Salt City Sinner

This is adorable, Zoe Pollack has discovered the phrase "Jack Mormon" and thinks she has gleaned a major insight to Huntsman's persona. A profile by Mark Hemingwey quoth : It's not a pejorative term, but in some select contexts Jack Mormon is not exactly a compliment. It’s often shorthand for “Mormon who drinks alcohol.” Jack Mormon may refer to fully lapsed or inactive members more often than not, though the definition is highly fungible. That's a fair term, I guess. "Lapsed Catholic" and "Jack Mormon" have a lot of common ground, I think.

The Salt Lake Tribune has a piece up today about climate change, Utah air quality, and the economics of the health fallout of increasingly bad air in the Valley. Quoth the Trib : This week’s heat and red-air warnings* raise a question: What will Utah’s summer pollution problem be like if, as scientists suggest, climate change means more hot, stuffy days like Wednesday? The Union of Concerned Scientists answered the question in a recent report that says Utahns, like other Americans grappling with ozone pollution, can expect breathing problems to rise because of the pollution-climate link, as well as the health care costs of treating the added illnesses. Up to 46,852 more cases of asthma and other respiratory illnesses can be expected by 2020, and costs could rise by as much as $107 million a year to treat those illnesses, the group said in its report, “Climate Change and Your Health: Rising Temperatures, Worsening Ozone Pollution.” You can find the full report here . A...

Every morning I hook up the coffee IV, start the pumps cycling, scrape the brine barnacles off of the hull of my floating fortress on the Great Salt Lake, and fire up the email inbox to check for job leads (I'm in what experts call "the market" for full-time employment right now). Since my skill set and/or qualifications at the moment tend toward the clerical, I get a lot of openings in my mailbox for personal assistant jobs (I even interviewed for one position as an assistant to the COO of a fair-sized company). Long story short, I happened upon one Bruce Lefavi a short while ago. Lefavi is a wealth-management guru with two instructional books under his belt, and he seems like the typical wealth-management type, which is to say cut from the velvety cloth of purest capitalism. I'm not implying he's anything less than a full-fledged capitalist, bless his heart, but when I saw a link on his page that said " The War Against Wall Street ," accompanied by...

There really isn't any commentary necessary on this. Originally from the NY Times, syndicated in the SL Tribune : Mitt Romney has never claimed to be a middle-class man of the people. But the news that he is planning to quadruple the size of his $12 million oceanfront property in La Jolla, Calif., reported by The San Diego Union-Tribune over the weekend, came at a particularly awkward time for the former Massachusetts governor, who had spent much of the previous week on the campaign trail criticizing President Barack Obama for vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard when many Americans are still out of work. The Union-Tribune reported that Romney, who was scheduled to attend several fundraisers in San Diego last weekend, recently filed an application to bulldoze his 3,009-square-foot single-story home and replace it with an 11,062-square-foot two-story home. The existing house, which has three bedrooms and 4 1/2 baths, sits at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac and overlooks a white sand...

The BBC reports : Toxicology results have shown "no illegal substances" in Amy Winehouse's system at the time of her death, according to her family. They say tests indicate alcohol was present but it cannot yet be determined if it played a role in the singer's death last month. There *was* alcohol in her system, and note the emphasis on "illegal" drugs (implying that she did have prescription drugs, mixed with booze, in her system). Now, that said, I, along with just about everyone I know, jumped to a number of conclusions here that were wrong. I hope I learned a lesson about judging people and/or the nature of gossip from this - and at least we'll always have Winehouse's music.

The Washington Post has an excellent piece up on job-creation data: specifically, on what it does and does not say: Some of the country’s best-known multi­national corporations closely guard a number they don’t want anyone to know: the breakdown between their jobs here and abroad. So secretive are these companies that they hand the figure over to government statisticians on the condition that officials will release only an aggregate number. The latest data show that multinationals cut 2.9 million jobs in the United States and added 2.4 million overseas between 2000 and 2009. This becomes of particular concern when it comes to economic policy: “It’s an important piece of information that the American people should have,” said Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology. “Should you listen to the kind of advice these companies have about how to grow the economy when their record and their model indicates they’ve cut jobs? . . ....

