Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) In next month's National Geographic magazine is a long investigative article about the flow of undocumented workers north. Not into the US (tho many end up here) but into Mexico. It made me wonder, seeing as I support immigration into this country: We have people who opposed the NAFTA, CAFTA and other intra-Americas trade agreements and oppose illegal immigration, and I'm having a hard time squaring this.

After all, the complaint about the NAFTA is the "giant sucking sound" of our jobs heading south. Yet, the complaint about undocumented workers is they take jobs away from Americans here.

Huh? You can't really have both.

2) When, collectively, the four largest mortgage brokers need ten, no, fifteen times the support that governments have offered, what does that say about our regulatory system? (h/t Agitprop)

Their entire capitalization, by my count, is just under $4 billion. They need fifty times that in order to stay afloat and in business. Now imagine how the banks that actually lent the money are doing...

3) Buh-bye Dennis! Oddly enough, every political views test I take has me most closely aligned with Kucinich, but he never resonated with me. And maybe that's Kucinich's problem: the people he needs to connect with, people like me who can explain his positions in terms that are palatable to the vast majority of moderate Americans, are the people he's turning off.

Meanwhile, the impression I get from scanning Blogtopia (© Skippy The Bush Kangaroo) is that the people who support Kucinich are, well, out there, as if Dennis somehow magically invests them with skin in the political game.

This is like saying that Larry Craig gives gay marriage a fighting chance for respectability, in my view.

4) This is both good news and bad news. Good news, in that it's Egypt that's closing the borders and not an incursive Israeli force. Bad news in that, the impression that I get is that people tore that wall down because they were hungry.

And this should serve as an example to the folks here who want to build a wall against immigration.

5) More biotechnology news. And it's not good. Scientists haven't cloned anything this time. No. They've built an organism from scratch.

See, the thing is, evolution has provided a platform to ruthlessly select those organisms and species that thrive. By creating life, playing God, if you will, man has now added a new element to the mix: a vested interest.

Rather than have organisms adapt to the environment, man will now provide an environment for organisms, and force out other organisms that should under other circumstances have thrived.

Nature doesn't take kindly to these kinds of insults.

6) I'm not sure being Hannah Montana is all it's cracked up to be. First you encourage a six year old to lie at her mother's behest for free tickets to a concert, and now some teenage boy wants to commit suicide by crashing a plane into one of your concerts?

Miley, take a page out of your dad's book: go away. Your fifteen minutes are wayyyyyyyyyyyy over. Perhaps you should go out with a bang. Ask Jamie Lynn Spears how that's working for her.

7) You sure get the sense that Republicans know Obama's toast. They run against Hillary as if Hillary was the incumbent.

By the way, when was the last time any of the GOPpers mentioned the sitting President?

8) A washed up actor endorses a washed up Senator.

My guess is, Stallone snuck into an advance screening of Rambo and realized, "Uh oh, I better create some heat for this turkey!"

Memo to Sly: I think you only get one shot to say goodbye to the audience. You had it with Rocky Balboa (which wasn't horrible, as a Rocky film). Please don't try to make Judge Dredd: The Execution.

9) Hillary did draw blood after all. Obama lead has dropped by seven points since the debate in which Hillary's charge regarding Obama's representation of a slumlord was revealed, and is almost within the margin of error.

This would explain why Hilalry abandoned her strategy of, well, abandoning South Carolina to Bill. I think we may be surprised by the results tomorrow.

John Edwards did pick up two points as well, but I think you can stick the fork in him.

10) Roger Federer lost. No, let me give that the drum roll it deserves. ROGER. FEDERER.

LOST!

Put it this way: Roger Federer is 27 years old. He has twelve Grand Slam tournament titles (the Australian, French (altho he has never won this one), and US Opens and Wimbeldon). For the past two years, he has never failed to make the finals of a Grand Slam tournament.

Today, he lost a title he's held since 2006.

11) Finally, I'd like to salute one of the greatest hockey players of all time, Brian Leetch, whose number was retired by the New York Rangers last night, a team he played 16 seasons for.

For some reason, hockey seems to attract genuine people. There's very little showboating that goes on (possibly because retaliation is encouraged by the league...sort of self-policing behavior), and the players almost to a man seem to be self-effacing and humble. At the top of that pile stood Brian Leetch, a soft-spoken man who led his teams on ice the way you'd want a leader to lead: by examples of courage, skill, but mostly, determination.

When the Rangers needed him, he'd answer the bell, put the team on his back and make them better than they deserved to be at any given moment. Unselfish, except when he needed to be selfish, Brian Leetch did his job, and then some, and he almost always did it well.

He had grace and flair, and could skate with the best of them, but his best skills were the ones that don't show up in the boxscore or highlight reel: he knew how to position himself at all times, was rarely caught flat-footed, and could anticipate plays long before the other team thought them up.

He wasn't my favorite Ranger. That goes to a man who came down to play roller hockey with us, even at the height of his career and seasons, Rod Gilbert.

But he was, arguably, the best Ranger, and certainly the best I'd ever seen.

Thank you, Brian Leetch.

Random Rabid Rantings

Cuz, you know, I don't particularly feel like writing anything serious today...



I'm fifty. I've taken 7.5 million inhales through my nose. It's been a good nose to me, helps hold up my glasses (reading, distance AND sun!), gives me a place to put my finger when it's cold. Yes, it's big but it has character! It's been broken more times than I care to count (OK, eight, I think. I'm not counting the time I bumped it into the monkey bars). It's smelled some wonderful aromas: the scent of a tea rose, the wafting odor of hot coffee first thing on a Spring Sunday morning, a woman's passion. And it's smelled some godawful things, mostly that I made myself.

I'm going to miss however much of it I will lose in two weeks. I hope it's not much, but I know it will be some, and before it does go, I want it to know how much I appreciate it.

Someone at work suggested I could put in a nose ring when the doctor is finished. I like that idea.

I'm tired of seeing doctors. Every time I see a doctor, I get sicker! If I stopped seeing doctors, I bet everything that's wrong with me would go away.

I wonder about anti-abortionists and how they justify seeing a doctor. After all, you know, God's plan, but maybe God's plan includes us dying on His schedule...I mean, if every life is sacred to Him, every death should be, too, so when it's time to go, your life stops being so sacred. Why would you see a doctor and thwart His will? Maybe the Christian Scientists get this, after all?

I dunno.

Life is like bodysurfing. Ever bodysurf? You swim out to a wave, turn around and try to nestle in the break. If you get too low, the wave overtakes you. If you get too high, the wave slips out from under you. You have to get it just right and get your body pointed back towards shore just in the slope of the wave as it begins to break and you can ride it all the way in.

At first, you move pretty slow, trying to pick up speed. Then, suddenly, you're rocketing along, but eventually, the wave overtakes you, swallows you up, and tosses you about as it speeds on its way to crashing onshore, and dying, it's energy spent.

Life is like that. Tom Petty wrote "You never slow down, you never get old," but I'm moving as fast or perhaps even faster than when I was in my twenties, and I can *see* life passing around me. I didn't slow down, it just sped up.

I worry about what I see around me, too. People are people and for the most part, people seem to be better now about being people than when I was a kid. And then I look at how the world around them has changed, and that's what makes me worried.

The last recession, in 2001 and a pretty mild one, about 11% of the population of the country was below the poverty line. This time, heading into what will be a gale force of recession, the percentage of people who are below the poverty line is actually up.

