"Stoned wallabies make crop circles"

Headlines like that just kinda jump out at you don't they? (Oh crap - I swear that pun was unintentional.) Back to our story:

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.

Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.

She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.
Australia supplies about 50% of the world's legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.

We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles. Then they crash
Lara Giddings, government official

"The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," Lara Giddings told the hearing.

"Then they crash," she added. "We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."

Photo of stoned wallaby from here.

O'Reilly and Beck Play With Barbie Dolls to Go After ACORN

They're still going on about ACORN? Holy crap.

Republicans: Please keep watching these people. Please. Please keep listening to Limbaugh and all the rest. I'm begging you. Because if you do, in 20 years we'll have Australian-style health care, less nukes in the world than any hippie every dreamed about, decades of peace and a much happier world all around.

Please. Watch O'Reilly. Watch Beck. We'll take care of the country.

If Someone Writes "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" One More Time...

It's not funny. Really, it's not. If Sanford had disappeared because he had gone to fight for a hapless Argentinian rebel group but had to be rescued by Navy SEALS because he twisted his ankle - then it'd be funny. Really funny. Barring that, it's just dumb.

Did Fox News Try to Cover Up Sen. Ensign's Affair? [updtd: Fox responds]

Or interfere in any way? The Las Vegas Sun asks the right questions in this article:

In a letter dated five days before Sen. John Ensign’s public confession of an extramarital affair, Doug Hampton pleaded to a national Fox News anchorwoman for help in exposing the senator’s “heinous conduct and pursuit” of Hampton’s wife.

[...]

The letter presented for the first time Doug Hampton’s view of what took place. It was addressed to Megyn Kelly at Fox News’ corporate office in New York. Kelly is the co-host of Fox News Channel’s “American Newsroom.” She also appears regularly on the “O’Reilly Factor with Bill O’Reilly,” according to the network’s Web site.

The questions:

— Did Fox News receive the letter, and if the network did, what did it do with the information?

— How did Ensign learn that Hampton had “approached a major television news channel”?

More questions:

• If they did in fact receive the letter, is Fox so entirely in the bag for the Republican Party that they would give Ensign time to come forward with an "apology" rather that break a story this big?

• Again, if Fox received the letter, why didn't they come forward when the charges that Hampton was blackmailing Ensign came out? The letter suggests that the charges aren't true.

• Why didn't they report that they got that letter after all the news came out? (That's perhaps the strangest thing about this.)

• If they got a letter about a Democratic senator having an affair - from the husband of the woman he was having the affair with, who happened to be the senator's aide - would they sit on that story, too?

That last questions too ridiculous to ask, isn't it?

Here's the full text of the letter.

Update: Fox is now saying that they never got the letter, but did get it as an email attachment about 24 hours before Ensign came forward:

"We never received any letter from Mr. Hampton," Lowell told the Huffington Post. "He might have sent it, but we never received it. He did reach out to us about 24 hours before the news conference, and he sent an e-mail to a booker on my staff."

Lowell said that a member of his editorial staff followed up with Hampton that day.

"We followed up with him, but he seemed evasive and not credible, thus we didn't pursue it," he said. "We certainly weren't going to rush to air with accusations against a sitting Senator without doing due diligence on the reputability of the claims.

And:

"I know there are people asking if we alerted the senator," Lowell said. "Definitely no one on our editorial team called anyone in Senator Ensign's office prior to our announcement. We just hadn't gotten to that point of confirming the story yet. Somehow, somebody told the Senator something and I don't know how that happened. But I categorically deny that we ever reached out to the senator in any way shape or form prior to him making his announcement."

Some question remains: Why didn't Fox report that they had talked to Hampton the day before Ensign came forward? And why didn't they report more details about the case (they said they got the letter as an attachment to an email from Hampton) after Ensign admitted the affair? Like the report from Hampton that Senator Tom Coburn knew about the affair? And why especially didn't they come forward about the blackmail charges, which are just about completely quashed with news of this letter out there? (What blackmailer goes to a news organization? Unless he did it to cover his ass...)

...

