Reason Morning Links: Jobs, Tea Parties, and Your Cable Bill

- The unemployment rate fell slightly in January.

- The House votes to bring back its pay-as-you-go budget rules…with some exceptions.

- Tea Party Nation's controversial convention begins in Nashville.

- A brawl brews between the broadcast networks and the cable and satellite companies.

- Two Supreme Court vacancies are rumored to be on the way.

Comments

[SugarFree]

A brawl brews between the broadcast networks and the cable and satellite companies.

Wake me when the affiliate system finally dies. So I can shit on its bones.

[Meet a Phor]

A brawl brews

How is that even possible?

[Mike M.]

The Master Teleprompter fails our genius President once again as he mispronounces Navy Corpsman as Navy "Corpseman" not once, but twice at the National Prayer Breakfast.

[Pappy Smear]

No, thrice!

[Fist of Etiquette]

The recently reanimated White House Press Corpse will no doubt start feeding off this gaffe.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Very well done, FoE.

[Maverick]

Would these be the Navy Corpsemen (sexist) who accompany the Marine Corpse into battle?

[SugarFree]

Maybe he didn't mis-speak. Maybe he just knows about something in the near future that we haven't been told yet.

[Plague Dog]

We can only hope.

[NeonCat]

Can we trust zombie corpsmen to effectively perform first aid? Sure, they may well be nigh unstoppable, but won't they just eat the brains of valiant servicemen and women who might otherwise have lived?

[mitch]

Only somebody with some kind of military authority, some kind of commander or chief or something, should be expected to know such minutia. Obama is a lawyer, we should only complain if he doesn't realize that the first amendment says you can't pass a law limiting the freedom of speech or if he is shamelessly mischaracterizing Supreme Court decisions or something like that.

[Zeb]

Aren't people in the Navy called sailors anyway?

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Yeah, but you know, hospital corpsmen, infantrymen, medics, aviators, artillerymen. These are real job titles.

[T]

We always called them "squids".

[Johnny Longtorso]

Navy "Corpseman"

I see a tshirt in the making....

[The Art-P.O.G.]

DEVGRU...I guess those guys are kind of "corpsemen".

[Johnny Longtorso]

PS. Paul Krugman blames Ronald Reagan's signing of Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act. in 1982 for the mortgage meltdown.

Reagan Did It
...For the more one looks into the origins of the current disaster, the clearer it becomes that the key wrong turn ? the turn that made crisis inevitable ? took place in the early 1980s, during the Reagan years....

[Nick]

Democratic Congress in 1982 if I'm not mistaken, so whether Dipshit Krugman is right or not as to which law caused the meltdown, blaming Reagan doesn't really tell the whole story.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Raygun made Congress pass the bill w/ his mind control rays.

[Suki]

Is that why they called him Ronnie Ray-gun?

[Dan Rowan]

Star Wars

[Syd Henderson]

Democratic House, Republican Senate from 1981 until 1987, so blaming the Democratic Congress doesn't tell the whole story either.

[BakedPenguin]

Two Supreme Court vacancies are rumored to be on the way.

Stephens and Ginsberg, for those not inclined to VTFA.

Stephens would be no loss in any event - I can't remember any decision where he voted to limit the power of the state. If anyone knows of one (or more), please feel free to correct me.

Ginsberg at least once sided with citizens on a 4th amendment case, and she had a couple other state-limiting decisions which I can't remember.

[SugarFree]

Is Stephens the one that looks like a fat Orville Redenbacher after a series of strokes?

[BakedPenguin]

He kind of reminds me more of John Houseman's (non-existent) brother in The Paper Chase, at least in the photo above.

[SugarFree]

John Paul Stevens is who I'm thinking of...

[robc]

Wasnt Stevens a member of the weird Thomas/Scalia/Ginsberg/Stevens coalition that smacks down prosecutors for procedural errors (sometimes joined by a 5th to actual be a majority)?

Those were always extremes vs the middle decisions.

[hurly buehrle]

A brawl brews between the broadcast networks and the cable and satellite companies.

I'm sure I'll here more about this soon. Either on local network news, which I get via antenna signal (which gives me HD 100 times crisper than I got through Comcast), or on a web feed I'm streaming through my Roku box.

[hurly buehrle]

"hear", that is. Need more coffee.

[Enough About Palin]

Here's what I want to know: Why does Comcast cable cost so damn much money? At $142.00, it is my largest monthly bill. My electric bill is only $62.00 Why is Comcast 130% higher? Both are just shooting someting electric into my home via a wire. An unlike the electric company, Comcast doesn't have to own/operate coal and nuclear generating plants.