That means that the "recovery" this country underwent in the intervening seven years was a failure: the people who were broken by the last recession didn't make it out, and indeed, they were joined by another 12 million or so Americans.

People live longer, but only to end up paying down their debts. No longer able to file bankruptcy, yet no longer able to pay off what they owe, they spend their lives in fear that the banks will throw them in jail if they miss a payment.

And why? So they could buy that one more thing that was advertised to them? That Playstation? That pair of shoes? Dinner for the family?

A man-- or more likely, woman-- goes through a divorce, or has health issues, and suddenly can't work or can't keep up with his (her) bills, and next thing you know, is borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, rocketing debt about like a pinball.

What makes this worse for me is, no one running for President seems to get this. John Edwards comes close, but even there I get the sense he pays lip service to the notion of "Two Americas," because it plays well on the campaign trail. Bill Clinton got it, and showed he sincerely wanted to help people get up on their feet and fight for their dreams.

I'm lucky. I've got a bit to cushion the blow. But for the grace of God, that could have been my life story. I know people struggling right now, living in places that I never could have imagined them living. Some are in group homes, practically permanently, because they can't take the stress of living in a society that's passing them by, despite the fact they are talented, intelligent people.

And I have friends who had it all and lost it, and are trying to make something of their lives that erases some of the disgrace they feel.

Me, I just hate my job. I'm lucky, in that respect, because I have one to hate and I have a place to go home to, and while I wish I had a life, I can rest assured that I will when the time is right.

I can, however, remember what it was like to sleep in my car, and sneak into a gym to take a shower and try to make my clothes seem not-too-shabby so I could go to a low-paying job with a little respect and dignity. Even then, I was lucky to have a car to sleep in.

I wish the world was different. I bet we all do. It's not. And that's the tragedy of it all. And the wave is catching us, all of us, and tossing us around as if it was a washing machine.

Hump Day Comedy Blogging

Our New Currency

A Peace Of My Mind

This absolutely ridiculous bickering between the Clinton and Obama camps must stop. Now.

Don't try to get the last word in, Barack. Hillary, just let it go.

Why, you ask? It's simple. It's getting to the point where the "winner" will lose the general election.

I base this on a poll released yesterday:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll asked voters who has the personality and leadership qualities to be president. Republican John McCain had 60 percent, Democrat Barack Obama had 59 percent and Democrat Hillary Clinton had 55 percent.

"The presidential race now looks like a toss-up -- perhaps even with a Republican edge," Paul Starr, co-editor of the liberal American Prospect magazine, wrote in The Washington Post on Sunday. "If Democrats don't stay smart, tough-minded and realistic, we could blow it yet again."

It's bad enough that Hillary already has trouble convincing people that another term of the Clinton-Bush nexus is a good thing. It's bad enough that Barack Obama has enough skeletons in his closet to drape an entire couture collection off. People are tired, and scared, and scaring them more is not a good thing.

September 11 did change a lot of things, but one thing it should have changed was the politics of fear, but Republicans managed to find a way to go to the well one more time-- wolves at the door, Swiftboating, "flip flopping" their way to the White House with an incumbent who is an insult to the title "President."

They'll go to the well once more, make no mistake about it. Despite Obama's admirative utterances, the Republicans are bereft of ideas and the substantive ones they've managed to bleat out are tired and ineffectual.

Since John McCain appears to be the nominee (it's still early, of course), they'll run a platform of steady stable command with experience, and paint the Dems as the Not Ready For Prime Time players (particularly if Obama wins).

This catfight has to stop. It's distracting the candidates from the one truth: we need a plan to recover from the first eight years of this millennium.

Frankly, I'm surprised more at Obama than Clinton in this respect: Obama's message of hope was resonating with the electorate, and as soon as he was attacked, he exposed an extremely thin skin, as well as the "politics as usual" knife-fighting tactics he's been railing against.

It's almost as if two consummate politicians had him by the strings and were dangling him for their amusement, it's worked that well. Truly, which sounds worse to you: sitting on the board of directors of Wal-Mart, the biggest company in your "home" state, or representing a slumlord that you are still accepting donations from? Keep in mind that the majority of Democrats live near a Wal-Mart, shop there, and have friends who work for the company.

When I watched that exchange during the debate (I saw a tape last night), I realized Hillary set Barack up. Yes, there was a reaction when Obama mentioned Clinton's position, but the reaction of the audience when Clinton had the chance to mention "Obama" and "slumlord" in the same sentence made me think that perhaps she was premature in leaving South Carolina.

If one can find any gold in this pile of dung, it's that by levelling these charges now, both candidates have inoculated themselves against those charges being a surprise in the general election. If you recall, in 2004 no one challenged Kerry's patriotism. No one called Al Gore a liar in 2000.

Maybe they should have. The thing is, Hillary's dark points are already known, already out there. I suspect that because Obama is such an unknown quantity, these e-mails about him being a Islamist, and swearing his oath on a Koran, and turning his back to the flag during the Pledge of Allegiance have resonated so well on the right wing.

Obama's electability numbers predate this wave of revelation, and the "slumlord" one is going to stick, big time, in states like California and New York and Georgia, with large urban minority populations.

Hell, Hillary did extremely well in Las Vegas in the Nevada caucuses, which should have been heavily tilted towards Obama.

Hillary has less to gain but more important, a lot less to lose, in a spitting contest with Obama. This would be a good time for both camps to send out feelers for a truce.

You've both drawn blood. Let it go. By the way, Barack? You might want to pull that finger back in, as well, or didn't you learn the Lazio lesson?

What Was Left On The Cutting Room Floor

(hat tip Karyn Mannix)
I'm struggling with how to characterize the jitters of the market and the surprising (if feeble) news out of the Federal Reserve this morning.

On the one hand, I can't recall a moment in history when the US had this much warning of a total meltdown in what many of the uninformed take to be the economy: the New York (and other) Stock Exchange. Stock exchanges tend to be lagging indicators of the economy, tho, so the steep drops we've been experiencing are echoes of what's really going on in the commercial sector of the country.

On the other, I can't recall such a feeble response: a stimulus package that actually might harm the economy longer term, as well as a pissant rate cut of a three-quarters* of a percent in the prime rate.

The tax cut and rebate package on the face of things sounds like a pretty good deal: put money immediately back in the hands of taxpayers, while giving businesses a break on their earnings.

The administration doesn't seem to get it. This is not a temporary economic correction, this is a full-blown recession that's teetering (if not already fallen) on the brink of depression.

If we take Paulson's words at face value, and assume he's just talking things up to avoid panic, well, a) he's not succeeding too well, based on the futures market as of 9:15 this morning, and b) we'd like to think that behind the scenes, there's some furious activity to fix things quickly.

There's some evidence of that, but it's easy to infer there are some major obstacles to creating an effective response.

Rumours on the European markets are that the Federal Reserve cut is the first of a series of central bank rate cuts, primarily in Europe, to be announced. Could be. As I said, I can't recall any emergency rate cuts in my lifetime. It would be indicative of a collaborative effort to announce the US rate cut before the others are announced.

The problem for Europe, however, is they've actually been raising their central bank rates in order to stem inflationary pressures. A cut now would send a very mixed message to their markets.

The Fed's quarter point three-quarter point* rate cut serves only to aggravate the markets here. They will open down about 300 points, and investors were expecting (funny how yesterday, there wasn't even the merest hint of a rumour of a rate cut, and now suddenly, they were "expecting"?) a half a point cut.

