The better question than this...

Is Bayh this much of a moron?

Yes, spring a surprise retirement on the Democrats, reducing their margin, complaining about bipartisanship that the Republicans are willfully refusing to participate in, and then turn around and try to run for President.

Senator Bayh? When did your brain become sufficiently damaged that you thought pulling a Palin would be good for your career?

Mister, calm down.

Obama's 'stupid' jab at Vegas - CNN.com

I heard what he said. And you know what, Mr. Jillette? Lighten up. Your Oasis in the sand has built it's reputation as a land of forbidden fruits. And I'm pretty sure some people actually spend money they shouldn't actually be spending there. I know you have a pretty big stake in this, and I'm sure you earn every dollar of your money. I love your performances. But the reality is, the whole point of your city is excess.

Most of the people who go to your city, though, have some money to burn. And if they don't, do you think it benefits their cities, their town, to go spending money in yours? What we need is a sustainable economy, where John and Jane Q. Public can on occasion head to your city to have a little fun, and not worry about depriving others of what they need.

And Obama's helping on your end. What an off-hand comment that maybe a few thousand people might have heard of, if nobody made a big f'ing deal about it, now has been blown up into a controversy way out of proportion to its actual import. And to what end? To embarrass the guy who's actually trying to ensure that the massive foreclosures and economic troubles that hit Nevada, and Las Vegas in particular, don't happen again anytime soon?

You talk of Obama as being a gamble. I don't think that way. Gambling is a game of chance, where you don't necessarily know how to attain an outcome, where you trust to fortune rather than skill. Gambling is what people did in the suburbs of your city, buying and flipping houses in real estate speculation that drove values sky high. Gambling is what people did on Wall Street, and in the big banks around the country, trying to make money through financial chicanery, rather than productive investments.

Now, I got nothing against gambling as a means of having fun, when people set limits and know when to call it a night. But for too long, folks have been taking up gambling as a way of doing ordinary business, taking the games of chance and pushing them out of the casino. Obama's trying to push those games back in, to make sure that more people can afford to show up at a casino and spend their money on your games, and see your shows.

So don't be concerned about an off-hand comment like that. Most people are not going to go running back to the bank or the travel agent because the President gave them second thoughts. They're going to do it because their mortgages are burdensome, because they've lost their job, because they've taken a cut in pay to keep their job. They're going to do it because their healthcare bills have bankrupted them, or this, that and the other thing. People will stop going to Vegas because they can no longer afford to have fun, not because one politician, even a good one, says, "spend it on college."

You would make more productive use of your time arguing against the BS manner in which this economy's been run, the smoke and mirrors that people have put up to make money they didn't earn, the practices that have left America's workforce more sidelined than it's been in thirty years.

Your comment was pennywise and pound foolish. Support the President in getting this economy back into shape so he can the real money flowing back to your town.

Senators Lieberman, McCain And Graham Ask Obama To Halt Transfer Of Yemeni Gitmo Detainees | TPMDC

This is rich.

Never mind that the guy was from Nigeria. Never mind if folks have already looked at these folks and found them not to be a threat.

Cuz that's what we do with terrorists: we react! Makes good political hay, and terrible sense if you really think about it.

We can distract ourselves with a bunch of poorly founded suspicions, or we can go after actual leads. Our choice.

Not what I was looking for

But funny anyways. ;-)

But the question is, do I want to friend her?

Sarah Palin wants to friend you - CNN.com

Sure, it might say something that she brought social media to the Republicans. But all the social media in the world will not help somebody make friends who so casually ticks people who aren't die-hard republicans off.

Sarah's problem is that when she gets close to the presidency, people start getting nervous. Barack Obama, while labelled a celebrity president (this from the party that brought us the first former actor as president) is nothing of the kind. He's got the kind of qualifications most of us marvel at when we're not considering them in the light of a political campaign, where everything gets turned into something evil.

She? She's a big deal because forces in the party want her to be a big deal, and her ambition complements that. But as far as the merits of this candidate go, she's lacking. She can't even say she consistently runs the direction of the party's principles.

Do Republicans seriously want people to think they are in the habit of running people in their election contests who are all hat and no cattle?

Swine Flu, Right Back at You!

Daily Kos: State of the Nation:

"'This weekend, President Obama declared a national emergency in response to the
growing threat of swine flu. ... In response to Obama's declaration, the
Republican leaders this morning came out in support of the swine flu.'
---Jimmy Kimmel"

The sad thing about this joke is how close the Real Republican party is to doing exactly this. Not much difference between doing that, and telling people not to take the Swine Flu seriously because Obama's just trying to scare people into passing healthcare reform.

Ironically, if something happens, and millions of people have to deal with the healthcare industry at once, that's probably going to make reform popular real fast.