What is it about these GOP types and their tube meats? Rick Perry goes to town ...

Two covers I've heard recently that are amazing, stripped-down takes on the original: You're welcome.

My tovarish J Scrivner has launched a blog. It is worth reading. Here it is.

The Wall Street Journal has come to Rick Perry's defense regarding his statements on Ben Bernanke (statements that some, including Andrew Sullivan, have interpreted as threats). From the Journal : Let's stipulate that Mr. Perry, in his first week on the Presidential stump, was wrong to use the words "almost treacherous, treasonous" in referring to Mr. Bernanke. Both of those words ought to be reserved for specific acts of betrayal against America, and the Fed chief is certainly a patriot. In particular, "treason" is the only crime specifically defined in the Constitution, which is something a tea party politician ought to learn. On the other hand, everybody knows Mr. Perry meant no literal harm and was indulging the irrational exuberance that is one of his trademarks. The faux-outrage from liberals who routinely refer to the tea party as "terrorists" shouldn't be taken seriously. The WSJ can get bent for referring to "liberals wh...

Michele Bachmann is an outspoken critic of federal spending, an advocate of old-school, conservative self-reliance, and someone who never misses an opportunity to take a potshot at that perennial right-wing boogeyman, the Federal government. Let's take her at her words : "I want my candidacy for the presidency of the United States to stand for a moment when we the people, stand once again for the independence from a government that has gotten too big and spends too much and has taken away too much of our liberties." "During my first term in Congress, I signed a pledge that I will take no more earmarks and I've been faithful to that pledge." "During the last 100 days we have seen an orgy. It would make any local smorgasbord embarrassed if you looked at this spending orgy we’ve seen in Washington." Solid, conservative statements from a candidate who can be counted on to turn back the tide of federal encroachment, no? Unfortunately, as is...

" Perry: We'd Lynch Bernanke In Texas " reads Andrew Sullivan's ominous headline. Think Progress states : Governor Rick Perry, who entered the presidential campaign on Saturday, appeared to suggest a violent response would be warranted should Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke “print more money” between now and the election. Speaking just now in Iowa, Perry said, “If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion.” Treason is a capital offense. This is just ridiculous. There are plenty of reasons to oppose Rick Perry (he believes that Social Security is unconstitutional and has flirted with secessionism) without putting words in his mouth and blowing a statement he made completely out of proportion. It reminds me of the "Al Gore invented ...

DISCLAIMER: is this photo sexist? I think not. Yes, it's unflattering and sexual and crude. But I think it would be just as funny if it were a picture of Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich doing the same thing (see also: mirth at photos of Dick Cheney's pants passenger, which is apparently impressive by anyone's standards). Ladies and gentlemen, THE photo of Michele Bachmann (forget that Newsweek cover photo ):

After Mitt Romney's last foray into the land of mysteriously dis/appearing corporations and their attendant luxurious cash baths, I thought we had seen the last of this type of thing. Nope! From Talking Points Memo : The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 have filed complaints with the FEC and DOJ calling for an investigation into the activities of two companies that appear to have been used to funnel funds to a Super PAC created by former Romney campaign staffers. The complaints come on the heels of a another the two groups filed against the first phantom company, W Spann LLC, was discovered to have masked the true identity of a $1 million mystery donor to Restore Our Future [Romney's super PAC]... The two watchdogs groups are now asking the FEC and DOJ to formally investigate the activities of the F8 LLC and Eli Publishing L.C. for possible violations of the ban on making contributions in the name of another and for failing to organize and register as a poli...