Not that any of this will really make a difference, of course. While credit markets are tight, it's not because interest rates are high, it's because the markets are terrified of the outcome of the mortgage default crisis. You could lower the discount rate to zero (a prime rate of 3%), and banks still wouldn't lend.

Asia is in total meltdown already, which means that China is experiencing its first market crash. There's no way of telling what response Beijing will make. This side note is a way of saying, "Gee, I sure hope they don't start calling in their chits on the American economy!"

The Bush legacy seems to be even further in the hole. His Hail Mary pass of a Middle East settlement is in disarray, and his one hope for any positive news was four years of relative economic strength. Not Clintonian, but Bush would have been able to point to positive growth, especially if you look at the last five years of his administration only.

Alas, even that slim margin of growth has been squandered, along with several hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq and trillions domestically. Had we not had tax cuts of the severity that Bush insisted and the Republican Congress lapped at like Tommy Lee on Pamela Anderson, we might have some programs in place already to deal with the problems ahead.

Instead, we squandered like a drunk sailor on shore leave with a stolen credit card. Hey, the rich sure as hell won't ever have to pay these bills back, why should they care?

* The Fed sent out a press release correcting the initial announcement.

Please Be Aware

The stock markets tomorrow are going to tank, big time.

That is all.

The Race So Far

It's been an interesting month in both the Democratic and Republican primary season, one filled with surprises and not-surprises-that-sort-of-looked-like surprises. I figure this is as good a time as any to assess where things seem to be headed.

First, the Republicans:

It seems pretty clear after Saturday's South Carolina win by John McCain that he has the momentum, and that the only serious challenger to his nomination is Mitt Romney, who could outfinance John McCain and still have enough left over for a downpayment on a Caribbean island like, say, Guadeloupe. If he can win Florida, Romney might be able to save enough of his fortune to buy Jamaica.

Rudy Giuliani, who has been all but anointed by the White House (if you scan back across the Bush administration and see how many times Rudy's name pops up in connection with appointees, you'll see what I mean), has lost any mojo he had as the presumed nominee of 2007. TOo bad for Rudy, the election is THIS year. In your next life, maybe you'll treat your wives with a bit more respect.

John McCain's strength in the primaries will be his name recognition. Second only to Giuliani, John McCain's name is one of those quirky things that voters who really could give a rat's ass who faces Hillary the Democratic nominee in November will remember when they pull the lever. That alone could give him a substantial leg up over Romney, but keep in mind that the South has barely had a chance to ratify Mormonism, and there is an awful lot of anxiety over Romney's religion in the deep Christian south.

It's been fun to watch this race, not so much for the main event, but for the sideshow: watching right wing pundits fall all over themselves to find a "true conservative in the mold of George W. Bush" (I can't imagine anyone saying that with a straight face), and failing miserably as each of their Chosen Ones has withered away like old roses: Hunter, Tancredo, now Thompson.

So much for the might of the Blogosphere, not that Blogtopia (© Skippy the Bush Kangaroo) has fared much better.

Prediction: John McCain delivers a severe blow to Romney in Florida, who had hopes of swiping Giuliani's thunder. He then racks up enough delegates on SuperDuper Tuesday to guarantee at least a seat at the table for any brokered convention.

Which of course means it's time to revive this old Googlebomb:

There was an odd pol, John McCain:
John McCain ate the Punditry's brain:
John McCain's silly "straight talk"
Made Tweety joyfully squawk --
And out of his Hardballs, he came.

Now, the Democrats

To be honest, I was deeply troubled by the Iowa results. While I never expected Hillary to win that state's caucuses, I expected Edwards and Obama to split the caucus more evenly, leaving Hillary a far better showing than ten points off the lead. It made me wonder if we were seeing a brand new historic moment to go along with all the others: the realization that Americans have an attention span and remember Edwards' miserable campaign at the Vice Presidential nominee in 2004.

That may well still be a valid observation-- it never pays to be in the number two slot on a losing ticket-- but as the polls suggested an huge Obama win in New Hampshire, you finally saw Hillary wake up. I think she took the loss in Iowa for granted, and only when she realized how much ground she had to make up did she wake up and start campaigning in earnest.

I don't mean working the crowds or anything like that. That has about as much to do with winning elections as sending an e-mail to a Congresscritter has to do with passing legislation. I mean, getting her ground game in business, and leaning on the people who were doing the fundraising, the networking, and the grunt work of shoring up the mechanical aspects of campaigning: making sure people vote. The Clinton strength has been the organization that elected Bill twice. I'm not sure why she delayed getting that into high gear. Perhaps she believed her own press.

Obama lost this election in the final debate before New Hampshire, and he knows what he did that caused it: his petulant attitude towards someone who deserved more respect than he was willing to give her. You'll notice that after Hillary stomped a mudhole in Obama in New Hampshire, Barack was quick to change the tone of discourse towards Hillary.

You know what they say about a woman scorned.

Obama's best hope, perhaps his only one, is to hang around long enough for Hillary to be lulled back into the "inevitability" thing again and start making mistakes. This weekend's Nevada caucuses tell me she's not likely to do that again. Say what you will about the Clinton machine: apart from sex scandals, they learn fast.

I think Obama knows he's about to get the fork stuck in. When you start picking fights with the spouse of your opponent, you're making a big mistake, and he's done that twice in four days now. As I've said before, Barack, your fight isn't with Bill Clinton and loony comments like praising Ronald Reagan ahead of him is just going to tie you up when you most need to be campaigning. He's good, he's very good, at antagonizing his opponents. Don't mess with The Big Dog until you've got some scalps in your pouch already.

Obama's worst enemy is John Edwards. Despite the appearance of being in agreement, these two men really should be at each other's throats, and I'm not sure that's not a dynamic based on some "between the lines" reading I've been doing.

For instance, while Edwards has "me, too'ed" a lot of Obama's comments towards Hillary's problems, that mere bobbleheaded agreement has caused Obama headaches as Edwards was more than willing to take things one step forward with his comments.

For example, while Obama was careful not to comment on Hillary's moment of emotionality in New Hampshire, Edwards questioned Hillary's strength.

Since he had played hitman in the last debate before this show of emotion to Obama's mob boss portrayal, both of them suffered badly for that misstatement by Edwards, and directly attacking Obama's message of unity. That couldn't have played well in the Obama camp.

I can understand Edwards being pissed as all get out at Obama. After all, only ONE one term Senator should run for President on a platform of change at a time, and Edwards was there first!

Prediction: Hillary loses in South Carolina to Obama, who steals near-native-son Edwards' lunch. Hillary however goes onto Florida, wins there, and then takes California, New York, and Connecticut on SuperDuper Tuesday, all but guaranteeing her nomination with those contests, based on the selected delegates as well as the super delegate counts.

It pays to be in the Senate for more than two years, you see, because you get to meet the superdelegates: elected representatives to whom you can dole out pork. Hillary started the season over 100 delegates more than Obama had.

So it's shaping up as a John McCain/Hillary Clinton showdown in November, unless something brutally outside of the foreseeable happens.

Oil For Food

Gee, no one could see this coming! What happens when the price of oil and gas really start to take off?

Rising prices for cooking oil are forcing residents of Asia’s largest slum, in Mumbai, India, to ration every drop. Bakeries in the United States are fretting over higher shortening costs. And here in Malaysia, brand-new factories built to convert vegetable oil into diesel sit idle, their owners unable to afford the raw material.

