry that this, especially in capitalist America, will indeed crowd out other vaccines.

Finally, a reminder from Retraction Watch that whether here or in other natural sciences, or in the Piss Prize (looking at you, Dear Leader, who according to James Bamford was trying to land a second in 2016), that Nobel Prizes aren't guarantors of all-around wisdom.

Greg Abbott has got the COVID — my hot takes (and a few others)

And, of course, on hearing this news, I couldn't resist hot takes on Twitter.

Like this:

Schadenfreude is a coronavirus biatch, Greg Abbott.

What else is there to say, folks?#Schadenfreude #coronavirus

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August 17, 2021

Given that he's been attending maskless crowds, it IS schadenfreude well earned.

So?

There's this:

Is Greg Abbott gonna fulfill Dan Patrick's duty to die?

.@DanPatrick .@GregAbbott_TX

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August 17, 2021

Two schadenfreude bitches with one stone.

And this:

Greg. Abbott. Has. Covid.

How can you tell? He already has no sense of taste.

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August 17, 2021

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

And this:

Since Greg Abbott already has Trumpy's endorsement, will he be trying inner heat and light for his COVID treatment? I'd be glad to help him if you catch my drift.

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August 17, 2021

C'mon, you would, too!

And this:

Someone tell Greg Abbott that the secret truth is monoclonal antibodies are made from fetal stem cells and lets see him shit his hypocritical pants.

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August 17, 2021

Nothing like throwing a dollop of conspiracy-theory pot-stirring in the mix.

And this:

So, when Strangeabbott hits COVID delirium in 48 hours, will he really become "Dr. Strangeabbott"? https://t.co/6AJ6y8SXCt

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August 17, 2021

And this:

Since he has COVID, will Greg Abbott have his DPS security detail tail and cage him so he doesn't do anything Ill Eagle?

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) August 17, 2021

I'll be here all week, folks!

Here's one or two that aren't mine:

I hope there’s no bed for him. Sincerely, fed up ICU nurse.

— Grant FFC (@GCHTX) August 17, 2021

Nice ...

And, kinder, gentler schadenfreude?

Me after hearing Greg Abbott tested positive for the 'Ronapic.twitter.com/9K462YThIe

— ⟭⟬ 𝐕𝐚𝐧𝐞⁷⟬⟭🧈 (@emmjayvaness) August 17, 2021

Sure!

And seeing the flip side? A COVID oldie but goodie:

COVID-19 has been infected with @GregAbbott_TX. May the Rona beat it. #prayersforCOVID19

— Lola Rey (@heylolarey) August 17, 2021

Yep.

This one goes political.

Passing on the rona to your rich racist donors to own the libs https://t.co/PHmEI8PAXU

— . (@egoldmanrevolt) August 17, 2021

Political schadenfreude!

On the serious side, living in Texas, I know that Danny Goeb takes over if Strangeabbott goes to his COVID non-afterlife reward. At the same time, AFAIK, Tex-ass has no state equivalent to the 25th Amendment.

Per Ballotpedia, the Texas Constitution does talk about, under Lite Guv powers, the "temporary incapacitation" of the guv, but unlike the 25th Amendment, in part since Tex-ass has Dick Cheney's plural executive, it doesn't say HOW that's determined if the guv doesn't admit it on his own. The full Article 4 of the Tex-ass Constitution only confirms that. There is no 25th Amendment type provision for Abbott going stir-crazy and then, say a la Nietzsche, kissing a horse and weeping over it or something.

So, what happens if Strangeabbott goes in a coma? Or kisses a horse because, per Nietzsche, it will make him stronger since it's not killing him?

No third special session, for starters.

Update: Rumor has it that Abbott skipped line and got a booster ... and it still didn't save him from his politically-driven foolishness.

Texas progressives talk coronavirus

As I did a couple of weeks ago, because the amount of political news running up to Super Tuesday was so heavy, this corner of the Texas Progressives is splitting the weekly Roundup into two parts this week. Part 2 is here.

(Update: For the March 23 week, the same split is in effect. More coronavirus news here. And ditto for the March 30 week; COVID news here. And for April 7 week, here. Week 5 is here. Ditto for Week 6. Here's Week 7, and Week 8.)

