Do newspapers have sockpuppets?

I've been wondering about that for a while now. The Tampa Bay (formerly St. Pete) Times publishes some amazingly dense letters in their Your Letters section of the editorial page. I've always wondered whether people are really that dumb, or blindly indoctrinated, or perhaps they're just trolls -- writing what they think the paper wants to hear so they'll get published. Now I'm sort of wondering if someone in the editorial section dreams these things up to keep various memes going.

In today's paper, the suspiciously named F.M. Younglove of Brandon trotted out the class warfare meme using Mitt Romney as punching bag. He writes in part:

The man who isn't president (Mitt Romney) is a perfect example. When a person can make $22 million a year and pay less than 14 percent income tax, it is safe to say progressive tax rates are all but gone.

Really?! Didn't we clear this up during the election? Didn't we point out that Romney's supposed low tax rate was actually a capital gains tax, since Mitt doesn't actually have a job -- he just lives off his investments. So he's paying taxes on money earned that was taxed previously. That's double taxation on his money, dumbass! And didn't we point out that the Romney's donate something like half their income to charity? And even if this foolishness was true, 14 percent of $22 million is over $3 million in taxes! How much did Mr. Younglove pay last year? I doubt he'll pay that much in his lifetime, if he even exists, and Mitt pays that EVERY F*CKING YEAR!!

I mean, this is a dead issue. These facts have been out there for over a year, and this moron hasn't heard any of them? Like I said, I find it hard to believe an actual person wrote this stupidity.

And I'm not even going to get into the letter by Orfeo Trombetta. Seriously?! Try something believable like Joe Smith, guys.

Public service announcement

Courtesy of uber-skank Lena Dunham --

"If you’re not into me, that’s your problem and you’re going to have to work that out with professionals."

Yep, that's right folks, if you don't want to see this parading around naked on your television for no apparent reason:

Then according to Ms. Dunham, you've got a problem. I'm not going to go into a lengthy deconstruction of this absurdity, too many others already have. I'll link to Stacy McCain's site for one takedown and leave it at that.

Now where's my eye bleach . . .?

Update:
Okay, I take it back, I'm going to give you one more little bit on this mess. I've been staying away from a few of my old favorite celeb blogs because the guys who run them have decided to get all political, and I find it tiresome. But this one dude gave Dunham & Apatow a classic slap-down that deserves some sharing:

"Oh boy. Breathe it out, Todd. Breathe it out. *pets cat, thinks about the ocean* Whew, ok. First, f*ck this bitch. Let's just get that out of the way now. F*ck her and f*ck her show. It's Sex and The City with even uglier chicks that tries way too damn hard to transcend exactly what it is: a show written by a 27-year old, white bred elitist born to rich, pseudo artist parents who happened to be friends with Judd Apatow who instilled in her a ridiculous and completely underserving since of self-esteem by telling her how great she was every day of her life to the point where she truly believes she's some sort of trailblazing feminist and hipster sex symbol. Tell you what, replace Lena Duhnam with Candice Swanepoel in the exact same show and let me know just how "feminist" this show really is. Oh, Candice Swanepoel gets naked a lot? Then that's just the patriarchy trying force their unrealistic archetype of beauty penis into our unshaven vaginas. Do us all a favor, take several seats. And thanks for playing."

Priceless :-)

Well, in the spirit of bi-partisanship...

The Tampa Bay (formerly St. Pete) Times is currently in a full-court press on gun control with daily editorials and letters to the editor from unrealistically literate middle school students decrying the placing of security guards on campuses. The other day we even had the expected op-ed from Gabby Giffords detailing her agonizing recovery from gunshots inflicted by Obama supporter Jared Loughner, complete with an image of Giffords at a gun range and her calls for sensible gun control.

Tuesday of this week, former sports writer turned opinion columnist John Romano weighed in on the Time's favorite hobby horse -- the Stand your Ground law. Romano admits that according to public opinion the law shouldn't be repealed:

...there is no way that law is going to be repealed anytime soon, nor should it be based on polls.