This is the other oil shock. From India to Indiana, shortages and soaring prices for palm oil, soybean oil and many other types of vegetable oils are the latest, most striking example of a developing global problem: costly food.

The food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, based on export prices for 60 internationally traded foodstuffs, climbed 37 percent last year. That was on top of a 14 percent increase in 2006, and the trend has accelerated this winter.

So the price of food has gone up by half already and the rate of increase is accelerating. I probably should have added starvation, potentially even in the US, as one of the stories to follow this year.

American grain production is at all time highs, yet this is not due to getting more food to market, but an effort to replace crude fossil fuels with ethanol-based production. God forbid we should put people ahead of our cars!

Eleven countries, including China & Mexico, have had to either impose food rationing or tamp down food riots. Think illegal immigration was a problem when it was just disparate incomes? Imagine the wave of immigrants coming over once the food runs out!

And how can we say no to them?

Ironically, part of the problem we're seeing with food production can be laid at the feet of the American consumer: we've helped create a middle class in places like China, Australia, and India, and those families want higher protein diets. Higher protein diets need more energy to be produced than further-down-the-food-chain diets of grains and vegetables. And of course, all this increased economic activity to service our Xboxs and SUVs has created a climate change that makes it darn near impossible to grow food in places that were best suited for it, like many of the former Soviet Union republics. Even the American breadbasket is in danger of droughts that could kill production for whole years.

This will not be pretty.

Friday Music Blogging

The Beach Boys - Sail On, Sailor

Not the best version of this song I've ever heard, but it was on You Tube.

For long time readers of SLB, if this song sounds familiar...

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) He's tipped his king. It's hard to describe what Bobby Fischer's victory in chess meant to America. In an age before computers, CDs, iPods, Walkmen, video games, and cell phones, a competition of wits between two men played out in Iceland, where an American wrested from the perennial title holders, the Soviet Union, one of the most prestigious championships in the world. It was telecast "live" (sort of) nationwide on PBS, when PBS meant actually television, back when they covered Congressional hearings and important news. Shelby Lyman, fercrissake, became a household name!

2) "Check". It wasn't even much of a gambit. It stalls for time, however, to paper over the huge flaws in America's game plan.

3) This knight remains passive, but could be played at any moment. For now, he is "j'adoube".

4) These two sides shook hands and declared a dead draw. One can presume the Writer's Guild can declare they have a winning position.

5) The queen is being harassed by a pawn. This will play out on the right as the "liberal media baring their teeth," but anyone who watches the whole taped episode will realize Romney is being a prima donna. Endgame. End of story. End of campaign.

6) Thompson is in a squeeze, but I don't think South Carolina will prove to be his unpinning.

7) A man's home is his castle, they say. Well, the rook gets captured.

8) The bishop betrays the queen. Think Ann Coulter will repent?

9) One pawn makes a feignt, to try to reveal the isolated pawn's move.

10) EARWORM ALERT: "The goal is for us all to capture all we want."

11) Of course, if you find yourself in a losing position, here's a new way to win: cheat.

Hump Day Comedy Blogging + 1

Sorry for not getting this up yesterday...don't ask, tough day at work...but, from Jon Swift's blog:

A real Republican should sound like Rep. Michele Bachman of Minnesota who said in a statement supporting the Middle Class Protection Act, which would protect the middle class by giving corporations a 25% tax cut that will eventually trickle down to the workers who still have jobs: "I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We’re the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs."

President Hillary

Barack Obama just handed the nomination to Hillary:

I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980 was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

When you diss the only Democrat to win the Presidency since Ronald Reagan, and you praise the Sith Master of the Neo-Con movement, you might as well pack up your campaign slogans and pray you'll be asked to be VP.

Barack, your fight isn't with President Clinton. Tell us how YOU will change the country, especially in light of how your legislative record is, to be polite, spotty and inconsistent. Picking on The Big Dog is only going to remind people that you might be too young to remember how the country was under Reagan. You are four years younger than I am, but I sure as hell remember.

How we ran up massive deficits. How the poor and disenfranchised became more so. How the rich became uberwealthy while the middle class began its grand descent down the marble staircase to permanent servitude.

How we flexed our military muscle all around the globe for no particularly good reason (c'mon, invade Grenada to save a dozen college students? Who we kidding?). How we cut and run in Beirut when the going got tough. How we funded Osama bin Laden. How we dealt arms to terrorists for hostages.

How the Christian Coalition rose from the ashes of the Reagan Administration to become the single biggest obstacle to sanity in this country.

And indeed, how Reagan himself grew the government exponentially (you could bother to do some research, Senator).

And then people will remember how only Bill Clinton saved them from a worse situation, and for that, was brutalized by the plutocracy that has become "America". And vote for Hillary.

Shame on you, Barack, shame on you.

UPDATE: Bob Stein calls it what it is: a stab in the heart of Democrats.

Wexler Wants Hearings, Do You?

http://wexlerwantshearings.com/

I Had My Heart Broken Last Night

By a movie: Maxed Out.

The film, released in 2006, has proven to be more timely as the years have passed:

Maxed Out takes viewers on a journey deep inside the American style of debt, where things seem fine as long as the minimum monthly payment arrives on time. With coverage that spans from small American towns all the way to the White House, the film shows how the modern financial industry really works, explains the true definition of "preferred customer" and tells us why the poor are getting poorer while the rich keep getting richer. Hilarious, shocking and incisive, Maxed Out paints a picture of a national nightmare which is all too real for most of us."

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be affected by some of the stories in this expose, juxtaposed against some of the cruel, callous and officious bullshit spewed by the people who are roasting, toasting, and burning to a crisp those who are least capable of handling the credit so cynically ladled on them by predatory lenders.

If you want an idea of why the subprime market worked so well despite nearly every single rational thought, this movie gets under the mechanics and tinkers with the very soul of why credit cards exist, how they work, and what the banks and their cronies in Congress and the Bush administration wish would happen to you.

Yes. You. There's not a one of us in this country, with the possible exception of the uberrich and propertied, who couldn't but for the grace of God be one of these stories: white, black, urban, suburban, rural...everyone could fall prey to these sharks with silk tongues wearing silk suits:

The most profitable niche of the industry is called "alternative" or "sub-prime"—euphemisms for a business formerly known as loan-sharking. They target those with less than perfect credit-people like Mark Mumma, whose frustration with the sub-prime credit card issuer Providian caused him to start the website www.providianfinancialsucks.com. From 2000-2002, Providian paid over $400 million to settle charges that it defrauded its customers. Soon after, a Providian director and the chairman of its compliance committee was appointed corporate crime czar by George W. Bush.

Right now, in this country people are going broke at a faster rate than they did during the Great Depression.

Sink your teeth into that statement for a moment. The event that triggered your parents and grandparents to squeeze each and every dollar for all it was worth was nothing compared to the firestorm headed our way: it could create a permanent underclass along the lines of sharecroppers of the post-Civil War South.

The stories in "Maxed Out" will leave you breathlessly angry and crying from rage and sympathy. As director James Scurlock puts it:

We're all led to believe that people get into financial trouble because they are irresponsible, but I've learned that most people are getting in trouble because the banks and credit card companies are setting their customers up to fail. Why? The more credit they give us, the more credit we need. When we inevitably fall behind, they can charge the huge late fees and the over-limit fees and the stratospheric interest rates that drive their profits.

I highly, highly, recommend this film. It will scare you into taking care to clean up your debts now.

It's Sad To See What Our Government Has Been Reduced To...