Part 1, per the header, is obvious. We're talking what's real, what's over-reacting and what's just  plain stupid. Remember, this is coming from Tex-ass. Sadly, we gots us some Democrat Dum Fuq overreacting as a major player this week.

MAIN POINT: CDC is still, as of yesterday, at 50 on recommendation for maximum public gathering size. But Panicky Don said 10, and hence the overreaction. Plus, the CDC recommendations specifically exempted businesses. (And schools.)

1. Here, the Gadfly offered up four pieces. The first was on how the coronavirus was the biggest puncturing of the eggshell of American exceptionalism since 9/11. The second was about how the coronavirus highlighted the need for science and math literacy, and among public health experts, the need for precise and detailed communication. The third was about what he totally agreed with, partially agreed with, and more disagreed with than agreed with on sports closures. The fourth was about the ugly nationalism and PR lies emanating from Beijing.

2. One of the nuttier parts of the coronavirus panic was/is the run on toilet paper. Folks, this is a flu-like virus, not Montezuma's revenge. (Or Corona-virus, in another world, if you will.)

Besides, we don't need no steenkin toilet paper!

WHAT #toiletpapercrisis or #ToiletPaperApocalypse or #ToiletPaperEmergency?

Here in Tex-ass, I use Dan Patrick's press releases. They're pre-shitted, after all.

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 13, 2020

That said, Dan Patrick's paper, like Dan Patrick himself, is pretty coarse.

3. #Schadenfreude is a bitch, and sometimes a bitch-slapper. Mexico wants to close the border because of all the dirty coronavirus infected Yanqui gringos. (Guatemala has already done so.)

4. Speaking of that? John Cornyn, a month behind the curve, made a "Corona" joke that was weak a month ago and is reprehensible now.

Be smart; don’t panic. We will get us through this #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/SyvOAWXItK

— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) March 14, 2020

And, even as John Cornyn's pisswater swilling ass was joking and lazing around, the latest Trump clusterfuck? Not having DFW Airport and  others of the 13 airports officially permitted to receive returning US travelers ready for the massive onslaught.

So? I kicked Cornyn's ass:

John Cornyn? .@JohnCornyn

Get off your fucking Corona-swilling ass and get your feudal master Trump to fix the real coronavirus problem at DFW Airport. https://t.co/srE6YJPHPz

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 15, 2020

5. Ted Cruz seemed better when he self-quarantined, responsibly. Unfortunately, he wingnutted from there.

6. Speaking of, if there's a Typhoid Mary in all of this, it may be Trump himself.

7. Also on the more serious side? Not panic, but yes, IMO overreaction, and from the CDC. I think its call to ban gatherings of 50 or more, and for eight weeks, is overkill. Fauci's indication that he would, beyond that, favor a 14-day national shutdown? Ridiculous. China didn't do that. But now, Dum Fuq leaders in Texas are actually doing a local version of this.

8. Gov. Strangeabbott (haven't used that one in a while) proclaimed a state-level state of emergency and talked about drive-through testing in San Antonio. Too bad he didn't mention that one wasn't open to the general public.

That said, as of now, Abbott is less panicky than Harris County and the City of Dallas, both run by Democrats.

Bullshit. Even the CDC's latest recommendation was no crowds bigger than 50. Houston and Dallas are fucking panicking.

AND ... don't even fucking go there. I'm not a Rethuglican of ANY sort.

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 17, 2020

And, I will mute or block Dems who can't read.

9. Too bad in 2015 wingnuts in the Lege killed a bill to stockpile emergency medical supplies. Also too bad that nobody brought it back in 2017 or 2019 and that Strangeabbott and Danny Goeb didn't make it a priority.

10. Speaking of wingnuts, Gohmert Pyle remains stupider than Strangeabbott on a daily basis, and on a House coronavirus bill.

11. The closure of more and more rural hospitals (including one 30 or so miles southwest of my current newspaper locale) could make treating coronavirus in Texas even harder. OTOH, in my opinion, this article is an overreaction and we're not going to have 500 cases of coronavirus in Texas counties under 30,000 and west of I-35 (that paramenter excluding most rural folks who went to the Houston Livestock Show cookoff).

