I love "House".  I love that it's Sherlock Holmes but with a medical twist.

I love Hugh Laurie for faking both an American accent and a limp week after week. 

I love Saturday Night Live because it stays political and funny all at once.  Of course, the old SNL was the best, but Gilda's gone and the rest have moved on and the new cast is doing a pretty good job even when the writing isn't as good as it used to be.

I loved the "Obama - Cool" spot last weekend.  After that, I promptly fell asleep and missed the rest of the show.

Tonight, I ain't gonna miss a second because Hugh Laurie is hosting.  He's the next best thang to Paul Simonon, in my book.

I'm thinking it would be fun to live-blog/chat tonight's SNL with anyone interested in staying up with me.  http://www.lingr.com/room/TPM-aholics

See ya there!

 

I am a First Amendment nut. At the time our Constitution was adopted, none of the Bill of Rights applied to state action. People do not realize that the Supreme Court in the twentieth century used their power to 'adopt' a Bill of Rights that applied to Federal and state action. One right at a time. The Justices did this primarily by using the 14th Amendment grants of Due Process and Equal Protection.

But in the eighteenth century they had 'penny newspapers' and they were everywhere. The printing presses never stopped. Everyone who could read and write could participate. And Penny newspapers did not agree with each other. 

Of course, under Adams we had the Alien and Sedition Act.

Ironically, the twentieth century brought an internal structure that really worked against a real freedom of speech and press because the citizen became THE VIEWER. More and more papers were bought up by syndicates and tv was one way medium.

Oh, people would write letters to the editor, but how many were printed? And knowing you could not be published, most people said to hell with it.

You could write or attempt to call a tv station. That really never went anywhere anymore than writing to your congressmen.

But here, in this medium, I have never seen or experienced anything like it.

If cable news publishes some tripe, thousands will blog on their web sites. If a congressman appears inattentive, tens of thousands will blog and email that congressman.

The only purpose as far as I can tell for a concept of freedom of speech and press is the belief that the truth will out.

I have never believed this more than I do now. If some phony issue like this felonious Governor in Illinois pops up, Salon, TOM, Mediamatters, the Daily Beast, Politico and scores of other sites descend upon the issue like a hundred vultures on a dead antelope.

And if, say Salon, publishes something with a bad smell, hundreds would chime in immediately.

This medium is accessable to 90% of our population. It is cheap. The technology gets better every week.

In this little blogdom, Tigger reminded us of the 60th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.  Joe B went nuts about the downtrodden worker and the robber barons who wish to keep them down.

LisaB and TheraP (you know there is nice poem in there somewhere) waxed poetically about life and death, today and forever, lost and found.

TheraP and many others attempted to figure out how to redistribute some income in the riches nation on earth that hides most of those riches in caches owned by the top 1%.

There are pigs, teddy bears, musical notes, cats with bunny ears, and all sorts of logos waxing poetically about economic crises and political upheaval.


I think this new ability to voice one's opinion is the best hope for democracy and this country.

And if that sounds like a third grade teacher's patriotic speech, that is ok with me.

Cast in point, this article from the AP. I was reading it but I couldn't help saying to myself on more than one occasion "WHY is she slipping that into her comments. Case in point again this quote

At the same time, Obama may be drawn into an unfolding political scandal over Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's alleged efforts to trade the president-elect's former Senate seat for personal gain. The ongoing federal investigation could ensnare some of his top advisers and taint the self-styled reformer who has tried to steer clear of notorious Chicago politics.

REALLY? Is that what she REALLY thinks? Other than Fitzgerald saying the PE is in no way under investigation and our very own Obama laying the hammer down saying he is "confident" noone was involved in any underhandedness I am wondering why she decided to pull this one out of her ass. NEXT is this

President-elect Barack Obama, relatively young and inexperienced, is facing a rapidly growing list of monumental challenges as he prepares to take the reins of a nation in turmoil.

 He has surrounded himself with people in his incoming White House and Cabinet who have decades more experience than him in government, as well as foreign and domestic policy

Obama has been on the national stage for a short time. He was introduced to the country during the Democratic convention in 2004 when he was in the Illinois Legislature and running for the U.S. Senate. Age 47, he will become president after serving just four years in the Senate

Roosevelt was already an established politician when he came into office at the depths of the Great Depression in a society with no safety net for the suffering

I feel like yelling ALRIGHT I GET IT he isn't the most experienced incoming President but what are you trying to get at?

Don't get me wrong here she actually sums up already known knowledge pretty well but for some reason some of those comments seemed to glare out at me. Is it just me being paranoid or it there some subtlety there that others can decipher?

P.S. Where have I heard the name Liz Sidoti before?

 

 

 

28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my God.

These are listed to show the "glorified" state of Jesus Christ after the cross and reflect back to His prayer in the garden.