How does a President deal with sky high oil prices?

A leader might bully a little the people who are holding back, if he felt they were doing it to pump up their profits. He might threaten or cajole them to pump out a bit more to help ease the strain.

A leader might recognize that this is a permanent, serious problem, and begin (even if a bit late) to try to correct our dependency on that oil.

A leader might make demands that both producers AND consumers work together to bring the price down until we can manage to absorb the increases.

A leader would never beg:

"I would hope, as OPEC considers different production levels, that they understand that if ... one of their biggest consumers' economy suffers, it will mean less purchases, less gas and oil sold," Bush said.

"Please sir, may I have some...more?"

That's our energy policy? Sheesh!

Attack Of The Cloned

I mentioned in my piece of January 4 that biotechnology would be among the top ten stories of 2008. Here it comes:

Cloned cows, pigs and goats and their offspring are safe to enter the U.S. food supply, regulators found amid criticism from lawmakers, consumer groups and worried eaters.

The Food and Drug Administration posted a summary of a final report backing the use of cloned food on its Web site today after a seven-year review. The agency hasn't recommended any special labeling for such products.

On its face, food from cloned animals doesn't sound like such a big deal. If anything, it's not likely to have much impact on the food supply, since it still takes the same amount of time from "conception" to maturity sufficient to provide a food source (or milk source). This isn't going to provide a sudden bounty of food, and in fact may actually shrink the food supply since, you know, Mother Nature has a pretty efficient system for reproduction already in place, something it will take man millennia to replicate in terms of efficiencies.

What cloning WILL do is change the quality of the food supply, and this is where concerns need to be addressed more carefully, in my opinion.

First thing: I dislike the fact that the FDA will allow cloned meats and milks onto the market without some distinction being made, to allow consumers a choice. If the argument is that labelling cloned meat as cloned will somehow hurt their sales, well then maybe that's a clue that more work needs to be done to ensure the safety of the product!

Next, I'm not against cloning, even human cloning. We've been cross-breeding animals for millennia now, in order to improve the breeding stock, make better meat and milk, and to help prevent diseases. I don't see that big a difference, except...

We can be fairly sure that the intent of cloning will have commercial interests ahead of the interests of health, safety, and diversity. And that spells major trouble: cloned animals will likely come from the most convenient sources, namely the animals at hand.

Any high school kid who's taken genetics can tell you that's called "inbreeding" and leads to all sorts of nasty things, like hemophilia. Life is like that, and humans who battle life by doing things on the cheap will pay dearly.

Even putting as many genetic safeguards in place as possible is no guarantee that this will be prevented: someone somewhere is going to screw up. Take a look at how much toxic crap is dumped in our environment now by big businesses, who can actually afford to dispose of it safely! Why would the FDA think things will be any different with cloning?

Let's take a current example from the food processing industry as an example: growth hormones.

First off, Congress, if growth hormones are bad for ballplayers, why are they OK for cows, chickens and pigs? After all, I don't eat Barry Bonds...stuff like this has a half life. It's not necessarily metabolized completely in the animal itself.

Second, for years, hormones like rBGH have been pumped into milk-producing cows to raise their estrogen levels, thus producing more milk. Well, guess what? That wasn't particularly safe!

And a whole new industry cropped up that claims their milk is "rBGH free". I can imagine that within ten years, a whole new market will have cropped up about "born natural" animals.

See, here's the thing: I'm not against cloning. I'm not even against cloning for meat or milk. What I am against is ignorance and deliberate deceptions, which is what the FDA seems to be mapping out here: first, introduce a potentially dangerous and deadly process and product to the market, let it run its retail course and then assess the results, like LSD given to hundreds of government employees, because you don't want to scare people off before the results are in.

You guys are supposed to be protecting us.

As they said in Jurassic Park:

Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet's ever witnessed, yet you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun.

Bang! You're dead!

Oops!

UPDATE: Welcome, Slate.com readers. Feel free to peruse the blog as you finish reading this article. The smoking section's over there (sorry, but I have hyperactive respiratory disorder...), and the bar's open.

(h/t MissCellania for noticing this)

This Is JUST What The Doctor Ordered!

Dr. Karl Rove, that is:

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) - Race became a focus of the Democratic presidential campaign on Sunday with Hillary Clinton accusing rival Barack Obama of distorting remarks she made last week about the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement.

Obama, who would be the first black president, called this "ludicrous" but said Clinton had offended some Americans who believed her comments last week had marginalized the role of black leader Martin Luther King in advancing those rights.

Clinton, who would become the first woman president, and Obama are locked in a close race for the right to represent the party in the November 4 election to succeed President George W. Bush. Republicans too are in a tight race.

In case you missed it, and you may have, Clinton said in effect that while Martin Luther King Jr's words were passionate and powerful, it took a political process to bring about the changes he wanted to see.

And she was right. And wrong. There's no guarantee that President Johnson would have done much about civil rights if not for the powerful words AND actions of Martin Luther King, Jr.

On the other hand, Martin Luther King Jr could not introduce legislation into Congress to create The Civil Rights Act, The Great Society or The Voting Rights act. It was Johnson's sheer power, force of will, and knowledge of Congress that got these passed.

It is precisely this kind of bitter dissension that the Republicans are hoping for. The focus of BOTH campaigns should be to show the American people how they'll improve our lives. The economy is tanking, there's a war going on that's draining our lifeblood figuratively as well as literally. We have more important things to do than to assess credit for what little progress has been made in this country regarding race.

And while Clinton's wording was clumsy when she made her original comments, "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," she said, adding that "it took a president to get it done," it's a little hard to say she minimized King's contributions, but I suppose if you're thin-skinned enough (or willing to lay down the race card), you can make the claim. One can have a dream, work hard for that dream, and yet it may take something beyond one's control to realize that dream.

Luck, after all, is the residue of hard work, and no one is denying King did the hard work.

It's not the only time Obama partisans have unfairly injected race into the, well, race:

In a call on Friday to Al Sharpton’s nationally syndicated talk radio show, Mr. Clinton said that his “fairy tale” comment on Monday about Senator Barack Obama’s position on the Iraq war was being misconstrued, and that he was talking only about the war, not about Mr. Obama’s overarching message or his drive to be the first black president.

“There’s nothing fairy tale about his campaign,” Mr. Clinton said. “It’s real, strong, and he might win.”

(You might ponder how tied up Obama might be in a general election when Republicans fight with the gloves off as you read this piece.)

The race has gotten nasty (even John Edwards has "me, too'd" the whole Martin Luther King thing, and he might do better to shut the hell up and let these two scratch out each other's eyes. Did New Hampshire teach you nothing, son?). If it's going to get over and done with quickly, fine, but if this animosity lingers well beyond February, it could rift the Democratic Party enough to hand the election to the Republicans.

So...again, I'm just a shlub blogger who's only been politically active and aware for 40 years.. it might behoove both Obama and Clinton to shake hands, and apologize.

And grow a thicker skin.

We Are One

I know it's late notice, but tonight on "60 Minutes", the work of a fantastic organization, Women for Women International, is being featured on a piece about the DR Congo. I'm sure the informed readers of SLB are aware of the human rights violations in the form of an epidemic of rape and mutilation of women and children.

I've been involved with Women for Women International for some time now.

Al Franken interviewed founder/CEO Zainab Salbi on his radio show numerous times and her story is compelling and inspirational, as a survivor of the Saddam Hussein era in Iraq. Yet the work of this organization is even more inspiring, and there are many "Stories From the Front" on their site.