What's the danged deal?

[Nick]

They charge that much because you haven't yet switched to DirecTV.

[wylie]

Jokes about switching aside, there is a lot of hardware involved in shooting those signals through the wire. Repeaters and multiplexers and other big words that mean, roughly, "box with many cables going in and out of it."

How much of our $150-200 bill goes towards that stuff? I dunno but based on how often my programs freeze, its not enough.

(Fuckers ruined an hour of the StarTrek marathon this Monday. Granted, it was only Enterprise, but hey. Was the only channel frozen too, wtf?)

[Slut Bunwalla]

I'm sorry, did you just refer to Enterprise as Star Trek?

[dave]

Why does Comcast cable cost so damn much money? ... Why is Comcast 130% higher?

Because you're dumb enough to pay $1704/yr for the drivel they provide?

[Enough About Palin]

Where else am I going to find this much womens college basketball?

[Yet another dave]

Same things been going on in Canada with the cable companies and the networks unabashedly waging a public relations campaign about each other, pointing out the others profits etc etc. When I laugh to my coworkers that its nice to see these government supported (re licensing and control etc through the CRTC) companies arguing about who gets to pick our pockets before they do it, I'm faced with blank stares... I've lost hope I'll just have to go back to "borrowing" a signal I say borrow because I always give it back after I'm done with it...

[SugarFree]

Farienheit 451 meets The Food Police

[BakedPenguin]

Fuck! I was writing a screenplay about the same subject. FUCK FUCK FUCK.

[SugarFree]

That sucks, dude.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

My condolences, Penguin.

[BakedPenguin]

Thanks. It's happened before. In 2003, I wrote a spec script for The Simpsons where they outsourced all the jobs to India.

[BakedPenguin]

Of course, I wrote that one with the expectation that it would not be used. The only real damage was that I couldn't show it to anyone, since they would assume that I'd ripped off the show's idea.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Has there ever been a comedy about a writer who is scooped in increasingly improbable and hilarious ways?

[BakedPenguin]

Charlie Kaufman's writing it as we speak.

[SugarFree]

I swear I've read that story somewhere, but I can't seem to dredge it up.

[FrBunny]

You should write a screenplay about an unconventional teacher forced to work in an inner-city classroom who finds out there's more to her students than meets the eye.

[SugarFree]

Or a screenplay about a couple who are perfect for each but are kept apart by 91 minutes of misunderstandings and coincidences.

[BakedPenguin]

They're kept apart by 84 minutes of misunderstandings and coincidences. They need the first 6 minutes for their friends to tell them how they are so not right for each other.

[SugarFree]

This is why you're the screenwriter.

[BakedPenguin]

I could call it Delivery of Minds!

[BakedPenguin]

Fucking threaded comments. The "Delivery of Minds" was supposed to go with FrBunny's comment.

[robc]

yeah, that was obvious (now guess who I was responding to).

[BakedPenguin]

And it should have been Stand For Dangerous Writers...

Also, SF - I actually am working on a romantic comedy. I'm trying to find all the cliche's of romantic comedies, and break all of them.

[Johnny Longtorso]

You should write an action flick where a lot of stuff blows up.

[BakedPenguin]

You should write an action flick where a lot of stuff blows up.

I wanted to parody Transporter / Transporter II, but I think it's impossible, since those movies are so stupid, there's no possible way to go stupider. They're already at full retard.

SF - thx - there are a few in there that I've already covered, but some are new.

[SugarFree]

Shoot 'Em Up is even more ridiculous than Transpo to me. I saw what they were trying to do, but they just didn't pull it off.

[SugarFree]

But to break the ultimate cliche, it would only be about 10 minutes long.

[Warty]

And those 10 minutes are all brutal rape scene / showtune.

[SugarFree]

Which Romantic Comedy Cliche Are You?

[SugarFree]

Most Overused Rom-Com Cliches of the Decade

[SugarFree]

BP... did you see 500 Days Of Summer, at least for research purposes? It's twee as fuck, but they make it work.

[BakedPenguin]

No, I'm still trying to steel myself for Love, Actually. I'll put 500 Days on the list.

[SugarFree]

L,A is not as bad as you might think. For a rom-com, it's not staggeringly stupid. And it has a surprising level of nudity.

500 is mostly just a collection scenes that persistence of narration turns into a movie, but the set pieces are well done.

[Syd Henderson]

"(500) Days of Summer" has more in common with "Definitely Maybe" but the real film to compare it to is "Annie Hall."

