Crooooow

spacedbitch:

hahahahahah

calumet412:

Carl Sandburg takes a ride on the river, 1957, Chicago.

Chicago - Carl Sandburg (1914)

     HOG Butcher for the World,
     Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
     Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
     Stormy, husky, brawling,
     City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
     have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
     luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
     is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
     kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
     faces of women and children I have seen the marks
     of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
     sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
     and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
     so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
     job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
     little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
     as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
          Bareheaded,
          Shoveling,
          Wrecking,
          Planning,
          Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
     white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
     man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
     never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
     and under his ribs the heart of the people,
               Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
     Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
     Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
     Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

(fun fact: the popular Chicago nickname “City of the Big Shoulders” was taken from this poem.)

1. [HIRING] Artist to Paint Founding Fathers Playing Basketball
2. A fellow redditor commissioned me to paint Washington dunking on Kim Jong Un while Lincoln and Stalin watch. Thanks /u/fact_school_cat

In a result that no one could possibly have predicted, it appears that with three weeks left during the open-enrollment period, Obamacare has already resulted in a reduction in the percentage of Americans who lack health insurance.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, released Monday, found that 15.9 percent of U.S. adults are uninsured thus far in 2014, down from 17.1 percent for the last three months — or calendar quarter — of 2013.

That translates roughly to 3 million to 4 million people getting coverage.

Gallup said the share of Americans who lack coverage is on track to drop to the lowest quarterly level it measured since 2008, before Obama took office.

We’re pretty sure that this is a terrible thing somehow, and it’s just a matter of time before the usual crowd explains why. Maybe the death panels are killing these people off!

The biggest change in uninsured rates came for households making less than $36,000, with a reduction of 2.6 percentage points from the last quarter of 2013. While a good portion of that group was covered by expansion of Medicaid, a lot of them would be buying — forced to buy, of course — private insurance, often with a subsidized premium. In other words, takers, the lot of them, and now they’re going to get used to having decent coverage, which may make it harder to do the honorable thing and, as Ted Cruz puts it, repeal “every single word” of the ACA. But that is because they just don’t know what’s good for them, and they probably resent having insurance anyway.

The survey also showed that the decline in uninsured rates was lowest for Latinos, at .8 percent, possibly in part because the ACA’s Spanish-language website is still having significant problems. So with all the successful outreach the GOP is doing toward Latinos, there’s another constituency to get behind ACA repeal, maybe.

While the administration is citing higher numbers of new insurance signups than those suggested by the Gallup poll, the larger administration number may be explained by the fact that it includes people switching from one insurance plan to a new plan on the exchange, which wouldn’t be picked up as a change from being uninsured in the Gallup poll. Or maybe it’s just Obama lying, which is another statistically possible outcome.

In any case, it’s now more important than ever that Obamacare, which can never work, be stopped in its tracks before more people sign up and start thinking that it does work, because it won’t and can’t.

[TPM]

Follow Doktor Zoom on Twitter. He is delighted to be part of a statistical sample that validates his choices.

BALTIMORE—A new report from leading neurologists at Johns Hopkins University reveals that as many as      percent of Americans have      or more symptoms of synesthesia.

Remember that dumb, great video of NFL players being given very bad lip-reading voiceovers? Adrian Peterson and his orange peanut? Here's another—it's pretty good!

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Oh internet, please never change

braiker:

THIS IS THE BEST THING ON THE INTERNET

minorjive:

Hello, I’m Shelley Duvall! What? (by fakePhotographer)

Say you are a Wisconsin millionaire repo man who doesn’t want to pay so much gosh-darned child support, and you would like to get a law passed that says “stop class-warring job creators by making them feed their children all the time.” Wouldn’t it be great if there were someone you could call who would lend an ear, and also his bill-drafting pen? Luckily, for the low, low price of just an $11 thousand campaign donation to himself and his lieutenant governor wife, GOP Rep. Joel Kleefisch is here to help!