One person really CAN make a difference for one other person. Please take a minute to look over their website. Thanks alot.

All Things In Moderation, Including Moderation

Lately, one of the big memes in Blogtopia (© Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo) has been Jonah Goldberg's latest expulsion, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, or simpy, Liberal Fascism.

For a fairly in-depth analysis, I refer you to Sadly, No!, a somewhat amusing blog whose writers and editors have done signal work in deconstructing these ten pounds of crap in a five pound book. See in particular, this post. (Side note: It's a tough audience, but I'm thrilled they've accepted me as a somewhat regular commenter in threads, and even note my modest attempts at humour).

For fairly good reason, I might add. You see, in Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, or Liberal Fascism (LOLcats added for readability).

In a nutshell, Goldberg takes a fairly innocuous statement, "There’s this idea that the further right you go the closer you get to Nazism and fascism, and the further left you go the closer you get to decency and all good things, or at least having the right intentions in your heart" which Jonah "proves" is wrong. This is the first of many strawmen he burns.

A sane (ed. note. Lawyers...*sigh*) reasonable man would interpret that the way people have for millenia: The further out on the fringe you go, the more likely that you will cross over to the other extremist position.

In other words, politics is not a spread spectrum like something you'd see in a lab, but more like a circular rainbow, in which the colours all whip around in a continuum. Go far enough out on the left, and you start to see elements of the same dogmas that you'd see on the right.

And there's the key term: dogma.

We see it in other areas of life as well. Some militant atheists, for example, are as dogmatic about their non-belief in god as some fundamentalist (Islamist, Christians, Jews, take your pick).

Similarly, some political dogmas transcend "wing" descriptions, and here, if Goldberg had stuck to this point, he might have made some philosophical point, and maybe even dug up some insight into American politics. For example, dogmatic people tend to believe their's is the one best way of running a society (sounds like Goldberg himself, but that's a digression), and it really doesn't matter if the rest of their philosophies can be labeled fascist or socialist.

What does matter is an adherence to the dogma. Alfred Meyer covers this from a geopolitical perspective in his 1978 book "Theories of Convergence" (seems to be out of print, for the good reason of losing relevance), albeit with the US and Soviet Union as examples.

What Jonah does is use this "wrap-around" to create an entirely new school of thought: that liberals are fascists.

Nevermind that he includes in this fascism people like you, me, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. He also includes Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin, AND FDR, and what dinner conversation they must have had, that quartet!

In other words, because he sees a rising of liberalism that mirrors the rise of progressivism in the 60s, Jonah has decided the best way to tamp it down is to somehow link it to fascism.

In other words, he employs the "Big Lie" of Hitler and Joseph Goebbels.

Wouldn't that make him a liberal?

Jonah, because I know you're self-involved and self-indulgent enough to read every single piece written about your specious book, let me say this right here:

You want to get in my face, in the face of millions of liberals? That's fine because it's to be expected of a dogmatist like yourself, but just know that the tar you paint with is spitting more back on you than you're able to smear on us.

Y'know, I wish I had a mommy who was a literary agent. Then my book Right Wing Nutcases And The Sale Of Cheetos would be number one in perpetuity.

THAT'S how bad a book you've written!

Would you like a Dorito, Fudgie?

Cut The Fatheads

You can be sure the economy is in trouble when Congress and Bush can agree on something to do. Cut taxes:

Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are also suggesting that they might be able to put aside longstanding partisan differences and work on a stimulus measure, lawmakers and aides said Friday.

In a fresh sign of the possibility of an agreement on a roughly $100 billion package of tax cuts and spending to spur the economy, Nancy Pelosi of California, the speaker of the House, and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, wrote to President Bush on Friday saying, “We want to work with you.”

That little mash note is interesting, since one could easily make the case for ignoring the economy and letting it fester while Bush twists in the wind. Naturally, you'd want to do just enough to duck accusations of doing nothing.

Democrats might be feeling a little heat from their base, however, with all the kowtowing and rubber stamping they did in 2007. I've been of the mind that Pelosi and Reid were figuring the first year was about setting up the second year of the 110th Congress. Sadly, there at about 800 Americans in Iraq who had to die as part of this strategy.

Some Democrats say they could support tax relief focused on lower-income people and, perhaps, even tax cuts for corporations, if the White House and the Republican Congressional leadership accept some spending increases like extended unemployment benefits or aid to states to help them avert spending cuts.

The unfortunate truth is, Bush's first three tax cuts...2001, 2002, and 2003...ultimately did not benefit the economy in any substantive way, as it was really the sub-prime mortgage business and the ripple effect low-cost mortgages had across the economy.

People spent because they borrowed. This was not current income, not taxable income, and yes, the tax cuts may have generated some tax revenues because the wealthiest among us started shedding some long-term assets because of the the more favorable tax treatment, but it wasn't in line with what was supposedly the "booming economy" that resulted.

Indeed, tax revenues under Bush declined for every year until 2006 when compared to Clinton's last budget. And 2006 only went up because "a big increase in individual taxes on stock market profits and executive bonuses."

Like I said.

Will a tax cut help this time? Probably not. But the key element of this plan is increased government spending: extending unemployment benefits now, before the recession hits, is a sure-fire way of lessening the impact on people and is actually helping to close the barn door before the horse can get out. If it takes a tax cut to get that implemented until a real President comes along, so be it.

I feel both Congress and the President are severely underestimating the nature of this recession (you read that right: our bonds are in danger of losing "government-issue" status!)...I'm pretty sure it will be a depression, as I've said here before...and if I was running for President, I would address this issue in greater depth. Suffice it to say that nature is about to hand us lemons, and I'd have a lemonade stand set up already. We are presented with an opportunity the way FDR was: to do good for a lot of people and help this country improve, at the same moment.

But I digress.

I hope the Democrats are at least listening to Ronald Reagan's old "Trust, but verify" shibboleth:

Democrats said the White House would have to agree not to try to attach favorite measures like repealing the estate tax or making permanent Mr. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 cuts, just as Democrats would have to refrain from attaching extraneous spending.

“It would make sense for the president to do something in a bipartisan way,” said Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “But I’m scared to death to even talk about tax rebates because of what that might open up.”

A senior Republican aide said: “Republicans will have to talk about making the tax cuts permanent and all that kind of stuff. Democrats are going to want things on their long-term agenda. But if you figure those cancel each other out, there’s probably a playing field where everyone can agree.”

Somehow, I see a fillibuster in our future. And that would be the greatest tragedy of all.

UPDATE

Apparently, I'm not alone in my belief:

The measures now being debated in Washington and on the campaign trail — tax rebates, added help for the unemployed and those facing sharply higher heating bills and, most immediately, a move by the Federal Reserve to further cut interest rates — could certainly moderate the severity of a downturn. Democrats and the Bush administration are considering a package of such measures that could reach $100 billion.

But the forces menacing the economy, like the unraveling of the real estate market and high oil prices, are too entrenched to be swiftly dispatched by government largess or cheaper credit, some economists say.

Friday Cat Kitten Blogging

I know mah peeps wanna see my new kollah...es a Holly Davesons motorcycle kollah! Dadby maek me ware da bell so pipples get out my wai when I riden! I too sexay for mah fer!

Caption These Photos!

The story behind the photos.

Friday Music Blogging

Lee Michaels - Do You Know What I Mean?

Nobody Asked Me, But....