12. Alex Jones is hawking nanosilver toothpaste as an alleged coronavirus fighter. NY State's AG has already filed a cease and desist order, and Missouri's AG sued Jim Bakker for similar grifting. Kenny Boy Paxton? AWOL, as usual.

13. On the more serious side? If you actually want some science? Here's how these zoonotic viruses are causing epidemics and pandemics, and why they're more likely to happen in the future. (If the link isn't loading, it's a Nautilus issue, not a bad link or your computer. The gist is population growth, increasing affluence in some parts of the developing world and ultimately, from this and more, an increasingly dense urban-wildland interface. A second Nautilus piece, near the end, also talks about disturbed ecosystems.) After reading the article? I'm surprised that something like the white nose disease among bats here in the USofA hasn't made the "necesssary" mutations to jump. Fortunately, it's fungal, not viral.

14. Terese Odell talked about the effect coronavirus was having on TV production.

15. Paradise in Hell translates Trump's coronavirus speech.

Time to give PZ Myers another good swift kick

Or maybe not ... as he has avoided cranking up a petard in this case. Albeit under what seems like some version of duress, and with backhanding one of his tar babies in the process.

Update: See the bottom of this post; PZ's shown he has some ethics. Now, let's see if, in the future, he has some civility in believing that his critics may have similar ethics, at least.

The latest in PharyngulaLand, Gnu Atheist speak for la-la-land?

Well, as reported by Hement Mehta, one of Freethought Blogs other bloggers, "Avicenna," who runs A Million Gods, has been doing some serious plagiarism.

And, both he and PZ, co-owner of the whole schmeer of FTB along with Ed Brayton, have been doing a tap-dance around the truth.

Both have initially claimed that all that was being plagiarized was some hate mail.

Really?

As Mehta documents, Steve Gould, the AP, Reuters, AFP, and local newspaper reporters and editors, among others, are NOT hate mail, and not people with "burner" emails, but rather with stories posted online at actual newspaper websites.

Then, per an email exchange, Avicenna doubled down on lying through his teeth:

I have some problems with quotes markers going up and updates not going through. Also? I kind of have no reason to do this. I mean I link to even the most simple posts that I quote.

Oh and I have power cuts, the internet cuts out then and the post doesn’t update. Sometimes it reverts to older versions. Some errors may be due to that.

Yes, power in India isn't always reliable. But, for an MD making decent money, I'm sure it is. And, quote markers going up? Puhleeze. WordPress is like Blogger. All you do is highlight text that's a blockquote and click a button.

Per Mehta, here's what PZ says about any more serious allegations:

The examples cited above are seriously problematic. The executive committee at FtB is currently reviewing them. Avicenna will have an opportunity to respond, so don’t expect an instant reaction.

But, folks, don't hold your breath.

Instead, because schadenfreude's always a bitch?

Let's pile on top, because piling on top of PZ is always fun. Hey, all you far right conservatives at Minnesota-Morris? If PZ says that Avicenna's plagiarism is OK, you know what to do. Sign up for every class of his and plagiarize like hell. Then, wave PZ's blog in the face of the dean of students.

And, yes, per one commenter on Hemant's thread, somebody needs to contact the wingnuts' student newspaper at Minnesota-Morris and, if PZ defends Avicenna, invite them to plagiarize! 

So, PZ, and Ed? You're now officially "on the clock."

Because, even with some small blog, the Net caches older versions, I have struck though the grafs above, rather than deleting. 

Otherwise? Plagiarism is plagiarism; makes no matter if the "SlymePit" first started tracking it down. And, as a newspaper editor myself, I particularly don't like a bunch of this plagiarism being from newspapers. 

Finally, once more, I need to repeat this adage I created:

Atheism is no guarantor of either moral or intellectual superiority. 

Postscript:

 I'll give Ed Brayton, but not (yet?) a proper kudo now. (See, PZ, this is how it's done, even with someone you often disagree with.) Avicenna has been removed from the blogroll there.

That said, PZ — and Ed — remember that, plus my adage above. Non-Gnus, as well as Christians, even, can and do act with the same ethics on issues of plagiarism.

And, Ed still goes out of his way to backhand "SlymePit" types to some degree.

And, PZ himself has — almost as if under torture — posted as well. And, that's about what it reads like. Sorry to one of my FB friends, but, Krisjan, got to disagree with you in comments over there. I don't follow any atheist blogs, though I do look at various of them from time to time.