[The Art-P.O.G.]

I liked 500 Days.

[Suki]

What about one where a really nice young woman is trying to run a shop and some evil corporation is trying to force her to sell out. She falls in love with a really sweet guy and discovers he runs evil corporation?

[Slut Bunwalla]

Love, Actually is (cough) actually really good.

500 Days of Summer is great too. Sure, it's a romance, but it's a bitter, cynical romance. It's not sappy.

[SugarFree]

Him karaoke singing "Here Comes Your Man" was hilarious.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

I could relate to that dude from 500 Days in a way uncommon for rom-com characters.

[SugarFree]

Maybe you'll get to have a failed romance with girl who always looks like she just sat on a thumbtack.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Score one in the "failed romance" department!

[Suki]

Maybe you'll get to have a failed romance with girl who always looks like she just sat on a thumbtack.

Is every day pick on Asians day with you? lol

[B]

In South Carolina you now must register if you are planning to overthrow the government.

Link: http://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t23c029.htm

[Nick]

Start revolution from one of 49 other states. Noted.

[Pro Libertate]

No, no, no, you're forgetting your history. You have to register so they know where to send the weapons and money to help you.

[B]

Well, eventually, first you have to be friends and then later become enemies.

[robc]

Two weeks with Larry Ellison does this to you:

Sun CEO quits over Twitter

[BakedPenguin]

Fuck, again. Larry "I want to build databases for the government to track people" Ellison is acquiring Sun, maker of Open Office?

I should not have read this thread today.

[robc]

Has acquired. Not acquiring. Closed last week.

[robc]

more importantly, current owner of mysql.

[Pro Libertate]

Ellison is a complete tool.

[Suki]

Now that he has Sun he is complete.

[P Brooks]

What a surprise; a totally sucktastic Gawker blog.

[Rich]

"Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere"

By spending the dollar on X, we do not spend that dollar on Y, and hence save it elsewhere.

Continuing to study Obamaese ...

[Rich]

a long list of exceptions that would permit Democrats to add at least $1.5 trillion

November cannot get here soon enough.

[Enough About Palin]

Amen!

[EdVinko]

OH wow, who would have tunk it? I mean really. Wow.

Jess
http://www.internet-anonymity.se.tc

[sage]

Geez, what a lame bot. Doesn't even have macros to keep from spelling crap wrong.

[Enough About Palin]

Don't be so quick to judge...

Tunk

Tunk\, n. A sharp blow; a thump. [Prov. Eng. or Colloq. U. S.]
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, ? 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

[Rhywun]

Look in the tunk.

[P Brooks]

If only someone would write a movie about a noble, dedicated reformer who comes to Washington to drain the swamp of cynicism and self-aggrandizement.

And then, after he has become a broken, cynical husk of his former good-guy self, he amuses himself by sneaking out of the White House at night and running over bloggers.

At the end, he suicide-bombs the State of the Union address.

I'll let you know where to send the check, Penguino.

[BakedPenguin]

First, you're going to have to buy the rights from Michelle Obama's ghostwriter in a couple years.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

I like that plot, Mr. Brooks.

[P Brooks]

You should write an action flick where a lot of stuff blows up.

No- a romantic comedy where a lot of stuff blows up.

"Love Blooms in the Strangest Places."

[SugarFree]

In a world gone mad... their love was the most powerful bomb of them of all...

Date-'Splode: The Movie

[BakedPenguin]

"He was a warlord in a country torn by strife. She was a journalist sent there to cover the destruction he caused. But their love was hotter than the napalm he dropped on his enemies..."

[Suki]

What about one where a girl's job gets her close to some evil guy but she discovers he is not really evil inside and they fall in love?

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Downfall?

[Suki]

Hum, let me try again.

[BakedPenguin]

HA HA HA HA

[Cabeza de Vaca]

Has anyone ever put the epic love story of Eva & Adolf on film?

[Suki]

How about some really well educated girl is trying to meet bright entrepreneurial guy. And she does!

But he barely notices her. So she does something stupid and alienates him.

Her friends and mom help her come up with a way to get him, but he almost goes for the mom instead!

The mom gets him to give her daughter another chance and they finally hit it off and live happily ever after?

[Enough About Palin]

How about 120 minutes of fucking?

[Barack H. Obama]

I have spent the last 380 days fucking the country.

[T]

Started when the pizza delivery guy shows up to find the roommates wrestling sexily to determine who pays for the pizza?

[Suki]

The second date, when they just can't deny how perfect they are for each other.

[Lucy]

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[Lucy]

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[demil-lor]

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