But hey, can you really accuse the right of picking its battles these days, much less picking them well?

Mmmm, NAND Gates... Tasty....

Quote of the Day Mother Jones:

"If you find yourself chewing the memory card in your cellphone to destroy any
record of your misconduct, something has gone terribly wrong with your
character."

I agree with Kevin Drum on this one. I would venture to add, though, that SDHC cards are far more tastier than SIM Cards, though, especially with a nice Hollandaise sauce.

File Under "Physician, Heal Thyself".

GOP victory Tuesday won't erase party's problems - Yahoo! News:

"'Right now there's no central Republican leader to turn to, and there's no
central Republican message,' conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh told Fox
News on Sunday. 'The Republican message is sort of muddied. What do they stand
for? Right now it's opposition to Obama.'"

Really? And who's responsible for that?

People like you have taken opposition to Liberal to its limits. Unfortunately, that means that practically everybody to the left of Atilla the Hun is fair game for your rather influential, and fairly continuous liberal Bashing.

Bush made it worse, because he made it so difficult to defend him without ignoring the objective truth of what Bush was doing or saying.

And now you've got a party that spins on its own, hardly restrained by any sense that it can't get out of its current troubles simply by BSing people and turning the Democrat's criticisms of Bush around on their star Barack Obama.

The Republican's only chance at popularity is to mindlessly encourage fear and suspicion of Democrats. But that negative space of contempt cannot make the Republicans well loved by the American people again, cannot restore the trust they squandered over the last fifteen years.

Republicans, in order to come back, will need to define themselves by something that appeals to an audience that no longer buys free markets, free trade, or other various Republican ideologies as reliable defaults. They will have to become something else than the Conservatives, or Neoconservatives they once were.

Or maybe the just need to quiet down and get competent once again, generate some sort of useful, practical philosophy, and not simply be out to get Liberals.

But then again, Mr. Limbaugh, that isn't exactly your department now, is it?

Kind of knew this already.

Media Confirms: Obama a Jedi Master.

There's kind of a sliding scale here, fella

Sanford: I Shouldn't Resign Because "God Can Use Imperfect People To Perform His Will" TPMMuckraker

There's a range at work governor, and while it's certainly a nation or a states choice whether they accept your kind of imperfection, they don't have to tolerate things without limit. If they find your conduct objectionable enough, you're not making friends by invoking it as "imperfection" or by saying you're doing God's will, when you clearly and now openly have broken one of the commandments.

Stupid? Let me tell you what stupid is, mister.

The VO Stupid Facebook Meme Of The Day: "Stupid Facebook Meme Of The Day
A neat “progressive” meme is currently all the rage on Facebook. Stupid, but it sure sounds nice."

That's a Right Wing Blogger's take on things. But what's he calling stupid?

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should
go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status
for the rest of the day.

That's what he thinks is stupid.

I seem to remember this little thing in the Declaration of Independence about Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Not dying because you couldn't afford healthcare seems to cover two out of three just on flat practical terms, and if you understand just how constricting the economic consequences of serious illnesses are, you'd see it covered all three.

Oh, I know, I know. Maybe you'd have to comply with some regulations, deal with some red tape to get it. But are you any more free with the current system? Are you free to switch jobs if you've had a stroke, or a heart attack? Are your kids free to move from home, if your illness leaves you dependant on them for their livelihood?

If it weren't for Medicare, or social security, how many old folks would have to have moved in with their children, becoming a burden on them? Part of the point of these programs is to free the young and healthy to seek out lives of their own, rather than have to support their parents in their old age.

But that's just the economic argument, really. If I really wanted to be a bleeding heart about it, poverty shouldn't mean a death sentence for those with serious diseases. Come on, you Christians out there, this is a two-fer, heal the sick and help the poor! Or do you not fear the big fella saying "Go away, I know you not."?

As for people going broke because they're sick?

Look, part of the reason people go broke on this crap is because nobody can reasonably pay these bills themselves. The market is simply not shaped in a sane fashion for the person without health coverage. But worse, the folks who run the system look for every possible opportunity to dump people out of the very system that's supposed to keep them from having to pay all those costs out of pocket.

I support the Public Option, because I know from bitter personal experience just how screwed up this healthcare system is. I know people dead and maimed because of medical mistakes. Medical bills burden even those in my extended family with the highest incomes, the best coverage and the best doctors.

Folks, the stupidity is waiting on this. The stupidity is indulging the policies of those who had fifteen years to get this right, an opportunity they got for themselves throught he same kind of concerted effort they're giving now, but never did much good. The reason this meme is bouncing around the internet so fast is that my experience is not uncommon, and like me, those many people were folks who could have been satisfied, if the Republicans had created a workable alternative instead of just shooting down everybody else's suggestions.