From Gawker:

Two things should be noted about Hampton's letter: 1) It is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. These people actually work in the Senate? And 2) it baldly contradicts a statement released by Hampton and his wife's lawyer two days ago, which said "it is unfortunate the senator chose to air this very personal matter, especially after the Hamptons did everything possible to keep this matter private." That's a transparent lie. The Hamptons are probably not blameless in this, but if anyone had the capacity to get to the bottom of it, it was Fox. We wonder why they didn't?

Weirder and weirder.

Cracked.com Reviews Glenn Beck's "Comedy" Show

The review comes with notes taken during the show, like the one pictured. Here's an excerpt:

Now, I’m no historian or anything, but I feel confident in saying that I am Cracked.com’s Senior Authority on Motherfucking Presidents, and I certainly know enough to realize that, when you’ve got your audience booing Theodore Fucking Bullet-taking Fucking judo-mastering Fucking Bull Moose Roosevelt, then there is something profoundly wrong. Wrong with you, your audience and your bastardized perversion of history.

Full review here.

Twittering From Iran

Via Attackerman, hair-raising twitter reporting from inside Iran. Just one report:

we are going offline to get a phone free for calling out. we are also moving location - too long here - is dangerous.

DHS: Location of Coal Ash Sites "Too Dangerous" To Reveal To Public

Updating this post about the December, 2008, coal ash slurry spill in Tennessee, we get this news today:

Just how bad has the coal ash situation gotten in the United States? So bad that the Department of Homeland Security has told Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) that her committee can't publicly disclose the location of coal ash dumps across the country.

The pollution is so toxic, so dangerous, that an enemy of the United States -- or a storm or some other disrupting event -- could easily cause them to spill out and lay waste to any area nearby.

There are 44 sites deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency to be high hazard, but Boxer said she isn't allowed to talk about them other than to senators in the states affected.

You know what else we shouldn't be told about? What's in cigarettes. It's too dangerous. You know what else? Torture. It's also too dangerous for us commoners to know about. Pandemics, too. And police brutality. And oil spills. And every murder by handgun...

World's Weirdest Internet Comment Found

Found here, in a forum titled "World's Toughest People":

The toughest man to me is Jesus Christ. He lived for 33 years and he still reigns as the King of Kings

Next is 2Pac

that's all!

Snicker.

Le U

I found an interesting Web site with some very cool kids' drawings, like this one.

Translation: "U is a horseshoe on his foot."

Irish Catholic Child Abuse Report In

Nine years in the making, the 2,600 page report on the treatment of children at Roman Catholic residential institutions in Ireland is in. And it's ugly. Thousands of kids were regularly humiliated, beaten - and raped - by priests and nuns.

More than 30,000 children deemed to be petty thieves, truants or from dysfunctional families _ a category that often included unmarried mothers _ were sent to Ireland's austere network of industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s until the last church-run facilities shut in the 1990s.

The report, unveiled by High Court Justice Sean Ryan, found that molestation and rape were "endemic" in boys' facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers, and supervisors pursued policies that increased the danger. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.

The Vatican knew about this, and they not only protected the abusers from investigation by police, they let them remain around children. I don't think I can think of anything more horrible than a church hurting children in this horrific way. How the Catholic Church even exists today is beyond my understanding.





[Ignore the "read more."]

Limbaugh: Obama Creating Welfare State as "Reparations" For Blacks

Just when you though he couldn't go lower:

The objective is more food stamp benefits. The objective is more unemployment benefits. The objective is an expanding welfare state. And the objective is to take the nation’s wealth and return to it to the nation’s quote, “rightful owners.” Think reparations. Think forced reparations here if you want to understand what actually is going on.

Blackie Obama is stealing from America (in other words, white people) for his blackie friends - by giving them welfare! Cuz black people are all about welfare!

It's a megaslur.





[Ignore the "read more." Something's gone haywire with the code.]

Former Navy SEAL Jesse Ventura on Torture

I will criticize President Obama on this level; it's a good thing I'm not president because I would prosecute every person that was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it. I would prosecute the people that ordered it. Because torture is against the law.

"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever..."

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture... Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law.

The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, signed by, and championed by, President Ronald Reagan. (h/t)

Google Swine Flu Tracker

Here. Note that not all of these are confirmed; some are suspected cases.

