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Let's get technical: A "Shitty Deal" defined

Levin says "Shitty Deal" eleven times. A rare victory for authenticy and manna for a 100 million brains begging, jonesing, for a fog-lamp or a cattle prod. It's a tough call, but this one falls in the lower left quadrant.



But damn, it's hard not to think that the Goldman-esque mindset doesn't take some actual pleasure in just breaking people because, well, just because they can. And it's nothing new...

Welcome to R-Complexville (2004):

For instance, whose "values statement" says this:

Communication. Excellence. Respect. Integrity.

Why, it's these guys: [Enron]

Guy #1: "They're fucking taking all the money back from you guys?" "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"

Guy #2: "Yeah, grandma Millie, man"

Guy #1: "Yeah, now she wants her fucking money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her asshole for fucking $250 a megawatt hour."

Gracious me. That's not how college educated, customer-centric, All-American businesspeople were supposed to speak in the brochures I got. People in positions of power and responsisbility, guardians of American propriety and restraint, know better. Yes, those fellows must have been an aberration, have to be...

Okay, Tea Partiers. You wanna be ticked off? Go picket the Business Roundtable or your local Chamber or Biz School and demand to know how something as vital and potentially noble as commerce has gotten it's head so far up its ass that YOUR guts are now wrenched up in knots.

Spycams in kids' bedrooms - Taking Things

"Taking things" defined: You convince yourself that your aims are pure, you're doing your best, just being responsible and diligent; you may even be trying to prevent bad acts. Meanwhile, you're taking people's agency and using information from others who have no idea of your access to or power over them. You have vacated consideration and humanity to achieve "specialness" or your "mission."

Could be a School District in Lower Merion PA, or a big investment bank called Goldman Sachs taking short positions on investment products they make and sell to investors as value-earning opportunities.

Caution: Alicorns Next ∞ Miles

When you have to take out the Chimera - a fantastical multi-headed, fully-muxed monster - you need serious air superiority.

Bellerophon earned his fame for killing the beast - what Homer described in the Iliad as "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle." If that doesn't sound eerily like your average bureaucracy we don't know what does. The good news is that with his trusty Pegasii's help, Bellerophon, grandson of Sisyphus the rock-pusher, won. Yay! (The Alicorn is traced to early Spanish mythology also but don't know much about that.)

If you like, check the spiffy wearables heah: CafeFouro

Tea Party Visual Acuity Test

Well, since we now have several million newly minted militiamen and women, and not a few sudden experts in what the framers of the Constitution "intended," I had to go to the only place I could imagine: Teh Art, mated with half-baked ethnographic field study.

I made an iron on, slapped it on a left-over virgin blue Gildan and headed out to Ukrops (our local grocer) to do some, uh, shopping. From 30 feet, heading in from the parking lot I got a few approving looks and smiles, one guy managed a "yeah, brother!" As he sailed past the head was rotating and I think the smile had faded. Inside, well, it was more proximate and interactive. One old man next to the strawberries was not a fan. I explained that the Gadsden Flag was not a National Flag so you really can't "desecrate" it. I don't think he was convinced but he did appreciate a hand with his big bag of russets. One woman said "I love it" while her daughter's evaluation was "eww!", as she leaned in to fully assess the gross factor. The pattern repeated and it seems a great test for smoking out the Tea Partiers: Smile, then eyes widen, then furrowed brow or head shake. On the other extreme, there were enough affirmative smiles of "I want one!" that it's going into CafeFouro toute suite.

UPDATE: And, presto! Tea Party Visual Acuity Test shirt and Tea Mug