Start Spreading The News...

...it's up to you, New York, New York:

1) An embattled Gov. Paterson yesterday strongly denied rampant rumors of extramarital affairs and drug use as he blasted the media for printing "callous and sleazy" allegations. (ed. note Mind you, he came to office acknowledging he has an open marriage, with his wife standing at his side when he said that)

2) Capital rife with rumors of Paterson's political demise Because nothing says "leave" like a sex scandal. I'm not saying that Patterson isn't a lame duck, and certainly his political actions of late indicate he acknowledges only a slim chance of re-election, so he'll likely drop out of the race, but...

3) (State) Senator's bill calls for expulsion for "egregious misdemeanors" It's intriguing that Pedro Espada is authoring the bill under which Hiram Monserrate would be automatically ejected by the New York State Senate, as both were instrumental in the defection/re-affection to the Democratic party that caused Espada to be selected majority leader in the first place! The man knows dirty politics and plays it like a Mafia kingpin.

4) The political fate of State Senator Hiram Monserrate, a Queens Democrat convicted of assault in a dispute that left his companion with a gash on her face, grew uncertain on Thursday as a special committee recommended that the Senate vote soon on a motion to expel him. Yup. You got that right: an elected official permanently scars a woman's face and his political future is actually possible.

New York's political machinery is starting to resemble the Wild West, only more so.

Obama Derangement Syndrome

Man gets hit by car: blames President.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Apparently, there's good economic news this morning. Watch the markets sink.

 

2) OK, so the Teabaggers are having their "annual" convention. Here's the question: do they organize as a third party or do they create havoc in the Republican party? Either way, Obama gets re-elected.

 

3) If this was 400 years ago, he'd have to commit seppuku.

 

4) Yellowstone is about to erupt. The question is, how big? Minor or supereruption?

 

5) Demon sheep and politics. Keep in mind this was the idiot who tried to put Barack Obama and the word "celebrity" together.

 

6) When you think of a rich actor or actress, you think of someone with star power, someone whose very presence can make or break a film, and is paid accordingly. So it might come as a surprise to discover who the highest paid actress in Hollywood was in 2009.

 

7) It's odd how small town America is so rife with immoral behavior.

 

8) The monkeys have plotted revenge against Darwin.

 

9) Theymay not have gun control in South Carolina, but you do have to register your terrorists.

 

10) Y'know, it's conceivable this might work in the Village, but I doubt offering to blow the cops in Arkansas will get you off (pun intended).

Dude?

What planet you been on for the past twenty year?

President Obama bemoaned the "erosion of civility" in the nation's political debate Thursday, telling an audience at the National Prayer Breakfast that there is a growing sense that "something is broken" in Washington.

"Those of us in Washington are not serving the people as well as we should," Obama said. "At times, it seems like we're unable to listen to one another, to have at once a serious and civil debate."

You've got an entire political party that is hell-bent on destroying the greatest nation on the planet, a party that was willing to allow terrorists the time and space to plot the September 11 attacks for the spiteful pursuit of a goddamn BLOW JOB between consenting adults, and you only just now noticed there's a tad of incivility????

Ex-Galtations!

You've no doubt heard the term "Going Galt". That's where selfish people with an overinflated ego remove themselves from society for perceived insults to their self-sufficiency.

 

I think. The bottom line is, this is a case of addition by subtraction, and should be encouraged and often.

 

Indeed, entire cities are about to experiment with this idea.

 

And while I pray that nothing untoward happens to the city, you know, like a major snowstorm that cripples the roads or the removal of interstate highway funding for the sections of freeways that run thru the domain...*hinthint*...I can't help but rub my hands in glee, a little:

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

The more insane-- I mean, the more strident-- voices on the far right have long advocated the privatization of all public services. I'm guessing they didn't read history or perhaps their home-school didn't really cover it, since history is not needed to play football.

 

For a very long time, local, state, and federal governments provided very little in the way of services: an army, a post office, a central bank.

 

People died. People starved. People watched their houses burned since they couldn't afford private contractors to put them out. People were robbed on the streets and cops wouldn't lift a finger to stop it. Why? Wrong corner.

 

Indeed, the very essence of liberal ideology was to reverse this horrible thought, that people have to fend for themselves in a Christian nation. We fixed those, or so we thought, and moved onto bigger and more important, yet more subtle, problems.

 

Not only have we slipped on the ground running towards those, things like healthcare reform, but now we find ourselves sliding back a slope to re-fight battles already long-won.

 

Except, this is a fight we may not have to fight. Indeed, I'd advocate losing. Colorado Springs is a very conservative town (home to the Air Force Academy) and if any town would once and for all put paid to the ridiculous idea of self-sufficiency, why not make it a town where the majority of people support the idea?

 

So I urge my readers to pack your household garbage, go visit Colorado Springs, the Littering Capital of the World, and leave it in their many beautiful, wondrous public parks.

 

Go ahead! No one's going to give you a ticket!

So...I'm Having Lunch With Al D'Amato....

(no joke, by the way. I walked into my local establishment and sat down next to him, and one thing led to another)

 

...and I have this idea for cutting the deficit while cutting out a lot of the lobbying shit.

 

We're running a trillion dollar deficit, right?

 

So how about, President Obama gathers all 535 representatives and Senators at the White House, and tells them, "For every dollar of the deficit you can cut, I will give you 10 cents."?

 

Think about it: one trillion dollars at ten percent is one hundred billion dollars, divided by 535 is roughly $200 BILLION DOLLARS.

 

Name one lobby that would even donate one percent of that figure to the combined campaign funds of all the congresscritters.

The Other White Meat

Oddly enough, wood-smoked bacon is pretty erotic....

 

So is the woman who is quoted:

It's Hard To Believe...

...we've gone nearly three whole years without a terror attack warning:

WASHINGTON—The U.S.'s top intelligence officials said Tuesday that an attempted al Qaeda attack on the U.S. in the next three to six months was "certain."

An official also said the Nigerian who allegedly attempted to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day was again cooperating with federal investigators. Republicans have accused the administration of squandering a chance to gain valuable intelligence from the suspect by using the civilian court system to charge him, instead of declaring him an enemy combatant and subjecting him to more interrogation.

Not coincidentally, the faux warnings under Bush stopped the minute Traitor Karl Rove left the White House. But I digress...

 

We're going to have to live with the fact that terror threats will always be with us. Not to the extent they are with Israel, or India or Pakistan, or any other nation not in this hemisphere (and some that are). As our infrastructure ages and is replaced, new security measures will be build-ins to the new facilities, and we'll stop noticing much of that legacy of Al Qaeda.

 

For now, tho, we'll need to be reminded every so often of the dangers we face. The Christmas Day bomber was one abrupt reminder, also an abrupt reminder that Al Qaeda has always liked to test new Presidents when they first take office, and wouldn't you know it, the Obama administration passed the test first time out.

 

Too, we'll have to remain vigilant against copycat organizations mimicking Al Qaeda's tactics. Fortunately, we don't seem to have pissed anyone else off lately, and getting rid of Bush and the GOP hegemonic moron class has settled the feathers that were ruffled. Things do change, though, and a bad world economy makes it more likely that new groups will pop up, angry at and jealous of America, Americans, and the relative good life we lead.