Torture Memo Author "Regrets" Writing Memo

I think this is very big news:

"I've heard him express regret at the contents of the memo," said a fellow legal scholar and longtime friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity while offering remarks that might appear as "piling on." "I've heard him express regret that the memo was misused. I've heard him express regret at the lack of context -- of the enormous pressure and the enormous time pressure that he was under. And anyone would have regrets simply because of the notoriety."

And other sources, not anonymous:

Tuan Samahon, a former clerk who recalled Bybee's remarks at the reunion dinner, said in an e-mail that the judge defended the legal reasoning behind the memos but not the policy decision. Bybee was disappointed by what was done to prisoners, saying that "the spirit of liberty has left the republic," Samahon said.

"Jay would be the sort of lawyer who would say, 'Look, I'll give you the legal advice, but it's up to someone else to make the policy decision whether you implement it,' " said Randall Guynn, who roomed with Bybee at Brigham Young University and remains close.

This is no accident. Bybee's friends have been sent to get this message out, and it is very bad for Bush officials, possibly including Bybee. He "regrets" writing the memo? I thought everything was perfect and perfectly legal and hunkey-dory with all this. Bybee's telegraphing to the press that it's not. How is that not huge news?

To put this another way: Say Bush and Cheney and the lot of them are accused of murder. They and their supporters keep going on TV and defending them, or distorting the issue, or whatever. Their lawyer, who helped them commit the crime, just said "they're guilty."

This is enormous news.

1,500 Farmers Commit Mass Suicide

No words.

*Not much out about this story yet. Let's hope there are big mistakes in it.

More than 1,500 farmers in central India have reportedly committed mass suicide in the wake of crop failure and increasing debt.

The suicides took place in the agricultural state of Chattisgarh, where people mainly depend on seasonal crops, Earth Magazine reported.

Local residents told the magazine that many of the farmers felt that death was the only option in the face of their insurmountable debt.

[...]

"Farmers' suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left with no option other than death," Prakash said.

At least 10,000 debt-ridden farmers in different parts of the country have committed suicide over the last decade.

Right-Wing Nutcases Upset That Cops Hate Right-Wing Nutcases [updts]

This is just too funny. The Department of Homeland Security (if I could tell you how much I hate that name) has released a report stating that right-wing extremism is rising in recent months. Big surprise, huh?

Malkin and other likeminded nutcases are Free King Out. It really is too funny. Look at the Malkin:

By contrast, the piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives.

Um, Malkin, the report is about violent extremists. Are you identifying with violent extremists? Sure seems like it.

And this really takes the cake. Read this:

DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat.

You know what that is in Malkin and right-wing nutcase land? That's anti-military. Because saying that "right wing extremists will" do yada yada is anti-yada yada. Perfectly logical.

Hey, assholes: The cop killer in Pittsburgh fed off the kind of hate you've been preaching on a daily basis for years. So did the guy trying to build a dirty bomb in Vermont. So did the church shooter in Tennessee. Hell, the worst domestic terrorist in the country's history, Timothy McVeigh, fed on the same stuff. Get used to it being noticed and scrutinized under an administration that doesn't actually pander to that kind of thing.

Update: Even Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs calls the wingers crazy on this one. And notes that the assessment began more than a year ago, so it's hardly an Obama administration effort.

And oh, look: a DHS report on left-wing extremism. Go figure.

Update II: The national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars defends the report:

Glen M. Gardner Jr., national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, disputed claims that Homeland Security analysts were describing veterans as terror threats.

"The report should have been worded differently, but it made no blanket accusation that every soldier was capable of being a traitor like Benedict Arnold, or every veteran could be a lone wolf, homegrown terrorist like Timothy McVeigh," said Gardner, a Marine veteran from Round Rock, Texas. " It was just an assessment about possibilities that could take place."

Note: This post was up before this very good one.

Martin Sexton

I get to go see The Crooner on Saturday.

The Queen Requested the iPod

This has been another addition of "They Can't Get Stupider, Can They? Why Yes, They Can!"

Bottomfeeders Blogging

If you've got a need for a new song for your iPod or similar device, please consider a song from my CD, Bottomfeeders, at iTunes, or any of the several music sites under "Vital Links" to the right. (CDBaby is a nice little company here in Oregon.)