1) More evidence that "liberal" is the new "nigger" in the Republican party.

2) Meanwhile, the race card is really being played in South Carolina. In the Democratic primary. I would imagine this is payback for Hillary's tears in New Hampshire.

3) Don't ever say Obama is above dirty politics. He grew up in Chicago. You have to get mud on your shirt if you want to win there.

4) Maureen Dowd is a dick. I used to enjoy her columns, but I am afraid she's finally let her dusty vagina rule her brain.

5) Um, MEMO to Dennis: Barn door open. Horse gone. Let's move on.

6) I'm amazed this story is getting play now, particularly since I covered it three months ago, and I wasn't breaking a new story!

7) BREAKING! Hillary dead! (Sorry...I have a lurking conservative fanboi. I thought I'd have some fun with him) Edmund Hillary, as Tenzing Norgay's partner, is a true pioneer having scaled Mt Everest and been the first man to set foot on the summit.

8) Just in time for our Greater Depression, low-wage jobs are opening up all over the country! Can you say "16 tons"?

9) MEMO to Conservatives: You CAN have a strong, vibrant economy AND high taxes AND a social safety net. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Europe.

10) So, two losers walk into Obama campaign headquarters...

11) MEMO to Barack: Lamont and Kerry gain more from their endorsements than you do. This is one time you should have said no.

12) Dumb move.

13) Dumber move. (Unless the government bails them out, I should add)

14) Dumbest move. Broadway has turned into a Disney multiplex. Even if this show had been good, it would have been bad for Disney and Broadway.

15) Why Osama is still at large.

16) Another episode of Bad Santa.

17) Finally, naked opportunism in our time.

UPDATES

How'd I miss these stories???

18) The world is about to explode? Well, no, not quite, but..."We have indications that there may be important volumes of magma which would be liberated in an eruption," Patricia Mothes, a U.S. expert on volcanoes, said.

19) "You lift sixteen tons (of Republican dead weight) and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt." Say buh-bye, Rudy!

There Must Be Something In The Water

A couple of news items tells me the Kool-Aid at RNC headquarters is being spiked up in anticipation of the November elections:

1) Bush sees Palestine state treaty within year - Now, nevermind that for sixty years, Israel and the Palestinians have been at each other's throats, and nevermind that both sides are guilty of atrocities of a nature that would make forgiveness hard for even Jesus, all you need to know in order to find this hilarious is that this is Bush's first trip to Israel during his Presidency. In the last year. Of a lame duck term. From an irrelevant politician who is advised by a group of neo-cons who aren't, to put it mildly, particularly objective about which side should get the lion's share of consideration.

2) Giuliani Targets Conservatives With Tax-Cut Plan - Nevermind that, as mayor, Rudy actually ended up raising taxes when the dust settled (he claims he reduced taxes, but by the time he left office, his last budget had created a net increase, at a time when the city economy was tanking. Too, the tax cuts were targeted towards businesses and the wealthy). Does anyone in the GOP realize (besides Mike Huckabee) that the Laffer Curve they're so fond of quoting has a downside, that you can cut taxes TOO MUCH and it starts to destroy the revenue stream that covers the basic needs of the nation????? We have failing infrastructure, a bloated government that's grown exponentially under a "compassionate conservative", debts to pay off AND an aging population. A tax cut is exactly what we DON'T need right now!

3) Romney's Fishy Delegate Claim - In layman's terms (especially if you own an Apple Computer), this is called the "reality distortion field" coming into play. The count based on election results is that Huckabee has 33 delegates, Romney has 19. By Romney's count, he has fifteen delegates, and Huckabee has 12. WTF?

Turns out that Romney is ignoring Iowa, claiming that it really didn't count since the caucus delegates are technically uncommitted, meaning Iowa was the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of primaries. *snark*

Sheesh! And these were supposed to be the adults of American politics!

Hump Day Comedy Blogging

Because cancer should be laughed at...

It's a beautiful day for the race. Stoogehand is the favourite today, Assault is in there, Dog Biscuit is three to one, Safety Pin has been scratched, and at twenty to one: Feitlebaum. Now the horses are approaching the starting gate, and eh, THERE THEY GOOOOOO!

And it's Stoogehand going to the front, Cabbage is second on the rail, Beautiful Linda is third by a length, and Feitlebaum. Around the first turn Stoogehand is still in front, Cabbage is second by a head (Cabbage by a head!), Beautiful Linda is third and Feitlebaum. Into the back stretch, Dog Biscuit is now leading the pack, Lady Avalon is second, very close. Banana is coming up through the bunch (Banana coming up through the bunch!) and Feitlebaum. At the half Stoogehand still out in the front, Apartment House is second with plenty of room, Assault is passing Battery (Assault and Battery!), Notary Sojack is fourth, and in last place by ten lengths I believe it is, yes, it is Feitlebaum. Around the turn, heading for home, it's Stoogehand and Dog Biscuit and Girdle in the stretch. Flying Sylvester is third and Mother-In-Law nagging in the rear (Oh! Oh! Oh!). And now they come down to the wire, and it's number one and now number two and it's very close, it'll either be a photo finish or an oil painting, and now Louis leads with the left, and Louis is in there, slugging, and it's a battle, and now they are tearing hair, there's hair all over the ring, there's hair all over the place, I don't know whose hair it is. It's mine! AND THERE GOES THE WINNERRRRRRRRR!

Feitlebaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuum.

MEDICAL UPDATE:

If, in the Actor212 Health Derby, you had MRSA as the next disease I would contract, you win! Basal Cell Carcinoma places a close second!

MRSA paid $8.50 (W), $3.29 (P), and $1.80(S)

Basal Cell Carcinoma paid $1.10(P), and $0.65(S)

Man, I know I venture into idolatry in my admiration of The Big Dog, Bill Clinton, but did I have to come down with the same fucking cancer???

(H/T to Spike Jones for his inspiration for this piece)

Notes on New Hampshire

There's been an awful lot of analysis of the results from last night's New Hampshire primary, including some rather "over the top" stories.

"Clinton Escapes"? *snark*

Hillary Clinton did get a wake-up call in Iowa, to be sure. I don't want to minimize that, She also was in deep trouble, based on the polling leading up to last night. Even her internal numbers looked bad, if you read between the lines of the news stories coming out of her camp.

So what happened? What changed between Iowa and New Hampshire?

One word: organization.

Clinton had very little organization in Iowa. Indeed, she was warned going into Iowa that she stood very little chance of winning the caucuses and she should consider skipping them, but the impression of the "inevitable nominee" skipping any primary or caucus didn't play well.

So she went in expecting to lose. I don't think she expected to lose that badly.

In New Hampshire, it was a different story: she had the blessings of the regular Democratic machine in the state (Jean Shaheen, former governor of the state, and wife of former Clinton press aide Michael Penn, was her state campaign chairman), and she had a network of volunteers that recruited 6,000 volunteers from out of state this past weekend to knock on doors.

Too, she caught a break in the frenzy over scheduling: as Iowa, Michigan, and Florida started to play with the calendar, New Hampshire was forced to move their primary up into the winter break for Dartmouth University. Dartmouth would have provided some votes for Clinton (single college educated women went strongly for her), but Obama and Edwards would have gained many more votes than she.

Edwards provided another firewall for her, to be sure. By aligning his position so closely to Obama's, he gave political cover to those who wanted to vote for him but who felt obliged to acknowledge Obama's "change" narrative. I think this backfired on Edwards. I think he meant to take Clinton out, but only hampered Obama's chance for victory.