 

Maybe once China takes over the top spot as the most powerful economy on the planet (right now, they sit number three), and the oppression of Uighurs takes more of the spotlight in the radical Muslim world, we can breathe a little easier. Maybe.

 

Or maybe through some bizarre eddy of political evolution, Sarah Palin is elected in 2016, and the flame ignites once more against us.

 

Look, people were willing to let Americans have a pass on the first Bush election. They even gave us a pass on his re-election. They cheered the election of Barack Obama, but the overseas opinion of the American people's generosity and selflessness took a hit over the previous eight years.

 

And now, with the debate over helping Haiti, and the recent Supreme Court decision that basically allows political candidates to become sponsored like NASCAR drivers, Americans are looking pretty idiotic. We won't get the same outpouring of love and sympathy on the next attack, when that happens.

 

Just so you're prepared for the reaction. It's going to feel ugly, but it will be deserved.

Staten Island Chuck

This morning on radio station Q104.3, a discussion was raised about Groundhog Day, specifically, why is it that Punxsatwaney Phil gets all the glamour when New York's own Staten Island Chuck gets the weather right. Phil has a 39% accuracy rate. Chuck is up around 80%.

 

I have the answer: it's the name.

 

Face facts: when you think of New York, specifically, when you think of Staten Island, "Chuck" is not the first name to jump out in your mind.

 

I mean, unless you're a Senator, of course.

 

To put it bluntly, "Staten Island Chuck" sounds like something on the menu of a second rate steakhouse in Nashville. "I'd like the Staten Island Chuck, medium well, and an Old Milwaukee, please?"

 

And to be honest, it's New Jersey that eats rodents, not New York.

 

Our groundhog needs a name with pizzazz. Punxsatawney Phil is a great name for a groundhog from the east of Pennsylvania, near State College (and the esteemed Glen Campbell, PA). You can almost picture him putting on a hard hat for his job at a mill in Aliquippa.

 

Staten Island Chuck is a guy who owes you money.

 

So I emailed the station this morning and suggested a name change, a name that reflects not only the grandeur of New York City, not only the diversity and cultural distinctiveness of its boroughs, but is instantly recognizable to billions of people around the world as a "Noo Yawk" name.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "Staten Island Vinnie"!

 

 

 

Now THAT'S a groundhog!

 

 

What Are They Gonna Do? Make Him Clean Erasers?

I think China might be overestimating their worth:

On Friday the Obama administration signed off on a $6.4 billion (£4 billion) arms package for Taiwan. China, which claims the island, had repeatedly warned against the sale and retaliated by vowing to punish US companies.

Obama may butt heads with Beijing again in the coming weeks if he meets the Dalai Lama. The two nations also have a number of trade rows including Google's threat to leave China over the hacking of political activists' email accounts.

Officials and experts doubted that Obama was seeking to antagonise China. Rather, they said he had long planned to sell arms to Taiwan and meet the Dalai Lama but wanted first to develop a good rapport with Beijing.

Maybe next time, guys, you'll get on board with sanctions against Iran, which has shown a marked tendency these past few days towards antagonist behavior.

 

Here's the thing: China holds our purse strings in their hands. We can ill afford to antagonize them unnecessarily, lest they call in that one trillion dollars in notes and bonds they hold.

 

Except...

 

That's one trillion dollars that would deflate a $500 billion annual trade deficit the US runs with China, meaning that within two years, the US would basically balance its books with China. It would devalue the dollar and by extension, the yuan (which is tied pretty closely to the dollar), and destroy the Chinese economy.

 

It would be a Pyrrhic victory, to be sure. Call it Mutually Assured Destruction Economically (MADE).

Is China willing to go there over the Dalai Lama, and prove him right to boot, that the Chinese political system is bankrupt and that the rise of materialism in China will ultimately destroy the nation? Is it willing to go there over Taiwan?

 

Short answer: no. It's not. China has many advantages over America, from the sheer mass of people to make up a brute labor force or army, to a recent history of living well below their means for extended periods of time.

 

It is not, however, suicidal, particularly as it sees a chance for vindication and redemption after millennia of being taken for granted, of being held captive, of being second class to the west.

 

Obama is correct to act with impunity here, particularly considering that his initial overtures to China were met with open hostility, diplomatically speaking. The talks with the Dalai Lama are of less concern to China than the blatant arming of Taiwan (which, unlike Cuba, still has some worth strategically). Obama is wise to position his pieces in the event that the world turns in a direction that sees America in mortal danger from Iran.

 

The timing of this contretemps is interesting as well: Iran has threatened something, no one knows for sure what, for February 11. That's the thirtieth anniversary of the deposition of the Shah, and Ahmadinejad (who for typing's sake ought to be deposed himself) has said he will do something that will shock the world.

 

That Obama is making a stand now, before the 11th, signals to me that he is lumping China's intransigence over Iran into meting out the consequences of whatever will happen in the 11th.

 

Nukes? I doubt it, but it never hurts to be prepared. Chemical attacks? The destruction of Israel? All unlikely, but none impossible. Certainly the IDF has operated on the assumption these past months that their nation is in imminent danger from Iran, and if there's one thing the IDF does well, it's identify danger to Israel.

 

And the Pentagon is taking notice.

 

In the meantime, Iran is making nice with neighbors that border it to the east and north, specifically the "Stan" states, like Azerbaijan. Certainly, we can take this as a signal of closer ties to Russia and/or China. Look for reactions from Putin (via Medvedev) in support of Hu Jintao. That will be key.

 

But hey, American Idol is on tonight. You don't need to know we're that much closer to nuclear annihilation!

I Wonder If I Can Take Her Back To My iPad?

Only...why does she look so much like Ann Coulter?

Separated At Birth? I mean, Manufacture?

From Your Friends At Ralph Spoilsport Motors

This just in from one of the funniest men on the planet, Phil Proctor:

 

PERSPECTIVES

This morning I was awakened by my alarm clock powered by

electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated

by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in

the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After

that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels

to see what the National Weather Service of the National

Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined

the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed,

built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of

US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the

drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and

Drug Administration.

 

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and

kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Tech-

nology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile

and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and

federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to

purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the

Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued

by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit

any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service

and drop the kids off at the public school.

 

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at

work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the

Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health

Administration, enjoying another two meals which again do

not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back

home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned

down in my absence because of the state and local building

codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been

plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the Internet which was developed by the

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and post on

free republic and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in

medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

 

 

Thought For The Day

Given the SCOTUS ruling last week, when two corporations merge, will that be a gay marriage?

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

I suspect that by the time the midterm election passes, you'll be sick of hearing that phrase, but...well, it's important.

 

And here's why :

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The economy's 5.7 percent growth last quarter -- the fastest pace since 2003 -- was a step toward shrinking the nation's 10 percent unemployment rate.

There's just one problem: Growth would have to equal 5 percent for all of 2010 just to lower the average jobless rate for the year by 1 percentage point.

And economists don't think that's possible. [...]

Another way of looking at it: A net total of about 3 million jobs would have to be created this year to lower the average unemployment rate by 1 percentage point for 2010, economists estimate. Yet even optimists think the creation of 1 million net jobs is probably out of reach this year.

