Best NFL Mock Draft Pick Ever

Matt Taibbi:

28. New England – HANK PUDSNIFFER, G, Northwestern Iowa School of Mines

Belichick rattles off at least one “What the fuck?” pick in every draft, where he spends a first or second-round choice on a guy who isn’t even in the CBS list of 1000 draft prospects; all you can find is one grainy YouTube video of the guy performing in an arm-wrestling contest on Croatian television. Note: I actually think the Pats end up with Mark Ingram somehow, but there’s a WTF pick in there somewhere, guaranteed.

Read More

Matt Taibbi on Olbermann Suspension

How Matt Taibbi is able to continually squeeze through the bullshit and come out crystal clear on the other side is beyond me, but his analysis of the Olbermann campaign contribution kerfuffle is spot-on.

We had a whole generation of journalists who sat by and did nothing while, for instance, George Bush led us into an idiotic war on a lie, plus thousands more who spent day after day collecting checks by covering Britney's hair and Tiger's text messages and other stupidities while the economy blew up and two bloody wars went on mostly unexamined... and it's Keith Olbermann who should "pay the price" for being unethical? Because, and let me get this straight, he donated money, privately, to politicians?


This is absurd even by GE's standards. There is no reason, not even a theoretical one, why any journalist should be prevented from having political opinions and participating in election campaigns in his spare time. The policy would be ridiculous even if we were talking about an evening news anchor -- because the only "ethical" question here is the issue of NBC wanting to preserve the appearance of impartiality and being unable to do so, because political contributions happen to be public record and impossible to hide from viewers.

Read More

Tea Bagger Welfare

Love Matt Taibbi:

But these Tea Partyers make themselves fair game with their preposterous absolutist stance on government. If you call Obamacare radical socialism and unemployment insurance a parasitic welfare state program—well, guess what, asshole, you’re going to get rung up when we find out you had your whole family living off state medical aid and farm subsidies.

Read More

Wealth, Religion, and David Brooks

Matt Taibbi is poking at David Brooks again, but I happen to agree with this particular passage:

A few weeks before that I tried on a friend’s recommendation to get into Entourage and gave up after it struck me that it was the same show as Sex and the City – a drama about a foursome of impulsive yuppies with lots of disposable income who spend half of each show buying brand-name consumer products to make them feel better about having no brains/soul. And the plot of pretty much every reality show is the same: ordinary middle American Joes with poor taste meet silver-tongued, fake-boobed Hollywood/New York shopping expert, who tells them what a shitty house they’ve been living in and what ugly shoes they’re wearing, and hands them a bunch of cash so that they can shop themselves back to superficial respectability. The public seems to have a limitless appetite for this awful stuff, which makes me wonder if it’s possible to clinically diagnose an entire country with depression.

Read More