Sustainable Limbaugh Farming

OKAY, first: what's it going to take to get people to realize who the real fucking criminals are? The woman in Florida who called 911 "because McDonalds ran on out McNuggets" was the victim of an attempted robbery which she should have reported to the police non-emergency line. We know nothing of her comportment, before or after the arrival of the police; we do not know whether Fort Pierce routinely cites people for making non-emergency 911 calls, or whether she was arrested for Talking After the Cop Told Her To Listen. What we do know, or can feel pretty safe in guessing, is that one cannot hang up a sign in Fort Pierce saying "Unidentified Fowl Parts, $3", take someone's money, and then say, "Oh, we're all out of Fowl, and it's against policy to give you a refund. I do have the Bucket O'Sludge, but since that's just $1.98 you'll have to take two. That'll be an additional 96¢ please. Plus tax. Thanks for waiting!"

Okay, it's Florida. Maybe I spoke too soon. But everywhere else that's known as "Theft by Conversion".

And, y'know, if you'd like to convince me that the way Ms Goodman was treated was not part of a concerted effort to steal people's money in the utterly predictable event of a fast-food restaurant running out of an item--or, for that matter, a customer changing his mind--which operated in part by assuring that no one in a supervisory position would be available to correct the problem without a long delay, you may start talking.

Here's another thing we know: we know the mass-market media flogged the incident in a knowingly misleading fashion because "Woman Calls 911 Over Missing McNuggets" is seen as a ratings grabber--and what that says about 'em is enough right there--while "Major National Advertiser Systematically Short-Changes Customers" somehow is not. The pampered pets reading this stuff off the teleprompter--who get the opportunity, while they're at it, to sneer at the $3.50 involved, or roughly what they're paid each morning to tweeze one eyebrow--would never have dreamed of calling 911 had they been victimized. They'd have called Corporate, and two minutes later the McDonald's Regional VP of Media Relations would have roller-skated in offering to perform vigorous and enthusiastic anilingus while they waited for the chopper to arrive with fresh hot McNuggets from California, where stringent consumer protection laws require them to know what the chickens actually died of.

Of course, if she'd just thought to bring along a finger she'd have been a media darling for 48 hours. Plan ahead.

The capper is that the exercise almost certainly winds up costing Kroc Full O'Crap money, since the over/under on Number of Lawyers on Ms Goodman's Doorstep One Hour Later is six.

Like many other Issues of the Day this brings me to local teevee "news", or as I like to call it, Competitive Teleprompter Phonetics. These would be the people who last Friday brought us the sad story of Ringo, the Jack Russell terrier found dead, having been killed, his owner said, by coyotes. The man had seen the marauding beasts just outside his property, he said, pointing to the land just beyond the fence he didn't have. (This was one of those treeless Burghervilles in Greenwood, the former-pastureland Indianapolis suburb just over the border in Dixie, so I'm not sure that they actually have a law requiring dogs to be fenced in. For that matter, I'm not sure it's illegal there for siblings to marry.) Anyway, two days later a tiny notice appeared inside the Metro section of the Sunday Racist Star, quoting a Department of Natural Resources investigator as saying it wasn't a coyote, that coyotes generally do not attack dogs, and that the culprit was most likely a wild dog. To my knowledge none of the locals rushed a film crew out so we could hear the man set the record straight; if anybody covered it at all I missed it. But then, you know, dogs=cute, full of tricks, faithful companions; coyotes=chaotic, scary, and publicly-fornicating Nature intruding on McHomes thrown up incontinently and zoning-free on Its habitat, which It obstinately refuses to recognize as Its former habitat. Sorta like 21st century Apaches.

The locals were cheered yesterday when Nestlé announced it'd be adding a few hundred jobs, long-term, in war-torn Anderson, IN, and they got to return to the cheerleading mode they were in during Mitch "Small Beer" Daniels' just concluded fourteen-month reelection campaign. I swear I'm not exaggerating. The Channel 8 anchors--both got a piece of the story; one imagines them fighting like kids in the back seat before the Solomonic decree that settled that one--were in an obvious state of excitement, and not just the professional excitement mode they break out for the routine puffery of church bazars and Billy Joel concerts. They use that so much I know it better than I do my wife's moles. The news was so big that Governor Mitch "How's the Weather Down There?" Daniels actually left his bunker and was sighted for the third time since November. Of course, the Nestlé folks gave him a big pair of scissors and a ribbon to cut, a combination guaranteed to lure Mitch like doughnuts lure his police escort.

A few minutes later came the latest advice on How You Can Save Money, as told to you by the same over-paid personalities who were, as recently as three months ago, telling you about all the fucking electronic gimcracks it'd be a sad Christmas if you didn't buy.

They have no fucking idea; once the price of gasoline fell and they adjusted to the necessity of staying in their present homes a little longer, these people lost fucking touch again. And these are goddam mid-market locals. If you told David Gregory he couldn't get a refund on his McNuggets, you'd be the one in jail.

This is why, though I've sorta gone back-and-forth about it, I think the Rush Limbaugh: Head of the GOP bit is absolutely brilliant. I honestly had no idea this administration had it in 'em. I was all but convinced to begin with that they'd never stick with it, and I'm still agnostic about that, but if they do it's pure gravy. Limbaugh can't do anything but double-down every time he's attacked (although he did try to back-peddle his way out of that "I want Obama to fail" routine by trying to morph it into Obama's plan, the fat coward). He's the goddam Jake LaMotta of Political Blubberweights. He can't go down; he can only throw more haymakers. Keep the spotlight on this guy and sooner or later his 911 McNuggets moment will come (I mean his next one) and this time they'll be showing it on the nightly news instead of pretending they've never heard of him.