To the best of my knowledge, Mehta doesn't have any major anti-FtB bias. Maybe some small one; I don't know. But, I certainly don't see a major one.

Now, back to that tentative invite to the UMM student newspaper.

First, that was deliberate, knowing that PZ is Orwellian on issues of censorship and the First Amendment, and has been so with this paper.

Second, schadenfreude is the secular equivalent of karma. And, sometimes, it needs an activist push. That's no different than what SJWs would do, I think.

So, stop bitching if the shoe's on your foot and pinching. Fortunately, Pharyngulacs, this time, the guru pulled the shoe off his foot quickly enough.

What if that weren't the case? What if there is a next time? And, I guarantee you there will be. And, as with his past history with the wingnut student paper, it's usually when PZ is cranking his own petard.

There's also this.

Since that was Ed, not PZ, officially announcing Avicenna's removal, and I have no idea who if anybody besides Ed and PZ are on FtB's executive board, for all you and I know, PZ may still have opposed Avicenna's removal.

I'll take a gander at what PZ has to say himself in the next 12-24 hours.

The New Republic is on life support? Good. #TNR is trash

Really, TNR died long ago.

It died when Marty Peretz inflicted his ultra-Zionism, plus his racism, on the journal. That's why, contra this former intern's claim, it's far, far away from "heterodox liberalism." Hell, Vox isn't the first place to halfway note that, as I blogged a few years back. Well, if you're on the Council for Foreign Relations, it's probably flat-out liberalism.

And, Mr. Greenberg, if it's impolite for me to email you calling Marty Peretz a racist? If you'd had a Twitter account, I would have done it more publicly, so consider yourself lucky.

And, if I had wanted to be impolite, I would have called Peretz a fucking racist, not just a racist.

Besides, The Nation publicly called you out. So did Gawker (insert irony, since new TNR owner Chris Hughes wants a new Gawker or something), but with more snark.

But, back to TNR's nearly 40 years of history being owned by ... a racist.

Instead, it had a nearly 40-year history of racism, racism fueled in part by a particular version of ultra-Zionism that is part of why some blacks have long been less than fully trusting of all Jews. Sorry, but I went there.

And, for Jews, especially with some degree of Zionism, to stay on, and to stay on not just through Peretz's craptacular management in general, but his racism, well ... it's no wonder that a lot of black journalists like Ta-Nehisi Coates feel little sadness for your loss.

Hell, I wouldn't blame them if they had a shade or two of schadenfreude. It would be well-deserved.

That said, back to the racism.

It's racism that was only further fueled when Andrew Sullivan (anybody calls him a liberal, I'll kick you in the nads) devoted a full issue of the magazine to singing a paean to Charles Murray's and Richard Herrnstein's love song to racialism, "The Bell Curve," a move that inspired my bit of Photoshopping at left. And a bit of punditry about that Photoshopping.

Dylan Byars at Politico has the inside-the-Beltway mourning for the mag, which is cutting its print issues in half, looking to go digital first, and ... moving to New York!

Quelle horreur!

In reality? TNR was a training ground for some neoliberals, and even more a lot of neoconservatives.

You know, the type that, at various levels of alleged liberalism, worked to give Shrub Bush pseudointellectual, pseudoliberal "cover" for invading Iraq.

Yes, since Peretz finally let go of the paper, it's gotten better on not being racist. But, the inside-the-Beltway thinking otherwise? From the occasional articles I've grokked online, little has changed there.

For those who claim TNR wasn't racist, an old cover.
Via Ta-Nehesi Coates' Twitter feed.

Who, outside the Beltway, would mourn that, or call it "heterodox liberalism"? Speaking of, I wonder how national Democrats will pontificate. Or national bloggers? Why am I not surprised that Josh Marshall called TNR, Peretz version, "really good"?

Additional serious points about its current status.

The Daily Beast nails one other angle.

Current owner Chris Hughes is a co-founder of Facebook. He's been a partner in Gawker.

You can form some idea of what the new TNR is going to look like just from that.

Clickbait articles. Political gossip. Political picture. A bit gussied up, still. Commentary to hold that together.