One more unintended resource for Cljnton was the independent vote, which swerved from Obama in Iowa to support John McCain in New Hampshire. I'm thinking hatred of Romney survives from his gubenatorial reign in neighboring Massachussetts.

But to say that Clinton "escaped" in New Hampshire is to tacitly acknowledge that Obama "escaped" in Iowa, because these factors I've listed here (with the possiblee exception of Edwards) worked for Obama in Iowa.

Hillary Clinton finally got her campaign back on track, doing pretty much what I prescribed earlier this week (albeit in a way I had never pondered when I wrote my piece), She took the focus away from the infighting and turned the spotlight more clearly on what she wanted to do for this country, and how this country had slipped back from progress:

"You know, I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards," she said, her voice breaking a bit. The audience applauded.

"This is very personal for me, it's not just political, it's [that] I see what's happening, we have to reverse it," she said emotionally, adding that some "just put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds.

"But some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us ready and some of us are not. Some of us know what we will do on day one, and some of us really haven't thought that through enough."

"So as tired as I am and I am. And as difficult as it is to try and keep up what I try to do on the road, like occasionally exercise and try to eat right -- it's tough when the easiest food is pizza -- I just believe so strongly in who we are as a nation.

Just keep it up, Hillary. You've got your groove back.

Number One With A Bullet

Less than a week ago, I posted what I felt would be the ten most important stories of 2008.

The trials of sub-Saharan Africa were at the head of my list, not intentionally (there really was no order involved), but it was frontmost on my mind as the crisis in Kenya unfolded.

Well, it looks like I may have stumbled into being right, for once:

1) Kenya's dubious election - Kenya's opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) claims that last month's election was rigged in favour of President Mwai Kibaki.

2) A related story: Kenyan leader names new cabinet - Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki has named his new cabinet, hours before Ghana's leader was due to arrive as part of mediation efforts over disputed polls. (This is not a good thing. Kibaki is basically saying, "Screw the mediation. I'm taking the reins!")

3) Still more: Odinga says Obama is his cousin - Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has said he is a cousin of US presidential hopeful Barack Obama. (This could impact how the State Department handles the mediation going forward, if at all.)

4) Let's move onto other African countries now: Teenager prevents assassination of Maldives president - The Maldives president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, survived an assassination attempt today when a teenage boy grabbed the knife of an attacker who jumped out of a crowd of people greeting the president, a government spokesman said. (Islamist militants have been accused, and are also accused of setting off a bomb in Male in September that wounded 12 tourists.)

5) Two Libyans released in Somalia - Two Libyan diplomats have been released in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, after being briefly abducted by gunmen.

6) Staying with Somalia: Sick Somali president in London - Somalia's interim President Abdullahi Yusuf is being treated in a London hospital after he collapsed last week. (It's unclear if he's critically ill or not, altho rushing him to London from Africa is indicative of severity. Yusuf was installed by Ethiopian forces and as is evident from the first story, it was not an overwhelmingly popular choice.)

7) Turning now to South Africa: ANC behind Zuma for SA president - South Africa's ruling African National Congress has confirmed that its newly elected leader Jacob Zuma will be the party's presidential candidate in 2009. (This, despite the fact that prosecutors have indicted him on corruption charges in an arms deal with "old Europe.")

8) And finally, Mauritania: Arrests over Mauritania killings - Mauritania's authorities say they have arrested nine people in connection with the shooting of four French tourists last month. (Once more, an African group allegedly related to Al Qaeda has been blamed)

Not a pretty picture for this troubled continent.

Open Letter To Hillary

Dear Senator,

Look, I'm just a shlub with a blog, but I've been watching elections in America for almost fifty years and have been a Democratic as long. My first stint as a campaign volunteer was in fifth grade during the Humphrey-Nixon election of 1968, standing on a street corner with a lemonade stand, not easy to do when you're in New York City.

I would like very much for you to win. I don't believe in change for change's sake, although that seems to be trendy right now. If you're going to change the direction of the country, you really ought to know where you're taking us.

Neither of your main rivals have voiced anything but platitudes regarding this, while voting in the opposite direction to their glorious speeches.

America has, to crib from Bill Moyers, become morbidly obese, intellectually speaking. We're dumb enough and lazy enough to fall for the same style crap George W. Bush foisted upon us, eight years ago, simply because the packaging is more palatable.

(Matt Lauer asked you this morning if you were saying what I just said, and while you weren't saying this, I just did).

I'd like to throw out here a piece of campaign advice. Again, I'm just a shlub with a blog, but I'm a damned intelligent shlub, running a damn fine blog (if I say so myself), who could probably take over your campaign in less time than it takes me to complete typing this sentence because the solution is so bloody obvious, I'm amazed you haven't taken it up.

Stop engaging Senators Obama and Edwards. Start taking on the President again.

Give us solutions to the massive problems he's created over the past eight years. Stop lowering yourself to debate the nuances of your votes in the Senate with these shmucks. If they had half your record, they'd be running away with the nomination.

Instead of dwelling on the past (which is precisely the gambit they watn you to play) look forward. Tell us, "I'm going to fix the problems in my first term, and when I'm re-elected, I'm going to finish building that bridge to the 21st Century."

And then tell us precisely how. Show us how George Bush has failed in so many areas that we aren't even aware of, beyond the economy and the Iraq invasion, to include the environment, literacy and education, health care (you're big on this, but you're still comparing yourself to Obama. Stop!), homeland security (we still don't have secure ports and we still don't have secure airports, and Bush is paying lip service to these in his most recent budgets).

Screw the internecine fighting! Your fight is with Bush. You can still win this nomination, but you have to start acting like the nomination is more important than how some wannabe Jesse Jackson or Bill Clinton with darker hair perverts your good name. They aren't the vast right wing conspiracy and you're already in the race.

Go for it, girl!

The Haircut

One day a florist goes to a barber for a haircut. After the cut he asked about his bill and the barber replies, "I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week. " The florist was pleased and left the shop. When the barber goes to open his shop the next morning there is a 'thank you' card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the barber again replies, "I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week." The cop is happy and leaves the shop. The next morning when the barber goes to open up there is a 'thank you' card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.

Later that day, a college professor comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the barber again replies, "I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week." The professor is very happy and leaves the shop. The next morning when the barber opens his shop, there is a 'thank you' card and a dozen different books, such as "How to Improve Your Business" and "Becoming More Successful.

"Then, a Congressman comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to pay his bill the barber again replies, "I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week." The Congressman is very happy and leaves the shop. The next morning when the barber goes to open up, there are a dozen Congressmen lined up waiting for a free haircut.

And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the citizens of our country and the members of our Congress.

Maybe This Story Will Finally Get Some Legs

I post this more for Katrina's sake than for my own, but Sibel Edmonds is someone who's story needs to be heard and investigated. She's not an outsider looking in, but an insider looking back in:

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

There are a handful of people this could be: among them, Condoleeza Rice (despite the "he" reference), John Bolton, and perhaps Steven Hadley. I'm sure there are others that I can't come up with (entries welcome).

She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents.

“If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,” she said.

Her story shows just how much the West was infiltrated by foreign states seeking nuclear secrets. It illustrates how western government officials turned a blind eye to, or were even helping, countries such as Pakistan acquire bomb technology.

If this is true, this is an amazing claim. This is treason, and not just on a technicality, like many would claim the outting of Valerie Plame was.