I don't do Facebook, but if I did, I would agree. As it is, that paragraph is up there, and I invite anybody with an account to post that just like folks suggested. It'd be the smart message to spread.

Smarter than the Republican's message: Poverty should be a fatal disease, and the sick deserve to go broke. Their fault, really.

I know, I know!

#zingfail

The intensity of the stupid burned away his aging process, that's how.

Obama on Death Panels

Well, if you're sincerely sorry,it's accepted, but...

I'm not sure how well an apology fixes things like this.

If you are sincerely apologetic, break ties to this kind of racism. If you really were unaware of how offensive this was, when you first saw it, then you should consider what that says about who you're listening to, who you're hanging around with.

Folks on the right in general are not making good judgments as to who or what they're hanging around with. They're hanging around with Secessionists, people who support the violent overthrow of our elected government, racists, and others whose reputations are deservedly low. That has an effect on what a person judges to be appropriate.

This episode, one way or another, helps to highlight the extremity to which the right has drawn itself. It's time for the Republican to reconsider their associations, before their associations lead even more people to reconsider their support for them.

On Empathy

Short comment, pretty simple: As far as empathy goes in law, the Republicans state that empathy eviscerates impartiality.

Merriam Webster defines empathy so:

the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner

If you think about it in those terms, then obviously, short of rendering yourself entirely ignorant of both cases being made and recusing yourself from any matter faintly related to your own experience, you can't be impartial unless you consider both sides of the story, both arguments, without bias. Considering the perspective of both sides is critical to quality judgments, especially when the law asks questions whose criteria involve fairness, equity, and equality.

After all, with Brown vs. the Board of Education, the critical point is whether Separate is Equal. Some White guy who doesn't have to go to the back of the bus might see it that way, but another person may argue, indeed, that the very act of separating a person out based on appearance or racial ancestry constitutes unequal treatment. If you only consider an argument from one side, how can you call yourself impartial?

No, no, it couldn't be.

Is That a Euphemism?

Among the names on the Stormy Daniels Exploratory Committee: Dick Johnson, Peter Rodman, Percy Hardwicke, and Long Min Hung. Apparently tabling measures is very popular, and everybody joins in on that intercourse.

What?

Insert Headline Here

Insert Headline Here

I'm just going to leave the defaults up. That's what folks at the LA Times did.

The thing to keep in mind here is this: Once upon a time, you did your best to be productive and earn a profit by drumming up business well. Then came the age of the dominance of finance and speculation in the markets, and so it became more important to consistently make profits. But of course, you had to pay executives a lot for their executiveness. So guess what they cut? the jobs of people who just did things, who could fit in nice neat little slots and be taken out and replaced.

And so, business has become a game of how close to the edge you can run a business, before you run it into the ground. The problem with operating what's essentially a low flying business is that there's little room for correction. When the ground comes up to meet you, as it does in tough financial times, you really feel it.

There's something pathological about running a business this way, something strained.

Let's speak of broad overgeneralizations...

Oh Noes! The Left is organizing a large organization of people do do things! It must be the Hitler Youth! Or at least a Left Wing Slush Fund.


Okay, let me explain this in rather unconfused terms. The Hitler Youth was Adolf's personal youth fan club. It was created during the rise of the Nazi Party. It was paramilitary. Kids were actually trained to become Nazi soldiers.

As for calling it a slush fund, isn't it kind of early to allege corruption?

Of course, this is just me being literal about things, using words for what they mean rather than inventing paramilitary corrupt organizations out of thin air when faced by anything that resembles new deal type programs.

This is what comes of what we could call a vicious cycle of overheated rhetoric combining with the excessive credulity that many on the far right have of each others claims. Fictions far outrun realities when nobody's factchecking themselves.

Oh, and folks: it's voluntary.

An intriguing angle on Bernie Madoff's "Ponzi" scheme

This makes Madoff's case all the more intriguing, if right. The author makes the case that Madoff's fund wasn't a Ponzi scheme, but in fact a very complex, sophisticated money laundering operation.

The connection the author makes that grabs my attention is the one with the groups and individuals who own GM and Chrysler. Have to wonder what comes of this.

Prince sends note to suicide couple's family - CNN.com

Prince sends note to suicide couple's family - CNN.com:

The insanity in one particular passage in this sad story speaks for itself:

"Had they had the option of an assisted death in this country they may
still be alive, as their physical ability to travel would not have been a
factor," said Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying.

Yes, if they could have killed themselves at home, they might still be alive today. Some people are actually arguing that killing yourself abroad is more dangerous than killing yourself at home. Me, I think both actions come with a strong chance of death. But that's just me, stuck in my old-fashioned ways.