In other words, a kinder, gentler version of the UK's clickbait newspaper, The Daily Mail.

On the other hand, for the Dylan Byars types and beyond? Some people at TNR, and probably starting with Leon Wieseltier, probably did need some kicking around.

As for what this does, or does not, say about #JournalismIsDying, political/opinion mags have been money-losers for decades. Ask National Review and The Nation. Rich benefactors is the only way they stay afloat.

Chris Hughes will either become a rich benefactor, or his Facebooky click-bait model will fail without his wallet, and he'll move on. If we're lucky, Hughes will screw up enough to kill it.

That said, said failure will be blamed on anything and everything else but neoliberalism, and Net 2.0 related items.

===

Corey Robin has some interesting thoughts. While acknowledging that TNR was racist and warmongering, he says that's not what's caused its semi-demise. Rather, in what's probably going to be infuriating to Sully of my Photoshopping, down through the sacked Franklin Foer and everybody who quit in sympathy this week, Robin said that it ran out of intellectual steam.

I would modify that. I'd say that it was rather that its intellectual steam got adopted by so much of the modern GOP, as well as neoliberal Democrats, that its one big idea became an inside-the-Beltway commonplace.

#Schadenfreude is a waiver-wire bitch, Orioles fans

Manny Machado, limping. / Photo via NBC Sports

After the season-ending knee injury to breakout Angels starter Garrett Richards, the Baltimore Orioles, per Peter Gammons, "are claming everyone," i.e., waivers on any pitcher being run through the wire who has half a fastball, including Bartolo Colon and Scott Feldman.

Well, if Matt Shoemaker can continue on his recent success, Hector Santiago pick it up, and C.J. Wilson start to earn his big free agent contract, the Angels, who have been lucky with starters this year until now, may not be too back off. (That said, Wilson's gotten a lot worse since the All-Star break, but Santiago's been steady and Shoemaker has improved.)

Also?

Now, it's time for payback for the Orioles, too.

The O's standout third baseman, Manny Machado, is done for the year with a knee problem, congenital not injury-related, it seems, that requires surgery.

And, the Orioles' in-house options to replace him, brave Bawlmore fans aside, are as bad as the Angels' local options for a pitcher.

Right now, they're trying the "mysteriously" "regressed" (read into that whatever you want, I'm surprised allegations aren't thicker) 1B Chris Davis there, even though he's played less than 80 games there in his career. Other "options" include Ryan Flaherty, who is below both the Mendoza Line of old-time baseball fame for Mario Mendoza and the Kozma Line of my modern sabermetric invention to "honor" Pete Kozma.

Other Orioles options are no better. ESPN lists Cord Phelps, who has played less than 5 games at third and less than 100 MLB games overall as the next option. Why ESPN says that, I don't know.

Utility man Steve Pearce is definitely the better option with the bat, but he's only played 10 games at third himself. They could keep Davis at third, but Pearce hasn't played a lot at first, either.

In any case, defense will also definitely drop off.

As for the schadenfreude? The Yankees, Royals, Tigers, M's, Jays, and Indians all have legitimate, "ethical" reasons to gobble up any infielder run through the waiver wire right now. Have fun in Charm City.

But yet, at NBC's blog on the news, Oriole fans are delusional enough to think they're going to get Adrian Beltre off the waiver wire. Man, I can be a Cards fan without being a stereotypical idiotic "homer" like that.

I hadn't realized that he'd already cleared waivers, per my comments over there, not checking that, just because I was primarily focused on pointing out how stupid all the Orioles fans are who thought they could get an easy deal on him, ignoring that he'd never clear that many waiver hurdles.

If the fans commenting at NBC are representative of O's fans' general intelligence, you deserve every bit of schadenfreude you're getting.

And, as for the one commenter who called me out for "busting a dream"? It wasn't even a dream, it was pure fantasy. No reality basis to it. Beyond that, many of the same Oriole fans were surely chortling over their own management blocking the Angels from waiver-wire pitching pick-ups.

And, with that, we've moved from schadenfreude to 100-proof hypocrisy.

Big biz tells West, Texas to fuck itself over fertilizer blast

Now, no newspaper would write a headline like that, or anything even close to that without massive bowderlization.