That's the conservative Republican legacy, folks! Thirty years of trickle down economics, of outsourcing, of cutting employment costs to the bone, have created an unemployment figure that will take six or seven years of astounding (and inflationary!) growth, just to lower the jobless rate back to the "full employment" level of 5% unemployment.

 

This is not to say that a liberal policy would have prevented unemployment in a time of economic crisis.

 

It is saying that the economic crisis would have been mitigated and the employment hemorrhage staunched with a liberal policy of protecting jobs, national health insurance, and a tamping down of the idiotic "me too-ism" of giving corporations more rights than individuals.

 

Conservatives put down the palying field here, folks. Liberals have had to respond in kind where necessary, holding our noses and jumping in despite the fact that it goes against our natures to delve into this kind of dirty business.

 

Economic royalty has had its due. I suspect it's in for a rude awakening in the 21st century. That ham-fisted attempt to corrupt the political process by a Supreme Court so up the asses of corporate America they ought to wear NASCAR-like sponsorships will not stand, and the politicians in Congress and the White House will only take the first steps to smooth ruffled feathers, but never enact real reform.

 

This is not a right vs. left issue. This is an Americans vs. Plutocracy issue, despite whatever nonsense Glenn Beck is spouting, masquerading as "populism".

Eagle Ray In Flight Over Bonaire

Eagle Ray In Flight Over Bonaire
Originally uploaded by actor212

I've been editing video from my vacation all morning, and put this together quickly.

Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin

Give the man credit for guts

In a public display of bipartisanship, President Obama ventured into the heart of Republican territory today where he told an intensely skeptical audience hostile to most of his policies that he's fed with business as usual in Washington.

I fully anticipate a similar lecture will be given, perhaps at this year's Netroots Nation gathering.

 

And it will be well-deserved.

 

Can't Have It Both Ways, Folks!

This is stupid

 

I'd bet good money that, over the past thirty or forty years, more deaths and destruction of the environment can be chalked up to fossil fuel power generation than to all the nuclear incidents, bombs included, since the atom was split.

 

We want to improve the environment and we can start now. I don't suggest nuclear be made part of a long term permanent solution but GODDAMMIT, folks! Get with the program! It's a start, and it's a good start and in the decade it will take to scale up renewable energy sources to emit the kind of power at a cheap cost, we can wean ourselves off oil, natural gas and especially coal.

 

Good grief, grow the fuck up already!

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) What to make of this: Osama bin Laden giving financial advice? Presumably, smarter people than me are taking note of this, and thinking what I'm thinking, that Al Qaeda's next target will strike right at the heart of the American financial system. Maybe he saw Die Hard With A Venegeance?

 

2) Nooooooooooooooooo! Really? Where the fuck were you when we were bankrupting the national treasury for this foolishness?

 

3) Legitimate complaints about the iPad are starting to roll in. And some criticism that is just silly, jealous, and bitter. One thing is undeniable: no other company on the planet could stop traffic with a product roll-out the way Apple did.

 

4) I'm surprised he didn't blame "sugar-titted Jews." 

 

5) Apparently, President Obama reads Simply Left Behind.

 

6) Homegrown terrorism.

 

7) Recession? What recession? So corporate America is making money hand over fist, while 10%, maybe 20%, of Americans struggle for jobs.

 

But hey, let's blame the President and not the greedy fucking economic royalists who squeeze every last living dime out of a dying populace!

 

8) There's just something....uneasy making...about this headline: Anne Hathaway Collects Hasty Pudding

 

9) We're Number One! (Well, sort of...) USA! USA! USA!

 

10) That's not a shahk! This is a shahk!

Throw Away Your Tinfoil Hat!

Advances In Modern Medicine

 

Now if they can only find the car keys I left on the shuttle from Procyon.

Falling Off A Crazy Cliff

RIP JD

 

Any author who can so accurately describe a lost weekend deserves my respect.

Soak The Rich?

I'm all for it. So is Oregon.

 

Here's the interesting bit: the rich take far more advantage and have been rewarded to a far greater degree, than the rest of the country. I can say that as one of the fairly well off.

 

We don't have more lavish rest rooms than the average American, unless we, you know, buy them, stuff like that, but we do get treated really nicely in our really nice communities and by the really friendly merchants whom we frequent. We have really good police and fire protection. We have really good garbage pick up, and if we run into a problem like a pothole on the street, we pick up the phone and call our local representative, and it gets fixed.

 

Money will do that.

 

In turn, we are expected to plow our money back into the community, not stash it away. We're expected to employ people, spend money to create jobs, and pay a bit more in taxes than the average American.

 

I've never had a problem with that. After all, America's resources have been very good to me. I owe it to my country. It's my civic duty as a patriot.

 

So as I watch the uproar over higher taxes, both at the Federal as well as the state and local levels, and I hear others, many of whom stand no chance of being even as well-off as I am (and I'm not that rich, believe me) much less joining the ranks of the uberwealthy, I begin to get a sense of where this nation is headed.

 

When states like New York and Oregon stand up to the wealthy and say "Pony up, we need the money," most do it, some even gladly. A few, like certain morbidly obese talk-radio hosts, leave for greener pastures.

 

But here's the thing: those states will eventually have to either raise taxes or cut services. One reason Florida is a popular destination is its low tax rates. Another is, its former governor was the brother of the former President, and so landed an awful lot of earmark money from Congress and that administration.

 

That's going to stop. It's just a matter of time. So when Florida begins to decay in terms of services it can provide, what will it do?

 

And what will they do?

 

All it will prove is that I was right from the get-go.

I Know How Christ Matthews Feels

For a while there, I forgot he was a dick.

All Things In Moderation

I confess I did not watch the State of the Union address last night, primarily because I could have written it myself.

 

SOTU speeches are usually full of vigorous promises and hopeful solutions which later get bogged down in the idiocy of groupthink. As someone famous once said, "A person is smart. People. Are. Dumb." That character when on to point out that people are terrified when in large groups.

 

It's true. It's something both sides of the political spectrum exploit, too, altho the Republicans seem to be past masters of it, while Democrats tend to be more obvious in their bloviating.

 

How we perceive something initially on our own becomes a very different story when we've shared that experience with a group of people. Alone, most of us get the facts straight right away, and keep them fairly straight in our heads because we haven't discussed them (this is why jurors are instructed not to discuss the facts of a case until they are in deliberations, by the way). Perception is an individual thing, and how I see something will be very different than how you see it.

 

We compare notes, and what usually ends up happening is, absent a convincing argument by the smarter party (usually involving his or her authority or experience), both sides end up tailoring the story to fit the lower common denominator.

 

Now multiply that by hundreds, thousands, millions.

 

Or Congress.

 

The general perception of last night's speech, while scanning the opinions of people on the Internet, is the left feels Obama has sold them out, throwing a crumb here or there, while the right is touting Obama as some wild-eyed angry savage (Yup. Subtle racism is still rampant on the right!)

 

It doesn't matter. What does matter is whether the follow through on the promises made is effective or not. You see, Americans are not opposed to left wing OR right wing solutions...that work. The only way they will work is if they are enacted which requirtes Congress to put aside the rancor, drub the minority as deep in the shit as possible, and start passing bills (or as with Bill Clinton, they can be enacted by fiat, but after eight years of George Bush, I can't imagine the American people will sit still for yet another childish cowboy throwing tantrums).

