I came across this practical nugget of wisdom from Teamster’s Union mafia don Jimmy Hoffa, as recounted from the death bed confessions of the legendary Mafia hitman Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran:

Jimmy said, “You always run away from a man with a knife and toward a man with a gun.”

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Every day I make the same mistake: reading other people’s errors. Today’s Error: “Zach Galifianakis is funny.” They’ve even named him the “2nd Funniest Actor In Hollywood.” Zach Galifianakis is not funny. And if you think he is, you must stop thinking immediately. (See Below for Instructions.) Zach Galifianakis is worse than not-funny: he’s a sleazy little thief and a hack who ripped off a far superior act, Martin Short–and it’s a pretty bad rip-off at that. I’ve got video evidence below to prove it: (more…)

Alex Chilton died of a heart attack a few hours ago. It’s a wonder his heart held out this long. Alex Chilton’s story always scared me more than the others–I’d figured he was already dead, for some reason–because in the romantic version of Alex Chilton’s life, he would have died decades ago, rather than drag it out the way 99.9 percent of us do. (more…)

I didn’t plan on posting anything today, but then I made the  mistake of clicking open today’s piece by everyone’s favorite bearded-liberal, Paul Krugman, titled “You’re So Vain.” In just a few short paragraphs, Krugman unintentionally reveals why liberals are still getting their asses handed to them in every serious battle with the Republican Right: the liberal establishment is still convinced it’s competing in a middle-school civics class debate, which is why Krugman and his staff of middlebrow field marshalls like Jonathan Chait and Robert Waldmann are still whining about the same-old riddle that’s paralyzed them for 30 straight years: “Why don’t Republicans debate fairly and honestly?!” And their answer comes down to the same feeble: “It’s because Republicans aren’t as good as we liberals are.” Here’s Krugman: (more…)

This article first appeared in Alternet.

There’s something deeply unsettling about living in a country where millions of people froth at the mouth at the idea of giving health care to the tens of millions of Americans who don’t have it, or who take pleasure at the thought of privatizing and slashing bedrock social programs like Social Security or Medicare. It might not be as hard to stomach if other Western countries also had a large, vocal chunk of the population who thought like this, but the US is seemingly the only place where right-wing elites can openly share their distaste for the working poor. Where do they find their philosophical justification for this kind of attitude?

It turns out, you can trace much of this thinking back to Ayn Rand, a popular cult-philosopher who plays Charlie to the American right-wing’s Manson Family. Read on and you’ll see why. (more…)

File this under “Seriously Fucked Up”: While most of America has been hiding under the covers afraid they might have to confront the ghost of Joe Stack, shooing him away by pretending he was something else–“He was a Tea Bagger!”/”He was a liberal!”/”No he was a psychopath!”–anything to avoid seriously talking about how profound and how widely popular his suicide-dive-bombing was…here’s a story that’s a little easier to chew on. It comes to you live from Kiddie Land, where there’s a war on pitting thousands of police and the full force of the law Surging against pre-pubescent doodlers, food-throwers, and tardy students.
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This article first appeared in The Nation.com...

If you’ve been wondering what ever happened to that wonderful Orange Revolution in Ukraine–because let’s face it, it was probably the last feel-good moment America collectively experienced in an otherwise bummer-packed decade–Sunday’s presidential elections in the former Soviet republic provided the answer: it went bad. Voters returned to power the same supposed villain, Viktor Yanukovych, whom they forced out in mass demonstrations the last time there presidential elections were held in 2004. The Orange Revolution’s leaders were overthrown by the same voters whom they empowered. (more…)