But, that's what the story and the actual headline of "Motions seek to blame city of West for devastating explosion" are saying:

Two of four fertilizer manufacturers or suppliers named as defendants in the massive West explosion litigation are seeking to blame the city of West and its volunteer firefighters for the disaster.

In recent motions aiming to designate the city of West as a “responsible third party” in the lawsuits, El Dorado Chemical Co. and CF Industries contend the city failed to properly train the first responders and had insufficient protocols in place to battle the April 17, 2013, blaze at West Fertilizer Co. that triggered the explosion.

Here's part of the insult:

 The motion from El Dorado also alleges that the city should be named as a responsible third party because it failed to protect its citizens by allowing through its zoning authority schools and a nursing home to operate in a close proximity to the plant.

First, funny how GOP-driven "tort deform" always targets individuals and not shyster businesses like this. That's because the like of Greg Abbott like shyster businesses like that.

Second, despite all this, will West go still go 70 percent or more GOP, as it has for a number of elections? I've got at least a fiver that says it does.

And, if it does, without being petty? Citizens of West, schadenfreude's a bitch.

I will praise #Obamacare for #GohmertPyle being even more teh stupidz

Seriously, if Louie Gohmert has hit a new stupidity low so low that, at the age of 60, he's cancelling his health insurance because he claims Obamacare made it too expensive, bring it on!

(Oh, and there's still oil in parts of his district. Maybe we can see a trifecta of his stupidity, his anger at Obamacare and his general wingnut opposition to real government, including real regulations. Let's say, something like a bad frack job to bubble some methane into his water or something.)

Hete's the details:

“Other people are going to see what I did when I looked into health insurance for my wife and me: that the deductible rate, it doubled, about $3,000 to $6,000, and our policy was going to go from about $300 to about $1,500 a month,” he said during a recent radio interview with Trey Graham, a pastor at First Melissa Baptist Church in Collin County. “I actually don’t have insurance right now, so thank you very much, Obamacare.”

Gohmert’s salary as a member of Congress is $174,000 a year. And his calculations ignore the hefty employer subsidy for which he is eligible — almost $950 per month. He says he will pay the tax that takes effect this year for those without insurance — 1 percent of his annual income.

Health care experts say Gohmert is taking a big risk. He’s 60. His wife, Kathy Gohmert, is 59. At that stage of life, medical expenses are common and unpredictable.

“By not obtaining insurance, you are just rolling the dice, gambling that you are not going to get sick or going to get hit by a car,” said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute. “Most financial advisers and most independent experts would say it’s a wise move to obtain insurance and basically a no-brainer if you have an employer who is willing to kick in about 70 percent of the cost of your premium.”

That’s the case for Gohmert.

But for months, he’s said he would rather give up his government-supplied insurance than accept any government subsidy. If he did take the subsidy available to federal lawmakers and their aides, he would probably pay a monthly premium of about $600 — far less than the figure he cited on Graham’s show, which aired Sunday.

Reality?

He, and other Congresscritters of both parties, have long been in the same insurance pool as their staffers, who are generally younger and healthier. So, that sucking at the teat is wrong.

Don't cry for Gohmert Pyle, though, whether you're Evita or anybody else. He still gets free outpatient care at Walter Reed and other perks.

And, per what the health care experts say? In Gohmert's case, it's stupider yet because he currently has a negative net worth.

Oh, well, if he gets sick enough, he can learn about real life. He can maybe learn about medical-cost induced bankruptcy, and find out why, for all its imperfections, many red-state folks, including in his district, like Obamacare more than the previous options.

That would be kind of funny, in a schadenfreude way: Louie Gohmert, medically bankrupt. He's already morally and intellectually bankrupt. If something like this happened the way I spell out, we'd have three or four petards hoisting at the same time, wouldn't we?

Of course, some of his supporters will start raising funds for him to buy a new insurance policy if this is real action by him, and not just posturing. And, he will be insured. Stupidity, no more than any other pre-existing condition, cannot bar you from insurance coverage.

Conservative shilldom doesn't float Faux News stock

Over at Forbes, Peter Cohan has a great column about how it may be time for Fox News parent News Corporation, which is after all a publicly traded corporation, to go beyond dumping Rupert Murdoch flunkies, but to dump the Murdochs.