If you have a minute, go give it a listen, see if you find a song that suits you.

* This has been a blog advertising moment. Thanks for the time. *

Seve Ballesteros Update

Update: It's May 8, 2011, in Australia, and I've just learned that Seve has died.  My final post on him here.

Spanish golfing great Seve Ballesteros, battling brain cancer, has spoken publicly for the first time since being diagnosed in October, 2008. (Several updates at link, last from May, 2011.)

(And I just found that great photo - click to enlarge - on a PDF at his Web site.)

Hit the Seve tag in "labels" just below this post for much more info.

R. Crumb to Publish Bible Satire

Specifically the Book of Genesis:

The acclaimed satirist revealed on his personal website that he had finished the project, which is out this autumn, and which his UK publisher is predicting will "provoke the religious right". Four years in the making, Crumb worked from the King James Bible and Robert Alter's translation to reinterpret the Book of Genesis, from the Creation via Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to Noah boarding his ark.

Scheduled to be out this autumn.

41% unemployment

Welcome to Mendota, California:

Many people in Mendota are turning to alcohol to battle depression, said Amador, the council member. And some single-family homes are occupied by two or three families, in what Amador described as "basically labor camps."

Gene Burnett and DeLonde Bell

A couple friends sing one of Gene's sweet and funny songs, "Nothing's Impossible Now."



Gene.

DeLonde.

"Police describe him as 'upset' and say he was wearing a Calgary Flames shirt."

Oh, hockey, the sport of kings...and other people.

There is No Push For a "Global Currency"

Michelle Bachman is so embarrassingly stupid that if I lived in Minnesota I'd lie and say I was from Wisconsin.

Here's a lesson for the stupidest person in Congress:

The remarks you refer to when you talk about a "global currency" are about the international reserve currency. It has nothing - absolutely nothing - to do with the existence or non-existence of the dollar.

Matthew Yglesias:

This falsehoods here are coming so fast and loose that it’s hard to know where to start here. But to get to the main point, most countries hold “reserves” of various kinds—foreign currency and gold. Most countries, right now, primarily hold dollars. Euros are also popular, and Yen and British Pounds somewhat less so. The United States of America does not, obviously, hold any dollars in our reserves. We actually have quite a lot of gold. And different countries vary their practices in this regard. But most countries mostly hold their reserves in dollars. So the dollar is, in effect, the “global reserve currency.” The IMF also issues something called Special Drawing Rights that countries can use as a reserve asset. SDRs work as a kind of meta-currency, with their value based on a basket of major world currencies. A Chinese official suggested that it might be good for the world to tilt away from such a heavy reliance on dollars as the reserve currency of choice, since this leaves countries exposed to policy decisions in the United States, and toward something more SDR-like that would be balanced between dollars and euros and yen and pounds and so forth.

A good rule to live by: if Michelle Bachman and Glenn Beck are talking, they're either lying or wrong, or a lot of both.

The War On Kids Continues

How weird is it that we regularly hear stories about "anti-teen" technology? The latest:

LONDON (AFP) – A British town is using garish pink lighting that shows up acne to deter teenagers from loitering, in the latest example of using simple technology to break up loutish gatherings.

Residents of Mansfield in central England have installed fluorescent pink lights normally used by dermatologists to show up pimples and acne blemishes.

That aside, it is also thought that surly teenage males might find it "uncool" to hang around in a bright pink underpass.

When your language regularly uses the word "teen" as an actual pejorative, maybe the focus should be on the adults.

Disney-Produced WWII Anti-Tank-Rifle Training Video

From World War Two. It's partially animated. The Hitler is hilarious, in a Hitler sort of way.



Parts 2 and 3 are here.

Bobby Jindal Thinks Civil Disobedience is Treason

At least that's what it sounds like.

Jindal was on CNN last night just before Obama's press conference. Why the Republicans would do that after his debacle after the State of the Union address is beyond me. Look at just this tiny bit of what Jindal had to say last night:

Jindal described the premise of the question -- "Do you want the president to fail?" -- as the "latest gotcha game" being perpetrated by Democrats against Republicans.