Romano advocates "tweaking" the law. In this case, removing protections for those who start confrontations. Although that is a murky situation, as we saw with the Zimmerman/Martin incident. Facts show Martin was the aggressor, but liberal outlets like the Times perpetrated the lie that Zimmerman provoked his assailant. Putting something like this before a jury that could be swayed by relentless and false media hype might jeopardize a person's right to a fair trail. And I thought liberals were all about fairness.

But I like Romano's setup for this -- a law has no chance of being repealed so let's just tweak it to make it better. I have a few ideas --

Roe v. Wade has little chance of being repealed. And unlike the Stand your Ground law, Roe has caused the murder of over 50 million innocent children since its passage. I'm in favor of tweaking this law to add protections to the innocent. How about you John?

ObamaCare has little chance of being outright repealed as well. And I, along with millions of others, would like to see some tweaking of this law too. How about actually letting people keep the plans they like, as the President repeatedly promised for starters? Your thoughts, John?

Of course, in reality, Romano has little interest in tweaking laws that are mainstays of the liberal/socialist/democratic platform for transforming this country into a third world debt nation. And like most liberals, he's a flaming hypocrite when taking a stand on anything, he finishes up his article with this bit of advice:

So will the law [Stand your Ground] ever be perfect? Of course not. But that doesn't mean we should abandon all attempts to fix it.

Well said, John. Now only if you, and all liberals, would apply that reasoning to laws people of other political opinions had qualms about, we'd be a much less divisive nation. Don't you think?

Here's something we don't see enough of

British cutie Emma Watson in a bikini:

Young Emma does a nice job staying out of the tabloids and avoiding those messy candid photos and/or scandalous behaviours that plague so many other young stars today.

Though in truth, I wouldn't mind the occasional saucy image from time to time, if you know what I mean and I think that you do

And just noting -- that's some fairly impressive white girl booty Em's sporting there :-)

Daily Duffster

Seems my Duffster might be getting a divorce:

All kidding aside, this is a bummer. I'm rarely a fan of marriages breaking up, especially when there are children involved. Hopefully Hilary and her husband can have an un-acrimonious split, allowing everyone involved to move on with their lives with as little trauma as possible.

So Miley slipped a nip in her new photo shoot

You can't tell me you're actually surprised by this. After her work with 'ole pervy, something like this was just a matter of when not if:

Besides forgetting her Chinet-sized pasties, I wish Miley would forget about those god-awful high-waisted cut-offs! It took thirty years to get women away from the horrid look of high-waisted jeans and this chick is single handedly bringing that nonsense back.

eesh!

Update 2:
And speaking of slipping something in a photoshoot, the pic below has resurfaced in higher resolution this time. Last time I thought it might be a fake, now . . . who knows, just might be the real thing.
*click on the image for the uncensored version*

---

And in other celeb news -- it seems Ke$ha is in rehab for thirty days. She says it is because her manager called her "fat" and now she has an eating disorder.

Hmmm . . .

"Fat" might be a bit harsh. Perhaps "unbelievably sloppily out of shape" would be more accurate. But as long as she's happy with the way she looks and can keep cranking out annoying music that makes her rich, who am I to say anything?

Update:
Okay, I stand corrected. Below is a pic of Ke$ha at the American Music Awards in November of last year. If this is the look that prompted her manager to say she looked like a "f*cking refrigerator" then, as much as it pains me, I'll have to be team Ke$ha on this one:

Of course, this guy also manages Miley and Rihanna, so his idea of a woman is a spindly little thing that weighs 85 pounds sopping wet, so . . .

Happy New Year!

Hope you made it through your festivities last night in one piece. It was fairly quiet in my neck of the woods, minimal fireworks, though they lasted well into the wee hours. Didn't see any horror stories in the paper this morning, so I guess it all went well.

Resolutions? I could fill a hard drive with what I need to work on in my life. I'll make sure I don't give myself another mystery concussion this month for starters, other than that . . . I'm going to just try to keep it going for another year.

Best wishes to my few regular visitors and anyone else who drops by today.