 

Read the promises. Read the speech. Then pick one topic, one promise, and get your Congresscritters attention on it.

 

It couldn't hurt, and activism may actually help save our democracy.

There's A Lap For That

I want it, I want it, I want it, I want...

 

My biggest concern when apprising the rumours regarding the Apple iPad (formerly the iTablet) were how much flesh I'd have to give up to have it, and whether I'd have to cancel my iPhone contract prematurely in order to have one.

 

Turns out, not so much. I didn't think this would replace the iPhone, since a) it's too big to stick in a pocket and b) it would have cannibalized sales of the new 3GS just as that was hitting the markets in Asia.

 

But, it's a nifty little travel Mac. It's most like the Macbook Air, which means it's basically useless as anything other than a device you'd take to the beach to read a book or around town to upload photos with.

 

But the price might make that usefulness turn into downright utility. At $499 base price (without 3G, with 16G of memory, or the low-end iPhone current capacity), it's a Kindle on steroids, a portable television (HD, no less), and that alone make it comparable to buying two devices (a good DVD player and a Kindle).

 

The top end, 3G capable, 64G storage (flash memory only, which means this thing will zoom) will go for $849, absent a data plan (AT&T announced a $30 per month plan, no contract, but the iPad has already been cracked for use with any other network you can sign up with).

 

Still not bad, still in keeping with Apple's premium pricing policy, and yet, still not a netbook per se.

 

But not bad. Not bad at all even at the low end.

Where No Man Has Gone Before...

...at least in the last thirty years:

Reports say when the White House releases their budget proposal, there will be no money for the program that was supposed to return astronauts to the moon by 2020.

Reports say NASA will instead look at developing a new "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit.

One year ago President Obama had backed a Moon return mission in the NASA budget.

There's an abounding irony in the fact that a Republican president, desperat to reverse his sagging polls numbers amidst the long-standing accusation of intellectual uninterest in the world around him, propsed not only a return to the moon, but an eventual manned landing on Mars, while the Democratic president whose intellectual curiousity teems across his life has proposed stifling that ambition.

 

The budget, you see, affects more than just our paychecks. It affects our humanity.

 

I grew up in the Space Age. The world had a future. Space had a future. Mankind had a future.

 

Forget colonizing other planets in our solar system! Yea, we'd establish outposts and such and do experiments. Maybe hippie communes might spring up, but space had a wealth of resources that we could use to improve the human condition.

 

Offshoring manufacturing would take on a whole new meaning as we'd head out to the asteroid belt, pick an appropriate rock and as we dragged it back to high earth orbit, begin to refine out metals and chemicals, processes that pollute our environment horribly. The dollar cost of the mission would be more than offset by the real savings to the environment, to the air, earth, and water, to Gaia.

 

We would beam back energy from solar panels floating at Lagrange points around the earth in stable orbits. No more war for oil. Sure, there'd be money to be made, but if someone tried to corner the market, someone else would fire up a rocket and deploy his or her own satellite.

 

And that's just the beginning. The technologies that grew out of the space program, everything from Tang to hazmat equipment to the modern computer, have served us well and one can only imagine what new technoloies could come from the needs of the astronauts.

 

A country is suffering a drought? It might be cheaper to drag a comet to low earth orbit and make it rain into that country's reservoirs than to bring it by the bottle or boatload across a sea. A nation needs a tourist attraction, a way to bring people to it? Well, if it has a nice climate and a lot of flat open space, it could offer to build a spaceport.

 

The cultural impact of space exploration cannot be ignored. Neither can it be put off. Eventually, someone is going to realize that we don't have a lot of time or space left on this planet, and if we start now, it will be cheaper in the long run. While I can appreciate the budgetary needs of the Federal government in this time of belt-tightening and counting pennies, this is something that needs to be kept on the table year after year, as a reminder of what it means to be human.

President Mike?

Repetition is the sincerest form of mockery:

NEW YORK -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg insists that hiring Hillary Rodham Clinton's former media strategist is not a step toward a possible presidential run.

Howard Wolfson helped Bloomberg win a third term last year and is coming to work at City Hall as an adviser.

You may recall he said the same thing in 2008 before finally deciding to endorse Barack Obama for President against Hillary Clinton.

 

That's how early he gave up the ghost. Likely, Bloomberg calculated the economy's toll on a Presidency and decided that he'd rather someone else pick up the slack. If he runs in 2012, he'll have the benefit of four years of Obama's attempts (success or failure) to revitalize the economy.

 

Too, there are rumours running around that Obama is pondering just a one-term run. This is all probably just hedging his bets, freeing him to be Presidential, but you know...you can do that and still win re-election. In fact, I've long maintained that the best Presidents are those who aren't guaranteed a second term by dint of a first term blowout election (like Bill Clinton, who won only a plurality in 1992).

 

Still, that Bloomberg has locked up Howard Wolfson, who did a pretty good job selling Hillary Clinton, altho he could have done better, and stowing away his billions to gear up for a run has got to be disconcerting to someone like Sarah Palin, who would find it very hard to argue with Bloomberg's skills as an administrator or a candidate.

Populism! If You Can Afford It...

It is to laugh...

A Tea Party convention billed as the coming together of the grass-roots groups that began sprouting up around the country a year ago is unraveling as sponsors and participants pull out to protest its expense and express concerns about "profiteering."

The convention's difficulties highlight the fractiousness of the Tea Party groups, and the considerable suspicions among their members of anything that suggests the establishment.

The convention, to be held in Nashville in early February, made a splash by attracting big-name politicians. (Former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech.) But some groups have criticized the cost — $549 per ticket and a $9.95 fee, plus hotel and airfare — as out of reach for the average tea partier. And they have balked at Ms. Palin's speaking fee, which news reports have put at $100,000, a figure that organizers will not confirm or deny.

There's a certain irony that a supposed "grass roots movement" would price itself out of hearing the voices of the people it supposedly represents, like working and middle class voters, afraid and angry at the targets of the rhetoric that the real voices represented, the coal and oil industries, the rich and powerful, have been waging.

 

Interestingly, they have taken a page out of American history: the original Sons of Liberty (you might recall them as the Boston Tea Partiers) were an elitist group of wealthy Northeastern landowners and middle class merchants who were tired of taxation by the British crown.

 

You know, the liberal coastal elite!

 

Indeed, the American Revolution, the spawning "Of the people, by the people and for the people", was in reality a movement of the artistocracy in this country, and the laws passed by the Continental Congresses reflected this, particularly when it came to human rights (votes were limited to white males who owned property, as an example).

 

The SoL did eventually expand their ranks because, let's face facts, a revolution goes nowhere unless it has popular support. Even at its height, the American Revolution had plenty of people, rich and poor, who really preferred to remain status quo. Chapters of the Sons opened in every colony, and recruited a fair number of men (and a few women) to their ranks.

 

But, I doubt they would have charged the equivalent of $450 to attend a Tea Party!

Republican Rape Of America

Well, here we go again! Eight years of Republican preznidentin' and...

 

Item I - Decade of Decline in U.S. Teen Pregnancies Ends.