Michael Eisenga is an upstanding citizen who owns $30 million, because he is the president of Repo Men R Us, and likes to give $15 thousand of it to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. (That is how you know he is an upstanding citizen, obvs.) He and his ex-wife, Clare, had a prenuptial agreement that she would leave his estate untouched in the totally unlikely event of their divorce. But then some mean arbitrator awarded her more than $200 thousand per year in child support, and wouldn’t reduce it even when Eisenga stopped making $1.2 million per year, like, how is that even fair?

So Eisenga did what any self-respecting millionaire would do, and got Joel Kleefisch to write a bill capping all child support for millionaires at $150 thousand per year, because that is a thing that is important to spend time on.

UPDATE!

Some dude in family law writes in:

You say that the WI bill would cap child support for millionaires at $150K/year, which implies that the rich bastard would have his support reduced from $200K to $150K. Actually, the bill would cap the amount of income that could be considered for child support at $150K/year, meaning his actual support would be quite a bit less. Here in CA, a dude making $150K/year who never saw his kid would probably have to pay something in the $30-$40K/year range.

So consider us corrected! We now return you to our blogpost, already in progress.

But surely Joel Kleefisch didn’t write this bill just for one millionaire? There must be a whole slew of millionaires breaking under the weight of child support payments that are one-fifth their income, and they probably will all move to Texas unless Wisconsin can somehow keep them there, right?

In his remarks to the State Journal, Kleefisch emphasized that the bill would not affect Eisenga’s case if it is passed.

But the drafting documents make clear that was the intent. In a Sept. 5 letter to Eisenga, his lawyer outlined changes he was suggesting to an early version of the legislation.

“We focused only on the portion that would require the court to modify your child support order based solely on the passage of the bill,” Smiley wrote in the letter.

On the same day, Eisenga forwarded the letter to Kleefisch, one of Kleefisch’s aides and former Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, now a lobbyist, with this line: “Please have the drafter make these SPECIFIC changes to the bill.”

On Sept. 6, the Kleefisch aide forwarded the material to the legislative lawyer writing the bill.

Anyway, Joel Kleefisch was totally forthcoming about this, because it is a good and necessary bill and he stands behind it, right?

In early December, one of the law firms representing the ex-wife asked Kleefisch’s office for correspondence or records of conversations with Eisenga or his company on legislation dealing with the calculation of child-support payments.

Kleefisch responded four days later: “We have conducted a thorough search and do not have any responsive records which meet your request. We have checked all of our our office email accounts, files, and all cellphones for the search words you have indicated.”

It’s just a lattice of coincidence. Also, he wouldn’t open that trunk if he were you.

[JournalSentinel, via MotherJones]

Someone, please, get Ron and Billy in a buddy cop movie ASAP.

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Charles Barkley was hanging around the Patriots locker room after their win last night—apparently he's friends with owner Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick?—so the assorted media got him to answer some football questions. His assessment of New England's fans and media? They're spoiled.

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[Shaq and The Devil ride in a Zamboni, January 11, 2014.]

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Along with the thaw comes the possibility of a light show Thursday and Friday. [ more › ]

WASHINGTON—Eliciting reactions of wonder and awe in millions of Americans since appearing on the nation’s skyline this week, a giant, sloppy chicken parmesan sandwich continues to hover enticingly above the continental United States with no si...

Last night a story about Sarah Palin made its way around the Internet that was so grotesquely sexist that we were put in the disgusting, angersome position of having to defend Sarah Palin. It basically called her a whore a bunch for slutty-sluttin’ it up in college — PS did you know she also spread ‘em for a black man??? — and having an affair. All the fingerpointing and whore-screaming was supposedly in the service of pointing out her hypocrisy as a “family values” Christian and Duck Dynasty and whothefuckcares, it was awful.