Why? Because they're bad for business, that's why:

Over the last decade, News Corp’s stock has been in the doldrums. It’s lost 15% of its value since July 14, 2001 while the Dow Jones Industrial average has gained 21%. And that’s not surprising when you consider that News Corp. has been earning way less than its cost of capital. For example, in 2009 its economic value added — after tax operating income compared to its weighted average cost of capital — was negative $9.5 billion. That “improved” to negative $1.1 billion in 2010.

If you are a shareholder, it’s hard to find a reason to celebrate Murdoch’s control over this company.

Cohan even throws out a potential new CEO name: Lou Gerstner, former IBM turnaround artist.

One could argue for media stocks in general to be struggling. But, News Corp. has cable channels, pay cable channels and other media ventures that are immune from the ad plunge of newspapers and network TV.

Its other assets include American Idol, a rugby league, a sports simulation website (fantasy sports to the next level), an Aussie equivalent of Monster or CareerBuilder and part ownership of Hulu. Let's not forget that his publishing side includes HarperCollins and Zondervan as well as all of his newspapers. And, he also has the apolitical FoxSports.

What that means is that Faux News and other ventures are a fucking lead weight.

That said, Cohan's colleague at Forbes, suggests that Murdoch could pre-empt that by taking News Corp. private. He's got a $5 billion buyback plan, apparently to do just that.

This strategy makes sense because Murdoch has clearly never had as his top priority creating value for other shareholders. Far from it . His priority has been the aggrandizement of media power the past 11 years, especially by vastly overpaying for the Wall Street Journal. A massive write-off of over $2 billion was the result. Never you mind; Murdoch controlled the Wall Street Journal.

So, if you're a News Corp. investor, and one who actually, even if a strong conservative, cares about making some money, are you elbowing others aside trying to get Uncle Rupert to buy you out rather than others? Afraid that you'll be stuck with albatross-like stock after it goes private? But, if you bought into it because you believed the myth of Rupert, we liberals are laughing at you, not with you.

A Lou Gerstner would see them for what they are: equivalents of the Washington Examiner.

The Examiner is different, of course, in that it's privately held by at least some of the Moonie family. So, if you're a News Corp. investor, do you really want to continue to fatten the ego and the wallet of a man and family as stupid and intransigent as Sun Myung Moon and offspring?

Schadenfreude for #GoddamSachs outsourcing?

If Think Progress is right about how high up the food chain some of these folks may be .... to be honest, I'm feeling a bit of schadenfreude. They probably defended globalization and the government bailout both.

On the "food chain level," TP cites Business Insider as saying these are primarily “high-paying, skilled positions in sales and investment banking.”

Business Insider adds:

The layoffs come at an interesting time. Banks are fighting tough regulations like capital requirements that they say will stem growth. Preparation for the regulations require banks to free up capital -- like the $1 billion Goldman plans to slash in the coming year. ...

So this news of the adverse effects that capital requirements will have on employment at Goldman Sachs should help the bankers' as they argue against the requirements in coming months. That's why this looks like a political move to discourage Washington from adding capital requirements above the 7% that Basel III regulations will enforce.

On that side, I'm a bit more saddened for those who will lose their jobs, to be pawns in a political game, but GS, and other megabanks, have done this in various ways for years.

Besides, since he's been Goddam Sachs' elfin toady, it would be fun to see a Congressional mix of libertarians, tea partiers and true liberals put Tim Geithner in the hot seat over this. Both for teh layoffs themselves AND for teh attempt to stiff the government.

Obama, health care, Cheney, energy

Or, let's call this post: "Let's make a government transparency deal."

President Obama politely told the Congressional GOP to fuck off when it asked for records from White House staffers' meetings with various interest groups, including drug companies and hospitals, in the run-up to crafting Obamacare.

Yes, Obama is a hypocrite, after saying health care overhaul issues would be discussed in public.

But, this is exactly what Vice President Dick Cheney did with his secret energy task force, and that's exactly the same response he gave to Congressional Democrats.

So, let's not have either "lamestream" political party posturing; let's not have their partisans posturing, either. Call this a schadenfreude alert for both parties.

Tongue-in-cheek of the subhead aside, I'd love a political deal where all of Obama's wheeling-dealings were released AND all of Cheney's. But, as a matter of political reality, this not be done until after November 2012.