 

Item II - Welfare rolls up in '09; more enroll in assistance programs

 

 But hey, the Republicans are the party of personal responsibility, while the Democrats are the socialists who want to see everyone on welfare!

Tenth Avenue Freezeout

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

 WASHINGTON — President Obama will call for a three-year freeze in spending on many domestic programs, and for increases no greater than inflation after that, an initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit, administration officials said Monday.

 

The officials said the proposal would be a major component both of Mr. Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday and of the budget he will send to Congress on Monday for the fiscal year that begins in October.

The freeze would cover the agencies and programs for which Congress allocates specific budgets each year, including air traffic control, farm subsidies, education, nutrition and national parks.

On the face of it, this budget freeze makes a lot of sense, even if it has the liberal wing of the nation in a flutter.

 

Look, not to put too fine a point on this, and at the risk of my liberal cred, I think Obama might have a point here: there's only so much we can spend, and unfortunately, much of that stimulus spending, as Joe Klein points out, nearly $600 billion of the $787 billion package went directly to taxpayers and the services they count on day to day.

 

Much of the rest went to public works projects that will create jobs...once the money starts getting spent. The trouble is, it was left up to Congress to deal with which shovel-ready projects would be picked, a bad idea in the best of times, a worse idea in an era of absolute partian rancor.

 

We're facing trillion dollar budget deficits, of which some ten to twenty percent can be attributed to the legacy of the Bush administration...unless of course you want to lay blame for the current recession at his feet as well, in which case, well, 100% of the trillions in annual debt is his. I don't think he's as much to blame for causing this economic collapse as much as he facilitated it.

 

Economies collapse under all regimes and administrations...except, curiously, Democratic ones, but I digress. It doesn't matter if it's a democracy, monarchy, tyranny, what have you: economies are cyclic.

 

The budgets he's proposed to freeze amount to about a sixth of annual government spending, so will lower deficits a little. It would be nice, hell, it would be revolutionary, if Obama actually proposed cutting the military budget a little as an acknowledgement that we are no longer fighting two wars, but a war and a half. That would actually make a difference in the deficit.

 

I don't know how this plays out: what taxes Obama will be forced to raise after the November elections, what actual budget cuts will be made. But I do know that all he really has to play with right now are things on the fringe of the budget and with the budget as frayed as it is, the fringe is a lot closer to whole cloth than we'd like.

 

We have to have patience here.

This Is Why I Publish Books Under A Pseudonym

John Edwards Has a Sex Tape

 

Um. Ewww? Now, he's a handsome man, alright, and I'm fairly sure there will be a market for this, but...it's not Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. Nothing worse than a soft middle aged white guy doing the nasty on camera.

 

Like I said, this is why I won't publish under a known name.

 

Hell, it isn't even Rob Lowe and some faceless nameless hooker.

Joe Klein and Good Sense

Never thought I'd ever type that in the same line, but....

Absolutely amazing poll results from CNN today about the $787 stimulus package: nearly three out of four Americans think the money has been wasted. On second thought, they may be right: it's been wasted on them. Indeed, the largest single item in the package--$288 billion--is tax relief for 95% of the American public. This money is that magical $60 to $80 per month you've been finding in your paycheck since last spring. Not a life changing amount, but helpful in paying the bills.

The next highest amount was $275 billion in grants and loans to states. This is why your child's teacher wasn't laid off...and why the fire station has remained open, and why you're not paying even higher state and local taxes to close the local budget hole.

People are idiots, and American people doubly so. They swallow the garbage whole and then wonder why they keep crapping trash.

File Under "Things You Didn't Know"

Bubblewrap is fifty years old today.

 

Now, this might not surprise anyone under, say, 30, but bubblewrap as a popular shipping material was not widely used until the late 1990s when shipments of computer equipment and other sensitive technology items to which styrofoam might stick and damage became more and more regular.

The Tablet Comes Down From The Mountain

Anyone who's known me a long time knows I'm a buttboy for Apple products.

 

I've long admired Apple computers, but until fifteen years ago, my income was insufficient to justify purchasing one. Yes, I know the ramble: Apple comes preloaded, no viruses, lower costs to maintain, yadayadayada, so the cost to own is comparable to a cheap PC. I know this because I bought into it eventually. It didn't matter in 1988. I bought a PS-1 for $800. I ended up plowing another couple of hundred on RAM and a hard drive, so yes, eventually it cost as much as a good Mac.

 

Maybe if Apple had introduced a lay-away plan back then, its market share would be healthier, but I digress.

 

When I bought my first Mac, a Performa 6360CD, despite that particular model's deep design flaws and the absolutely inscrutable nature of the Apple product line at the time, I fell in love. Here was a computer that actually thought one step ahead of me. Instead of responding to demand, it anticipated my needs. You could tell it had been created by a design team, not a bunch of marketers (altho the Performa, later models would prove, had a lot of input from the Marketeers).

 

It's gotten so bad that I recently traded in my iPhone 3G for an iPhone 3GS, and now I have cause to re-evaluate even that upgrade. The iTablet (or iSlate, as it's rumored to be called).

 

Now, the iSlate sounds like it will be an impressive product: a reader to compete with the Kindle, a gaming console that will take on at least the Wii in terms of sophistication, graphics and oh yes, motion control, and a netbook (my real reason for coveting it), if all this can come in at a price point closer to $500 than $1,000, Apple will have yet again redefined an entire market.

 

Or four. the reader, the gaming console (especially on the tail end of a disappointing holiday season which saw no real upgrades to the big three systems) and the netbook. And the desktop PC.

 

The desktop PC is starting to get long in the tooth as a way for the average person to be connected. The smart phone revolution, particularly after the iPhone, saw to that. Apps that basically take advantage of the concept of cloud computing that you can download to your phone allow you to be mobile and in touch.

 

The only area that Apple will struggle with here, I think, is the netbook. You see, netbooks are cheap pieces of PC crap that are cobbled together with little thought to anything except being able to get data and information from here to there.

 

Apple doesn't do cheap. They've said so in the past that the netbook is a market they'll concede. At least that was true.

 

Too, AT&T, the iPhone's only authorized US service, has refused to unlock tethering, or using your iPhone (or data account) to access the Internet from a laptop or 3G modem (a development which simultaneously pissed me off and intiated my sole attempt to hack the AT&T network).

 

My suspicion is, the iSlate is the reason why. I imagine that AT&T will allow tethering only if you have an existing iPhone account, or buy a data plan when you purchase the iSlate.

 

If AT&T is clumsy enough to insist that you have a separate account for the iSlate if you already have a contract for the iPhone, it will likely kill the iSlate. If Verizon is the carrier of choice for the iSlate, that will piss off the installed base of iPhone users (something like 8 million in the US, with a predicted jump to 23 million by year's end) who are contractually obligated to stay with AT&T. The logical choice is to offer the iSlate on both networks and force AT&T's hand.

 

Steve Jobs is probably pissed as hell that he's had to genuflect to AT&T's core incompetence. We've seen a woefully slow rollout of the 3G network, serious outages and blind spots where it actually does exist, and a trickle of improvements (waiting two years for picture messaging? Are you kidding?) over the years. Verizon refused the offer of the original iPhone, likely because it had just rolled out its V-Cast services, including music, video and TV shows, and would have been in direct competition with the iTunes store.