"Make no mistake: Anything other than an immediate and compliant, 'Why no sir, I don't want the president to fail,' is treated as some sort of act of treason, civil disobedience or political obstructionism,"...

The "I want the president to fail" stuff aside (okay, not completely aside - what would Obama failing look like? Really - what would it look like?) what the hell does he mean with "treason, civil disobedience"? What the hell does that mean? Is civil disobedience a form of treason to this jackass?

Crikey, these people are mutants. And he threw in a joke about torture. Wonderful.

Dolphins Blow Ring-Shaped Bubbles

And then they play with them. Just too cool. Look at the moment at about 1:20 in.



And since this has been on youTube several times over the last couple years, it almost seems like this is a disguised advertisement for the aquarium that posted the video. But whatever.

Understanding the Employee Free Choice Act

Here's a more in depth explanation, but I wanted to explain this simply to myself, and anyone else who cares.

Scenario:

• You work in a restaurant where the employer beats you with tire irons and pays you five nickels-an-hour for your 107 hours of work every week.

• You and your fellow employees discuss unionization, so you can collectively bargain with the employer about the tire iron beatings, and other stuff.

• 98% of you want to unionize. You fill out forms ("cards") authorizing unionization.

• You go to the employer with the cards. He may, upon presentation of the cards, recognize you as a union. That's the law. That's "card check."

• He can also say F*ck you and fire your asses. That's against the law, but your employer doesn't care, and if questioned will say you were crappy employees. Who's gonna win?

• The employer can also say, "Get a petition with at least 30% of your names on it, give it to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) [a government agency], and they'll supervise a secret ballot of all the employees."

• That normally takes about six weeks.

• In the meantime he can fire a bunch of you so you can't form a union.

• Card check bypasses the *government-run* NLRB election, just to note. It's "small governmenty."

• Card check is how it worked when the NLRB was formed in the New Deal years. It made sense. It was a simple way for employees to get out from under the boot of asshole employers, who existed (and still exist) in great numbers.

• The Employee Free Choice Act makes employers recognize card check. They can't force an election. It takes some power out of employers' hands, and puts it in employees' hands. No more tire iron beatings. And better, more fair pay.

• Here's the most important part: After doing the card check thing, employees can still choose to hold a secret ballot. The EFCA does not "strip away" the secret ballot, as is being yelled by Republicans, it "strips away" the power of employers to force an election, a delaying tactic, even in cases like yours, when 98% of employees plainly want to unionize.

• That's the Employee Free Choice Act, explained.

Bobby Jindal: I Lied

Golly, Beav, Modern Conservatives sure are a bunch of liars.

A Thought About Joe The The

Joe The The was a war correspondent. For three days in January. Joe The The is no longer a war correspondent.

This has been an episode of "A Thought About Joe The The."

A note from the editor: Joe the Dumber Plumber was known as "Joe the Palin" for some time at this site, but Joe the Dumber Plumber will no longer be known as "Joe the Palin." He will henceforth be known as "Joe The The."

Men See Women in Bikinis as Objects

It's not news...really, it's not news. It is, however, CNN. [link fixed]

If You Offered a Modern Republican $400...

...Modern Republican would say, "I don't want it - that adds up to only $13 a week!"

Modern Republicans are not bright.

Deep Thought

Michelle Malkin's probably really mad about something right now.

Buffalo/Clarence Center Plane Crash [updtd]

Shit. That's so close to where I grew up and where most of my family lives it's scary. My one sister's dog woke her up; he doesn't like sirens. My other sister, and her husband, both firefighters, were called to the scene, though I believe they were there as extras, as it were.

You'd have to know that area to know how lucky - and unlucky - this crash was. Check out this map. The plane managed, in all that empty rural space, to hit a house. I mean there is a lot of nothing out there. This is very rural, not city of Buffalo. But, it hit a house on Long Street, right in the center of the town of Clarence Center - and it only hit one house. Houses right next to it were fine.

Crap. My condolences to everyone who has gotten horrible news today. Especially the family and friends of Beverly Eckert, who are reliving a terrible tragedy.

Update: Damn. My baby sister just emailed and said the plane went down around the corner from where she went to elementary school. Friggin goosebumps.

Update: Just talked to my brother. His house is a about a quarter mile from the crash site. Jeez.