 

John 17:5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was., and in John 12:28-30  Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.  The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.  Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.
Between the words have and will is the place of the crucifixion - I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

Ephesians 5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
Christ is not an abuser of children nor is He a wife beater as some think (you are His child if so be you are in Christ). What man would take his newlywed bride and beat her and cast her among other men to be abused? Christ died once for the sins of the people and not as Moses indicated by striking the rock signifying Christ would die twice for the sins of the people which thing God did not command. Those that have accepted Christ and His cross have died unto sin and Christ bore our sin (past,present,and future) on His cross therefore we have been crucified with him, that is our sin, and do bare the pain of being in a world of sin and wracked in our physical bodies. We are under attack by the world in all areas - physical, mental, and spiritual and yet we realize we war not with flesh and blood but with spiritual wickedness in high places, this is why we are commanded to pray for those over us. Does sin bother you? Are you not opposed to all the filth, murder, envy, jealously, pride and the such like that you see in every day life? Notice too, that God could not destroy Sodom until the near kinsmen of Abraham - Lot and his children were removed and so it is with the church. Much like that of "righteous" Lot who vexed his "righteous soul" with their filthy communication, so too, does the church fall short of perfection. When the angels went to remove Lot from Sodom, he stated,

Genesis 19:19-23  Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast showed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:  Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live. (Lot wanted to be close to Sodom)  And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken.  Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.  The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. (substitute Son for sun for understanding)
So was born the slogan, "You can take Lot out of the country but you can't take the country out of Lot". Lot was not righteous in and of himself but was made righteous by the near kinsman redeemer - Abraham. We are not righteous of our self (See: Ruth  ) but because of our kinsman Redeemer - Jesus Christ and as Lot had to be removed so too shall we have to be removed. Our works do not make us righteous for then would we turn to the Law and make sacrifice which the law requires, even Ruth could not be redeemed by the law in her time, kinsman nearer than Boaz could not redeem her but Boaz being in the lineage of our Saviour Jesus Christ could redeem her (Luke 3:32 Which was the son of Jesse, which was the son of Obed, which was the son of Booz, which was the son of Salmon, which was the son of Naasson, - Booz or Boaz). Neither can we be redeemed by the Law or our works, but look what the scripture states in the beginning of Abraham's salvation -

 Genesis 12:1-4    Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee:  And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:  And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.  So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. (Genesis 15:7 And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.
Ur of Chaldee/Haran is the place of sin, much like that of ourselves today, God calls us out of sin into His marvellous light, therefore it is God that calls us, seals us, and saves us, we can do nothing in and of ourself until God brings us out of sin and the mindset of the sin nature which is alway opposed to God. Note also God told Abraham to leave his father's house and Christ would later state any one not willing to leave his father and mother (their religion) is not worthy of Him and to go a step further, even if the mom and pop belief is correct, you are still commanded to come out of it and follow Jesus as one individual in Christ. This is why someone begins to question their parentage and their belief, we come to Christ and Christ alone as He that began a good work in you shall also finish it. Now whether one believes in the rapture or no, the righteous (because of the blood of Christ and Christ in you) still must be removed for God's wrath and judgement to begin. God does not pour out His wrath twice upon His Son. The rapture is a mystery thus it is called "A silent rapture or catching away" if you prefer, with the evidence for the rapture located in

Revelation 5:9-10  And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;  And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.
Note all of these are singular in spellings kindred,tongue,people,and nation and the reason? We are one in Christ -

Ephesians 4:4-7  There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;  One Lord, one faith, one baptism,  One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.  But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

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Her deeply felt but supremely rational voice needs no further comment.

Read 9 Is Not 11 (And November isn't September)

Bloomberg News is suing the Federal Reserve, under the Freedom of Information Act to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers, and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.  The Fed responded to Bloomberg, saying "it's allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information."  In good English, the taxpayers are being screwed, again:

"If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that's what they don't want us to know," said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, which oversees $22 billion in assets. 

Lending skyrockets:

Total Fed lending exceeded $2 trillion for the first time Nov. 6. It rose by 138 percent, or $1.23 trillion, in the 12 weeks since Sept. 14, when central bank governors relaxed collateral standards to accept securities that weren't rated AAA.

 Congressional Democrats speak up:

 Congress is demanding more transparency from the Fed and Treasury on bailout, most recently during Dec. 10 hearings by the House Financial Services committee when Representative David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, said Americans had "been bamboozled."

Why this is so concerning:

"There has to be something they can tell the public because we have a right to know what they are doing," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Arlington, Virginia-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

"It would really be a shame if we have to find this out 10 years from now after some really nasty class-action suit and our financial system has completely collapsed," she said.

The Fed's lack of transparency is a continuation of how we got here in the first place.  
What's amazing to me is how vocal the Republicans were in killing the $25 billion bridge loan to the auto industry, but $2 trillion to the banks with no accountability; no problem!

Guess Republicans have no problem getting an auto loan like the rest of us.  You know, the bank president is a Republican.

Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion

This is simply an opinion piece. My statement, in any way you wish to take it, is simply my statement and may or may not be a shared view within this blog.