 

You don't see many Verizon commercials for the V-Cast service anymore.

 

Anyway, I'll probably grab one when it hits the shelves in June, even if I have to limit it to WiFi use only. It will be a game changer.

Putting His Long Pants On

One of the reasons I endorsed Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in the primaries two years ago was my concern that Obama might not have the ability to put up a tough enough fight, whereas Clinton was battle-tested.

 

Apparently, Obama himself has come to that realization:

WASHINGTON—Coming off one of the most difficult weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama has beefed up his political staff and is expected to deliver an uncompromising State of the Union address. Aides said Sunday that the White House wasn't making any abrupt policy shifts, even as the message was retooled to focus more sharply on job creation.

If anything, an unfinished agenda from 2009 will grow larger as, in addition to tackling health care and unemployment, the president presses for a bipartisan commission to tackle the budget deficit against resistance from Republicans.

White House officials said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe would be brought on as a political consultant as the White House gears up for the midterm elections.

The president's party is facing a stiff headwind from an electorate angry about high unemployment and what they see as ineffectual government, White House officials said. Republican Scott Brown's capture of the Massachusetts Senate seat Tuesday was a first shot in what Democrats worried would be hard-fought contests in November.

Now, I can't really argue much with Obama's decision to try to be bipartisan and conciliatory. After all, we just spent sixteen years dealing with an uberhostile Republican party that was soundly and thoroughly drubbed for two straight election cycles. You'd think they learned their lesson.

 

Too, he was...different...to use a euphemism, so his entire administration was going to be viewed thru a lens different than any other president's would be. He had to grab hold of the same courage that Jackie Robinson did, and be above reproach.

 

But circumstances changed as the economy dropped into the toilet, and the political dialogue of this nation was shaped by a relatively small band of extremists known as Teabaggers. An astute politician would have sniffed the change and changed his strategy. Obama did not, but it might not be too late.

 

And that whole "above reproach" theme, while noble, was shattered as the Teabaggers became more noxious, uglier and more strident in their approach, particularly after lifting Glenn Beck up on their shoulders and carrying him around.

 

Barack Obama came out of the Chicago school of politics, which might actually be nastier and more brutal than its school of economics. I have little doubt that when he decides to roll up his sleeves and stop playing nice in the sandbox, mudpies will be flung. Bringing in David Plouffe, who managed Bob Toricelli's Senate campaign. Toricelli, who came up thru the New Jersey political machine, was a tough-as-nails politician who had no problem in playing dirty.

 

The sense I get from the Plouffe return is President Obama, who has been willing to let things hatch out, looking longer term, needs someone in place to get him to the next step in his vision. Plouffe is a plain-spoken, bare-knuckles, no nonsense type of guy who can do that.

Hoist A Glass: Why I Owe Lizz Winstead A Debt

This, while a sad development, was neither unexpected nor unwelcome.

 

The death of Air America Radio is a little like watching an older more sophisticated sibling die. It served its purpose, tho.

For me, I met a whole slew of new friends and made a few enemies on the blogs there. No problem. I'm a rare jewel, and was happy to make the acquaintances I did.

 

More to the point, however, AAR forced me to blog.

 

When I heard, over and over, from people at AirAmerica that they thought they were alone in the wilderness, that AAR gave them a place where they realized they weren't weird or odd or unique, or worse, outcast, that meant a lot to me, and after much arm twisting by a certain co-blogger of mine, I started this humble little place.

 

I owe it to Al Franken, Rachel Maddow, Lizz Winstead, Randi Rhoades, Marc Maron, Sam Seder, Janeane Garafolo, Mark Riley, Laura Flanders, and Steve Earle. AM talk radio helped people find their voice, and I was one of them.

 

We liberals don't take our marching orders from on high, which is why AAR was doomed from the get-go. We argue and quibble, and come to a consensus. We are not the sheep of the right, listening to Beck or Rush or O'Reilly and bleating "MEGADITTOES!"

 

What Air America did for us was inform us.

 

In the midst of a Bush administration bent on disinformation and warped lying, this was vital. And we started to do our own research and learn our own truths. AAR was never going to make money so it was never going to survive. All it had to do was light a fire.

 

So to my friends, like not_over_it and Mr. Doggity and Lestat de Lioncourt, and CathCatz and Elderta and Ham Jenkins III and Stewardess...my fellow denizens of those days...like Crunchy Knee and Britisher, and the hundreds of others whose names escape me at the moment but who I met and loved and argued with and informed and kidded around with...thank you and I share your pain in this.

 

But think of all the good that's come out of it, folks! AAR may be gone, but forgotten?

 

Never!

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Talk about a slap on the wrist. I realize that going back fifteen or twenty years to when banks had true regulations placed on them like Glass-Steagal and Regulation Q is like regaining your virginity, but come on, Mr. President! You can do better than this. These asshats just destroyed the greatest economy in the history of the planet and have relegated America to a second-tier economic power in perpetuity!

 

2) Learn to speak Chinese is what I'm saying, folks, because you'll need it when all the tourists start descending on America from Beijing.

 

3) And they'll probably be looking to buy a senator or two.

 

4) When I learned that the Bush administration was going to allow lobbyists to write legislation...by the way, does anybody know if Obama actually stopped this?...I thought the country couldn't sink any deeper into the pits of fascism: corporations and government walking hand in hand in a class war against its citizenry. I was wrong. Fucking goddamned Republicans. If I'm ever made king of this country, I will issue an edict declaring Republicans enemies of the state.

 

5) Roe v. Wade is 37 years old today, just about at the end of its fertile cycle.

 

6) Most of them are probably Republicans.

 

7) What a fucking week. You know, you go on vacation, you expect to ramp up working a little bit on either side of it to make up/catch up. I've had to put in so much effort this week that I haven't unpacked yet from my trip and I arrived a week ago, and the attitude I've gotten is almost hostile to the fact I was away, rather than be happy I got a chance to relax a little and recharge my batteries.

 

Add to that the fact that there was a wage freeze the past two years and our bonuses were cut by a cumulative 35%, and I'm starting to feel genuinely unloved here. Pride in a good day's work is all that keeps me plugging away. For now.

 

8) Consider this your obligatory reminder about the Haiti telethon tonight

 

9) Wow! And I thought I've pissed off past girlfriends!

 

10) Next thing you know, the entire Eastern seaboard will be littered with giant Pampers filled with verdigris!!

Rage WITH The Machine?

If you want to begin to come to grips with the Tea Bagger...I mean, Tea Party movement, here's a good place to start:

ONE CAN DEDUCE merely from the titles of' Ann Coulter s books (If Democrats HadAny Brains..., etc.) that diplomacy and shaded opinion are not her strong suits. Why is she so mad?

Maybe because she's a tail, leggy blonde. It's not the trod-upon who are easily-angered, according to recent research from UC Santa Barbara; it's the entitled, Aaron Sell and collaborators make a case for anger as an evolved bargaining tactic. Huffiness promises either the infliction of harm or the withholding of goods. When you don't get a "fair" shake, you flare your nostrils and your adversary recalculates. And the more bargaining power you have—the size of your stick or your carrot—the better treatment you feel you deserve.