Tiger's latest excuse - single daddyhood

Tiger Woods will only be "back" when he stops spinning out lame-o excuses for why he's struggling on the golf course right now.

Not that I believe in 12-step recovery program philosophy in general, but Tiger probably does need to do some "admitting" of his degree of current suckitude, first, before he comes back.

Instead, we keep getting these "nice" excuses. The latest? Tiger says "I'm a single dad."

Well, Tiger, you were a dad before you got divorced. And, apparently, spent little more time with your kids then than you did with then-wife Erin.

So, now, as part of your makeover, you're trying to be a model single parent? Or, pretending to be one to keep up appearances vis-a-vis Erin? Spare us.

Tiger's No. 4

Well, contra my blog post of yesterday, we CAN still talk about Tiger in the schadenfreude world. With his first-round loss at Match Play and Graeme McDowell advancing to the third round, Tiger will fall behind Graeme to No. 4 in world rankings. With Lee Westwood also out in the second round, Martin Kaymer could move to No. 1, too, if he can win out. If nothing else, he will open more space between himself and Tiger.

'New normal' on Colorado Plateau starts having results

As most environmentalists know, the "drought" in the Colorado River watershed is really closer to the basin's long-term normal. Now, the lack of water in the overappropriated, overdammed river is starting to have fallout.

Boulder City, Nev.,and other smaller communities south of Vegas are finding hydropower from Hoover Dam is harder to come by. At the same time, they're finding that their current supplemental supplier is too expensive.

Of course, the real story is the explosive growth of Boulder City, Laughlin and other cities that are in the middle of a freaking desert! The city's use of dam power has dropped from 80 percent to 50 percent in the last 15 years.

And so, you white folks retirees slumming at small-town casino cities are getting hoist by your own capitalist petard.

Once again, I quote Ed Abbey: "The desert always wins."

Retire in Mississippi, where there's water, and hit one of the oceanfront floating casinos if you have to. (And, get more schadenfreude from more Class 4-5 hurricanes, maybe.)

Auggie Busch, this Bud's for you!

Looks like August Busch IV, former head of the Anheuser-Busch brewing empire before it was acquired by South Africa's InBev, has a potential new spot of trouble with the law.

As in a GF dead of an "accidental" OD of OxyContin. With coke in her bloodstream, too. At his home. (And, no, contra the story, I don't believe Heath Ledger's OD was accidental, either. No more and no less than deaths from alcohol poisoning are.)

Anyway, note the "new." Another GF of his died in the early 1980s in a car crash, in a vehicle Busch IV drove.

Add in the fact that, last year, Busch went into rehab for depression and unspecified other issues.

Of course people are interested!

This is St. Louis royalty, in essence. Other than McDonnell family, Ralston-Purina heirs or Stan Musial, nobody else is in the same camp.

Real estate bubble hits churches too

In the past decade, many of them overbuilt and overbought as much as many of their parishioners, and on as bad of mortgages. They're now paying the price. Especially for churches who preached the prosperity gospel, this is a definite moment of schadenfreude. And, interestingly, it's non-denominational congregations that are taking the biggest hit.

Schadenfreude alert: Toyota

Can you blame not only the American Big Three, or elected politicians, but other people if they feel a little pleasure at the stumbles of Toyota, acting more and more like GM all the time recently?

That's doubly so when it appears Toyota was doing secret fixes to the brakes of current-generation Priuses as they came off the assembly line even while poo-poohing owner complaints about break fade.

How's that 'prosperity gospel' working?

Not so well at all, at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church.

A little schadenfreude for Bro. Rick. If not praying harder and believing harder, maybe he needs to preach harder?

Update: Well, Bro. Warren DID "preach harder" and drew in nearly $2.5 million. But, let's see where he's at six months from now. Or 11, at the end of this year.

Schadenfreude for Karlo Rove? NOT

Even though he's getting divorced from his second wife, I expect he'll continue moral blathering, not just foreign and economic policy, as part of his punditry.

Scientologists lose French suit

Scientology is now officially a fraud in France. Break out the schadenfreude. And, I think U.S. law would allow for similar suits here — with similar verdicts — while not infringing the First Amendment.