More from CNN. Video from Buffalo News here.

The names of the deceased are coming out. Damn. More.

WGRZ. Anchor can't take it.

Photos of Jaguar, Short-Eared Wild Dog in Peru

From National Geographic.

I've never even heard of the short-eared dog. The photo here is from Wiki commons, the one they just got is much better.

A rare short-eared dog is captured in a camera trap intended for jaguars in a picture released January 27, 2009. Little is known about these wild fox cousins, which until 1990 hadn't been seen in their natural habitats for two decades.

Update II: Two Suspects Arrested in Australian Wildfire Arsons

They're "assisting police," the report says. Hopefully they'll catch the bastards.

Update: Composite photo of man wanted for questioning released.

And: mysterious death of a firefighter near Melbourne, who was killed in his home - by a suspcious fire. This after he'd been fighting the wildfires for days.

Neighbours said the fire started about 3.30am, a series of explosions ringing out before the house was engulfed in flames. The fire started inside the house, but police would not comment on where his body was discovered.

Hopefully that story doesn't end uglier than it already is.

Update II: One suspect arrested.

Australia is Getting it Bad

Temperatures to reach 116 in Sydney today. In Sydney. On the coast. Conditions are "tinder dry" and fire dangers are worst in history.

Up North, major floods in Queensland, and crocodiles are being swept out of rivers and into urban areas.

Christ.

Good luck to family and friends. Please stay safe.

From the Mind of Sarah Palin

“When I was in high school, my desire was to be a sportscaster,” Palin told the magazine.

You betcha.

“ESPN was just kicking off, just getting off the ground, and I thought that’s what I was going to do in life, be one of the first woman sportscasters.”

“Until I learned that you’d have to move to Bristol, Connecticut. It was far away. So instead, I had a daughter and named her Bristol,” Palin said.

Makes you wonder what she would have done if ESPN was headquartered in Toad Suck.

And Now a Word For Gitmo

Someone group of pant-wetting macho whiner wannabes - called "Move America Forward" (toward any convenient cliff, apparently) - has made an ad for Gitmo. An ad...for Gitmo.

You've got to watch it. The message: if we close Gitmo ... they'll BRING THE TERRORISTS HERE!!!! To Leavenworth, and similar hyper-security prisons.

Do these people think that the average American walks around afraid of people in Leavenworth?

ABC: Air Force One is Obama's "Private Jet"

Via Balloon Juice, we have possibly the stupidest news story ever written:

America's CEOs are coming under fire these days not just for their hefty salaries but also for their use of private jets, limos with drivers and free trips to posh resorts.

But they aren't alone in living this lavish lifestyle -- the president of United States gets all these perks and more.

And unlike some of his Cabinet appointments, he doesn't have to pay taxes on these benefits.

It might be a bit of a stretch to compare today's corporate titans with the commander in chief, but some Wall Street bloggers clearly upset with President Obama's attempts to rein in executive pay are doing just that.

"Some accountability needs to be put in place. We won't have them kicking sand in the face of taxpayers any longer," said one private equity worker on Dealbreaker.com, a Wall Street gossip site and blog.

Read it to the finish. It will make you want to drink paint thinner. It's an "ABC Business Unit" story inspired by the whining of anonymous "Wall Street bloggers." And it's gist: Maybe Obama shouldn't be criticizing Wall Street CEO's and their billions in bonuses and private jets because...the president of the U.S. is just like those Wall Street CEO's.

The writer, Scott Mayerowitz, actually wrote things like this:

Then there is the use of two private jets, Boeing 747s better known as Air Force One. And of course the constant security details...

Ho. Lee. Shit. Air Force One is a "private jet." That's braindead stupid. And the president's "security detail," better known as the Secret Service, is portrayed as a perk that Mr. Elite Obama gets.

There's more:

It's hard to say that Air Force One and all of the president's support staff should not travel with him, even on vacation, especially in the post-9/11 world, said presidential historian and ABC News consultant Richard Norton Smith.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

I have to go ice my brain.

Update: The Wall Street blog they cite is mocking ABC for this idiotic article.

Joe the Dumber Palin: America Doesn't Deserve Me

What can you say?