In Sell's new studies, men's strength (big stick) and women's self-rated beauty (tasty carrot) both correlate with sense of entitlement, proneness to anger, belief in the effectiveness of personal aggression, and a history of getting one's way. The theory stands up.

If Coulter feels entitled, it could also animate her jingoism; jocks and beauty queens in the studies also supported political aggression. Sell suspects these alphas' pro-war stances are an evolutionary echo of strong men expecting to go to battle themselves (and win), and fair maidens expecting to claim an unfair lot of the spoils. "Political attitudes," he points out, "don't stem from reason,"

A compelling argument, to be sure, made by Matthew Huston, of Psychology Today in the current issue.

Anecdotally, it seems to bear weight, as well. The right wingers I've encountered, the really angry, nasty ones, tend to be people who have already got some (the usual way of phrasing this is "I got mine, Jack!"). Or as the poet put it, when you ain't got nothing, you ain't got nothing to lose.

 

There's a fear underlying this, as well. When you feel you deserve a fair shake and get angry when things don't seem to be going your way, that's about loss. If not a material loss, then one of self-esteem and prestige. Those who have get more easily, mostly because they have already and other people feed into that.

 

Anyway, something to think about when going up against someone like this.

 

Thin Skins

Good grief.

President Obama and his team spent most of last year blaming President G.W. Bush for just about everything that went wrong. So what can we expect from the Bush-bashing White House in 2010? 

There's a lot of "stoopid" in that paragraph. About the only bits they got right were "President Obama" and "2010".

 

I only recall hearing Obama even reference the Bush administration handling of anything once all year, and that was early in the spring when defending the additional bail-out funds paid to the bankstahs. Justifying this outlay, he explained that he was following precedent and that his advisory team said it was a good option to pursue.

 

In other words, he actually praised Bush's decision (even if it was an idiotic one from the get-go and oh yea, so was Obama's follow-through).

 

Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe Obama did blame Bush for Brazil winning the summer Olympics bid...yes, that's IN the article!

 

But I doubt I'm wrong.

 

Who in the hell believes this shit?

 

 

BREAKING NEWS: AMERICA DEAD!

Ball game's over, Charlie.

 

Say goodbye to any voice you and I had in American politics.

Pass It...To Kill It?

Lawrence O'Donnell is one of my favorite DC people. Not because he's particularly bright and only partially because he was deeply involved with the production of The West Wing television series.

He pays attention. That's his strength. You see it when he's interviewing someone, you see it when he's on a panel of bloviators, and you see it in his blogging.

You see, by paying attention, you pick up on nuances and details that others miss. Like the fact that, well, Mitch McConnell has all but passed healthcare reform for Harry Reid already:

In Washington, where everyone is desperate to know what's happening behind closed doors, all you have to do to keep something secret is do it out in the open, preferably on C-Span. Mitch McConnell did exactly that when he entered a unanimous consent agreement with Harry Reid about how to proceed on the health care bill. McConnell knew that agreement was going to make it impossible for Republicans to amend the bill and would put it on a fast track toward passage.

McConnell accepted an agreement brilliantly designed by Reid that required 60 votes to pass an amendment. McConnell did that without anyone noticing anything odd after a year of saturation coverage of the importance of 60 votes in the Senate. Everyone outside the Senate now thinks it takes 60 votes to do anything. Not amendments. Amendments pass by a simple majority, 51 votes. Amendments are usually debated for a couple of minutes or hours or days, then voted on. Once in a while, a 60-vote cloture motion is needed to end debate on an amendment. What McConnell agreed to was an implicit cloture motion in every vote on every amendment, thereby completely surrendering the minority's real power. In all my years in the Senate, I never saw a leader make such a mistake. If it was a mistake.

[...]President Obama threatening to violate a campaign pledge by taxing workers' health care plans is one thing, but actually doing it is a dream come true for Republicans. They know the health care reform bill has a handful of taxes like that, none of which were mentioned by any Democrat in the last campaign. They can't wait to campaign to repeal those taxes. The internal Republican strategy debate now is should we repeal the whole bill or maybe leave some of the more popular sounding bits alone? But how can they run on any kind of repeal if Scott Brown wins in Massachusetts and steps into the Senate just in time to kill Obamacare?

If that happens, and the Democrats then scale back their dreams on cap and trade and other liberal ideas, then maybe moderate independents -- including some of Scott Brown's voters -- might think Mitch McConnell has all the Republicans he needs to keep the Democrats on the moderate course those voters prefer. So who is Mitch McConnell really rooting for in Massachusetts?

Absent the future tense and uncertainty of a Brown win, as I'm late to the party on this column.

It is an interesting note that O'Donnell makes. Mistakes are rarely made in the Senate and hardly ever made by the party leadership. Clearly, McConnell intended to leave himself the out that O'Donnell mentions, the ability to have a tax to rail against in November.

Just as the abortion issue could have been settled in favor of the Republican/conservative caucus at any point over the past 16 years or so by aggressively pursuing legislation to overturn Roe v. Wade or at least drastically limit it (not just the nibbling around the edges that has been passed), Republicans could simply have repeated the strategy they pursued in defeating healthcare reform in 1994: submit endless amendments that would eventually exhaust the chamber.

Four real amendments were submitted as well as five requests to return the bill to committee. All were voted "down" in the regard that they did not pass a 60 vote test.

Sure, the Republicans put on a show of opposition: calling for a reading of the bill on the Senate floor, forcing Senator Byrd to roll in on a wheelchair to vote in the middle of the night. To call this a full-court press to defeat the most socialist piece of legislation in the history of this country (even Social Security doesn't force everyone to carry it, only people earning wages) is ludicrous.

Now, it's possible that McConnell made a mistake. It's possible that, when Reid and McConnell made this agreement, McConnell had polling that showed Americans were so deeply in support of reform that they'd tear apart anyone who behaved badly, and McConnell decided it wasn't going to be his side.

And it's also possible that monkeys might fly out of my butt tomorrow, because this fear was diametrically opposite to the strategy that was pursued, which was to so water down the legislation...what? You thought Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman acted independently out of good conscience?...that no one would like it much.

The election of Brown certainly defeats that possibility...unless of course a rookie Senator can be persuaded to tow the line.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Martha Choakley

It's not the end of the world. Hell, it's not even the end of Obama's presidency. Politics is, after all, the art of the possible and good politicians like Obama can make lemonade out of pisswater.

So what are the real lessons to be learned from Martha Coakley's defeat at the hands of a naked teabagger?

1) Never ever diss Fenway Park, sports fans, or the Boston Red Sox if you want to win a statewide office in Massachusetts. Martha, my dear, when people are hurting, sports comes to the rescue. For most men I know, a sport if not multiple sports is a religion. Treat it that way. That means, yes, standing outside Fenway Park on New Year's Day, shaking the hands of every single Bruins fan you can grab hold of, and talking to them, answering and more important, asking them questions. You will never win in Massachusetts as a Democrat if you can't carry all of Boston, not just the quiet neighborhoods where you can throw cocktail parties and make fun of blue collar workers. Remember the flak Obama took in Pennsylvania for comments recorded in California? It nearly cost him the nomination.