"Corporations are people, my friend." - Mitt Romney You can see the speech where he said it here (quoted statement is at 1:25). He follows up the response (some outraged yells that are hard to distinguish) by saying "Everything that corporations earn ultimately goes to people." Mitt's statement is nothing really extraordinary - it's an example of the ideology of trickle down economics *, popularized by Ronald Reagan and virtually every conservative politician since Ronald Reagan (never mind that these theories have been largely disproven ). We should keep in mind that recent judicial action and economic data both support Mitt's statement on its face in a way - yes, the Supreme Court has essentially held that corporations are people, and, yes, corporate profits DO go to actual flesh-and-blood people. The problem is that they go to the people at the very, very top of the ladder , while real wages for workers have stagnated since the 1970s. The ...

I've posted before about Joseph Farah and his "news" website, World Net Daily, which is perhaps the fringiest main-stream (or most main-stream fringe) conservative website on the entire internet. It has an impressively huge audience. WND is best known for initially stoking (and even now continuing to stoke ) the fires of the "Birther" conspiracy theory, but today WND's editor-in-chief, Joseph Farah, tees off on a slightly stranger target for a conservative newsman: Mitt Romney and John Hunstman . And only Mitt Romney and John Huntsman, so far. What, you may ask, do these two men have in common? Why would Farah pick these two candidates from a fantasy field of fourteen current or potential presidential contenders on the GOP side? Who the hell are Gary Johnson and Thad McCotter (and I've been following the primary horse race pretty closely)? Is Farah picking on Mitt and Huntsman right out of the gate because they're the only former governors? N...

"The Democrats want to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor, the Republicans want to transfer wealth from the unborn to the rich. They are the same disgusting species." - Anonymous friend of mine This quote jumped out at me the moment I saw it in a Facebook update regarding the recent credit rating downgrade that S&P dumped on the United States recently. My friend's initial comment on the downgrade was that the stock slide and credit downgrade are a response by "the Market" (his capitalization) to the US' deficit reduction plan, which he dismisses as "smoke and mirrors." The credit downgrade and stock mini-crash are worthy of their own posts - my interest was piqued by my friends statement at the top of this one, which was made in response to some statement about the free market, which this friend does not believe is being treated in a properly laissez-faire manner. I'm of the opinion that the Democrats do not, in fact, want to transf...

' Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl ' (yeah, I know) is one of a crop of direct-to-DVD Japanese gore-fests that are like a combination of the "acting" portion of old porn movies and the "action" section of any film that leaned heavily on the handiwork of Tom Savini (another gem from this genre is ' Tokyo Gore Police '). These films are stitched together with a lot of skits that are hideously unfunny and they are pretty awful to begin with, but VGvFG has significantly upped the ante with a sub-plot involving the 'Super Dark Girls Club': Yeah. That scene played out in an even more obscene fashion than I thought it would, with all the 'dark' girls banging on bongo drums and chanting "Obama" and "Yes We Can" in a faux-African racial good-time get-down. Sometimes, like most people I know, I get tired of political correctness in American culture. Then, however, I bump into a student at the U from a foreign country or co...

So we've apparently got a "deal" for the debt ceiling in the hopper. From CNN : After weeks of bipartisan negotiations, President Barack Obama said congressional leaders agreed to a plan that would lift the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling and avoid an unprecedented default on the nation's debt -- if, that is, members of Congress vote to approve the agreement. *golf clap* This isn't even a done deal, as this monstrosity still has to navigate both chambers of Congress (with the Senate expected to start work today) before we get a finished product. So far, this debacle seems to have followed the same depressing pattern: 1.) Obama suggests a piece of legislation 2.) Republicans and Blue Dogs lock arms to shriek NO NO NO NO NO no matter what the content of the bill is. 3.) Obama gives in. 4.) See step 2. 5.) Obama gives in some more. 6.) See step 2. 7.) Obama scraps anything that progressives and/or liberals liked about the legislation in the first place, and ...