Being or having been a goodtime girl doesn’t prove you are a “family values” hypocrite. Having a family, though, knocking up your secretary after being married for 36 years, leaving your family for your secretary, hushing it up since you are a congressman, and never seeing your three children again except to drop off some Christmas presents once while declining to come in because your secretary wife is sulking in the car at the mere existence of your former family, and then PRETENDING YOUR CHILDREN NEVER EXISTED up to and including at your funeral, all while getting “family values” awards from rightwing Christian lobby groups — now THAT is what we in the business call “a real lulu”!

Bonus points for having a new wife so crazy and bitter and insane and awful, we think she might be an actual witch.

The Tampa Bay Times’s story on the late Florida congressman C.W. Bill Young is a hell of a yarn. You will want to read it and come back here please.

OK good.

You read the interviews with the sad kids, and how they mostly stopped trying to call or see their dad after a few years went by without hearing back. You read that one of their stepbrothers announced their existence from the lectern at the funeral — he didn’t think it was right that their very personhood had been memoryholed. And you got to the interviews with Beverly, the erstwhile secretary and “new” wife of 30 years.

Let’s relive it, together!

Beverly Young and the congressman’s first family also disagree about what transpired around the time of the divorce.

Beverly Young says the congressman harbored a deep resentment because his children rebuffed his attempts at contact after the divorce — a direct contradiction of accounts given by his first family.

“Bill had no relationship with those kids,” she said in a phone interview. “Not by his choice, by their choice.”

Bill Young II, 29, the congressman’s first child with Beverly, agreed that Terry and his sisters could have done more to stay close to their father.

“Those things can go two ways,” he said. “They say he didn’t initiate anything. I didn’t see them show up at his door.”

Well, no, Bill Young II, they said they tried to initiate contact lots of times, and he wouldn’t call them back. Don’t feel bad! You are not responsible for your hideous parents! Anyway, wonkers, remember the name Bill Young II, because he is about to have an epic Twitter meltdown later in this post!

But let’s get back to Beverly, she seems great!

To Beverly Young, Terry [Young's son] has come forward now because he “is trying to get rid of his guilt for being a horrible son.”

“They are going to use the media to try to get back at me,” she said. “It’s been 30 years and it’s a joke. He had nothing to do with them and he wanted nothing to do with them after he tried in the beginning. He would tell me to tell you they are not his family.”

Young even once claimed that he “never had a son named Terry,” his wife said.

Mrs. Young, 58, said she has wondered if her husband’s first children resent her for being younger than they are.

Asked whether any photos of Young’s first family were included in the photo montage at his funeral, Mrs. Young replied: “Hell, no. Why would I do that? Why should they be? They played no part in his life whatsoever. Consider that courtesy of me.”

“Consider that courtesy of me.” Well then we shall!

After that interview, Beverly Young, who is often outspoken about issues she feels passionately about, emailed the Times questioning this story.

“I have a hard time believing after a 30 year loving, successful marriage you would attempt to make Bill’s life and marriage to me look anything less than it was,” she wrote.

” … It’s sad, that after thirty years [first wife] (Marian Young) still can’t accept the fact that he never loved her. … She attempted to make him stay in a loveless marriage by having her children, but once they were out of his home and grown adults he wanted to experience real love, life and happiness. And that’s what we did. We did it when, where and how we wanted to.”

Man, it must be so hard to be Beverly, with all those people insisting on continuing to exist even when you don’t want them to! But how is your relationship with your own family, Lady Macbeth?

More recently, a division within Beverly Young’s family emerged over Bill Young’s vacant House seat. According to his wife, Young hoped that David Jolly, a lawyer who had served as his aide, would succeed him.

Bill Young II recently told the Times he was unaware of his father having a favorite candidate. He supports Kathleen Peters, Jolly’s opponent.

“You have hurt me beyond belief,” Beverly Young told Bill Young II after a Dec. 6 Tiger Bay meeting as a Times reporter stood nearby.

When asked whether the conflict over endorsements had damaged her relationship with her son, she replied: “I have no relationship.”