2) Apart from Kennedys, Massachusetts has a shitty Democratic machine. When the chips have been down and we've turned to a Massachusian to lead the way, look at what they've served up: Dukakis, Kerry, now Coakley. And even Mitt Romney, to extend this to a bipartisan level. The MassDems ought to take a good long stone cold sober look at themselves and wonder if maybe they're barking up the wrong tree for campaign funds.

3) Democrats cannot win elections by preaching from on high. See point (1). The party faithful are not a homogenous bunch of sheeple, nearly all white and nearly all Christian, like the Republicans. We aren't as patriarchal and we are not going to be lectured. The only way Democrats win is to engage with the voters, face to face, hand to hand, heart to heart. That last is the most important. Listen, then speak. It's how Obama won, it's how Deval Patrick won, it's how both Clintons won elections. We speak of hope and prosperity, we talk about how Americans are struggling and how they will ldo better under a Democrat because that's what history teaches us. We talk about the values that make America great and how all people need is a fair, level playing field in order to succeed. We don't need to tear down, because we always build up. Hope was a theme of the last two Democratic presidents for a reason, folks!

4) You can't win an election in absentia. I'm not talking about taking a vacation in a truncated election season, altho that couldn't have helped. I'm talking about running a campaign as a surrogate for a beloved politician like Ted Kennedy. There's only one person who could possibly have done that, and Victoria Reggie Kennedy was not in the race. You want to flavor your stump speech with reminders of his tireless work on healthcare and how you want to protect that, that's fine, but don't make it the singleminded focus and the raisn d'etre of your campaign. See point three for what to run on.

What should the Democrats in DC do now?

I'd like to see them take off the gloves. This is the time to recognize that, while Democrats are not sheeple, elected Democrats have to be. Time to bully the Blue Dogs, and kick Lieberman to the curb, use the reconciliation feature of Senate votes and get Obama to release that donor list of his for robocalling on healthcare, on jobs, on deficit reduction. We have less than a year where we can guarantee even an eighteen seat majority in the Senate, so we have a deadline looming on us. We're likely to lose seats as it is, but whether we pass HCR or not, whether we get a jobs program in place or not, we're not going to lose the majority party status. So if we sacrifice one or two Democrats in the cause of advancing the nation, so be it.

Are you listening, Senator Reid?

One Island, Two Nations

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
-- Romeo and Juliet: Prologue

Occasionally, CNN.com does its job right and makes me think. Today was one of those moments:

We are all sick at heart to witness the unfathomable suffering in Haiti. Why do bad things happen to innocent people? Why Haiti, again? Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said recently, "It is biblical, the tragedy that continues to stalk Haiti and the Haitian people."

How we make meaning of this suffering will be crucial to how we respond, in the long term, as a global community.

Why, indeed?

McAlister goes on to explore Haitian faith and the Christian belief that Haiti is playing our the last chapter in the Bible, of famine and floods and earthquakes and war.

Perhaps. And yet, there's a side to this story that doesn't often get mentioned: the eastern half of the island of Hispaniola contains another country: not as poor, quite as Christian, and poised to absorb the nation of Haiti.

Quite the turnaround for a country that had to fight for independence from Haiti.

It's true, for much of its existence, Haiti has been out of favor of the United States and Europe, while the Dominican Republic has enjoyed the benefits of alliances with both. This despite the fact that the DR had engaged in what we would now call "ethnic cleansing," slaughtering Haitians within its borders by the tens of thousands, in an era marked by the spread of totalitarian fascism around the world and the rise of Nazi Germany.

Admittedly, Haiti has a long history of shackling from the West, first as a slave colony, and then with crushing debt incurred in the treaty for independence from France. Indeed, the national bank of Haiti has been looted, literally, no less than four times, including at least once by American troops.

Too, the political unrest in that nation since, well, independence can't have helped any, but riddle me this, Batman: why is American bankrolling uprisings or defending dictators, when we espouse policies of "sovereignty" and "freedom" and "popular choice" on our own people and are trying to cram these down the throats of Iraqis and Afghanis?

Is it any wonder people really don't trust us? They read history, the history we should read but do not. I mean, come on, we were supporting the Duvaliers with economic aid and development!

I don't know that I have the answer to this conundrum, and I expect people with far better knowledge of sociology and political science struggle with a question that seems infathomable to me.

But this simple truth cannot be denied: one island, two nations moving in diametrically opposite directions:
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Hating Haitians

One of the joys of scuba diving is it offers the chance to take vacations in exotic locales off the beaten path (Bon-where, now?).

 

One of the embarrassments of scuba diving is having to explain Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson to people from more civilized and sophisticated societies like France, England, the Netherlands, and "Bon-where, now?"

 

Often, I'm tempted to shrug my shoulders and simply say they're snake oil salesmen who have entire swaths of morons bamboozled by both bilking them for tens of millions of dollars, all while off-putting the blame to someone else. Of course, there's much evidence that even the more mainstream Republican factions are con artists, which makes this not only a tempting trope to leave with, but a facile explanation to boot.

 

I mean, come on! When a dunderhead like Erick Erickson finally begins to see the light about the movement he's helped spawn and launch, it's like Capt. Renault finding gambling at Rick's Cafe Americain!

 

But that's nothing compared to the massive scam being pulled by Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson over Haiti. If Sarah Palin and Michael Steele are pulling in long money over a few books and a convention, you can rest assured that every time Rush Limbaugh or Pat Robertson open their mouths and say something blitheringly, blindingly idiotic, their accountants are grinning from ear to ear.

 

For example, when Robertson says that the earthquake was a "blessing in disguise," was he really referring to religious reform in Haiti? Well, sort of, but the blessings were not for Haitians and not for the afterlife, but for the hundreds of evangelicals and other Christian missionaries who would be getting beaucoup bucks to keep piling on the indigent population to attempt to convert them to a brand of Christianity that is both judgemental and better suited for people with little intelligence.

 

In other words, it benefits Robertson and other Christian Coalitionites.

 

And when Rush actually campaigns against giving to relief efforts (particularly those emanating on the White House website, like, you know, the American Red Cross?), cui bono? Who benefits?

 

As for his ridiculous comments that American taxes go to pay Haitian relief efforts, yes, to the extent that they pay the salaries of officials and soldiers on the ground there, it's true. Those salaries would be paid anyway, however so its not like no earthquake would have magically removed a line item from the budget.

 

Indeed, one could make the argument that Rush himself benefits from those same taxes, ergo he should not be allowed to charge for advertising on his radio program since the airwaves are free.

 

But now try explaining to some fellow diver who's Swiss or Italian the whole phenomenon of a man who rails against taxes or one who calls innocent people "devils" in a free society, not only with little repercussion (the tragedy having far outweighed the outrage, a tactic both Rush and Robertson rely upon) but with the full faith and credit of a significant percentage of Americans supporting them, and not conjure up images of Il Duce or worse.

 

I'm sure I got defensive when discussing them. For that, I apologize, just as I was forced to offer up simple puling of "well, there's a place for all beliefs in America" as explanation.

 

Which I shouldn't have had to. Your not allowed to shout fire in a crowded theater. It's about time we found some way to hold people responsible not only for their actions, but for their words.