How do you feel about that, Bill Young II? You’re a good son, right? Aren’t you a good son? Your ma will love you again if you’re a good enough son, right Bill? Right?

Sure. We’re sure she will. She seems very loving, a very good mom with a very good heart and not a woman with what sounds like borderline personality disorder or Livia Soprano at all.

Just remember, everyone, the timeless lesson of Lilo & Stitch: “Ohana” means “family,” and family means nobody gets left behind unless you are the late beloved Florida congressman Rep. C.W. Bill Young, then you just get another one and fuck em.

[TampaBayTimes]

cordjefferson:

My friend swears this is real:

My friend—we’ll call him “Dean”—works at a pet store here in Los Angeles, and recently James Avery, the actor who played Uncle Phil on Fresh Prince, has become a somewhat regular customer. Avery has come in two or three times with his dog, and each time Dean has helped him find what he needed, never mentioning that he recognized Avery from TV.

After a few interactions with Avery, Dean answered the phone at the store one day and found it was Avery calling. “This the dude who always helps me?” asked Avery. “It is,” said Dean. Avery then proceeded to tell Dean that his dog would be coming into the shop later that day, but because he was busy, “a friend” was going to bring it in. Dean said cool, and went about his day. A little while later, in came Avery’s dog, accompanied by the friend he’d told Dean about: none other than Joseph Marcell, the man who played Geoffrey the butler on Fresh Prince. Uncle Phil had sent Geoffrey the butler to the pet store for him.

Life is very seldom perfect, but sometimes it is.

I know the feeling, Helen

kellydeal:

Hall & Oates - Jingle Bell Rock

It’s time

Proof that no one in the 80s had any fear of looking like a complete dildo on camera

we here at chainsawsuit are proud to stand on the flying edge of the future. it’s frightening at times, isn’t it? thankfully you can use datayorbs in beta right now and keep your bucks safe from market volatility

1. create your own unique three-alphanumeric-digit “yorbkey” by using your first initial, last initial, and a number from 0-9. for instance, my yorbkey is ks4.
2. after your key, put a period, and then list (without dollar signs or commas) how many dollars you have to your name. so, my yorbstring would be ks4.403.
3. that’s it, now you’re using datayorbs. right now they are pretty much equal to 1 USD each, but as volume increases, their value is sure to rise

EDIT: sorry everyone, but reddit denied my AMA post, they said that datayorbs were not as good as bitcoins. the conspiracy must be uncovered. that’s why i’m taking my AMA to the PEOPLE, right here, in my own comments section.

IAmA developer of the new digital currency system DATAYORBS, ask me anything. Proof: http://chainsawsuit.com/yorbproof.jpg

The aptly-named Dope Folks Records uploaded an amazing playlist of rare '80s-'90s Chicago hip-hop that proves once and for all that the city's hip-hop scene is more than just Chief Keef, Kanye, and Chance The Rapper. [ more › ]

And now we have the proper memorial for the spine-tingling finish to No. 4 Auburn versus No. 1 Alabama yesterday—on the home turf of Auburn's greatest player ever, and that's not Jordan-Hare Stadium. It's Tecmo Super Bowl.

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The LA-Sacramento handshake feud is officially the Capulets and the Montagues of our generation. No Sacramento King will ever again exchange ritualistic-verging-on-meaningless signs of mutual respect with a Los Angeles Clipper. Not while DeMarcus Cousins is around.

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if anyone ever asks me what tumblr is i’m gonna show them this video and just walk away

mareemagic:

it’s that special time of year

Crudbump - Fuck You If You Don’t Like Christmas

The season begins.

soupsoup:

Dear Mr. Lee,

"It’s with sadness and hope that I write this open letter to you”

Buzzfeed asked some Brits to label states on a US map. They didn't do so well:

My favorite is "Further South Dakota". In fairness, most US citizens would be hard pressed to name any of the counties of England, much less place them on a map.

Tags: maps   USA