 

With the Senent saying no to an auto bailout, the current Presadent saying he is going to help them, and the treasury saying that they will help no matter what, was saying no to a regulated bailout such a smart idea?

(From Yahoo, Covered by AP)

The White House assessed its options Saturday on helping prevent the collapse of the U.S. auto industry. Any avenue of rescue, however, must surmount political obstacles and take into account the potential fallout on financial markets in a time of recession.

Bush administration officials kept details about any emerging plan closely held. They are talking with automakers and have yet to make final decisions on the size or length of the help.

White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said officials "are continuing to gather financial information from the automakers, assessing the data, their cash position going forward. We'll take a look at that information, make some judgments and review our options."

He said the focus is on "trying to get the policy right while considering the best interests of the taxpayer and our economy, and we'll take the time we have available to do that right. No decisions have been made."

The White House disclosed on Friday that it would consider using the $700 billion financial industry bailout plan enacted in October as a way to help the car companies, even though it has long insisted that money should be reserved for stabilizing markets.

Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, a key supporter of his state's leading industry, said the idea of emergency loans "is still very much alive."

 

It seams by saying no they will be able to play in the Bailout money but will it be as regulated as the Auto Bailout was?

Will they have to have a Car Czar to help formulate Restructuring?

Will they have to me the carbon standard that the Bailout would have hold them to?

Should we be happy with the Choice that the Senent made for us? I have to say, My opinion, is no. We still have to pay it with our tax money and they get a loan..... How do we hold there feet to the fire now?

A bolt of cynicism struck me a few moments ago, as I read another headline about the Bush administration vowing not to let the automakers go under.

How cynical is it to wonder if the whole scenario is a set-up?  Could this possibly be a blatant attempt by a horrible, legacy-deficient administration to make a last minute play for something positive to be added to the history books?   The two 'rogue' senators are from two completely solid GOP states, so they don't have to worry about their own re-elections, and the administration can then come in, and look like they're 'doing the right thing for America'.

Their hope would be, of course, that if they succeed, instead of the unanimous shouts of "worst administration ever", at least some of the public will add the tagline, "Yeah, but at least they saved the Auto industry."  And for them, that's a winning scenario.

Or was that flash of cynicism, merely a result of my forgetting to take my arthritis medicine?

  

Per the Chicago Tribune -

Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be White House chief of staff, had conversations with Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration about who would replace Obama in the U.S. Senate, the Chicago Tribune has learned

So - what did Rham know about Blago selling the seat, and what did Rham do with that info?

As 10 Republicans voted for the bailout, if the Dem caucaus voted en masse, it would of had a 60 vote, fillabuster proof majority.

 

Not counting Reid who voted no so he could call it back, who were the dems that killed the bailout?

 

Four Dem no votes : Baucus, Tester, Lincoln, and Reid.

Three Dems that did not vote: Kennedy, Kerry, and Wyden

 

And Joe Biden couldnt be bothered either to vote either.  Just how important is the bailout to Obama if he couldnt get Joe to show up to vote?

Just listened to Coburn  ( Ass-OK) talking about Holder and 2 things lept out at me.

and they are tyring changes. See Bloomberg here yesterday:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the U.K. is working on the "second stage" of a bank rescue ...banks remain reluctant to lend even after tapping into a 50 billion-pound ($74 billion) government program to bolster their capital. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling is considering credit guarantees for households and companies to encourage loans, a person familiar with the plan said this week...

Also this Bloomberg piece for more detall and The Wall Street Journal today "U.K. Weighs Revamp of Bailout", if you have a subscription.

Meanwhile there was interesting Germany v. U.K bickering:

....EU's 27 nations approved on Friday a coordinated call for fiscal-stimulus packages of around 1.5% of the bloc's gross-domestic product, or about €200 billion ($267 billion). The language they used, however, was vague enough to permit countries to do more or less.

Germany has proposed a stimulus package that would pump around €4 billion ($5.3 billion) into the economy over the next year. Meanwhile the U.K. plans about £20 billion ($30 billion) in stimulus by 2010, including short-term tax cuts.

"All this will do is raise Britain's debt to a level that will take a whole generation to work off," German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück said in an interview with Newsweek. U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown dismissed the comments, saying they reflected internal German politics.

Friday's EU agreement won't force Germany to expand its stimulus package....

(From Yahoo in full context)

President-elect Barack Obama Saturday said he will nominate New York housing official Shaun Donovan as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development , calling the job "essential" to restoring the economy.

"To end this economic crisis, we must end the mortgage crisis where it began. This all started when Americans took out mortgages they couldn't afford," Obama said in a text of his weekly radio address to be delivered Saturday morning.

Noting that one in ten homeowners now faces some form of financial problem, a record high, Obama said he's already asked his forming administration to produce a plan that help more people keep their homes.

 

And the reason for the Pick

 

"He knows that we can put the dream of owning a home within reach for more families, so long as we're making loans in the right way, and so long as those who buy a home are prepared for the responsibilities of homeownership," Obama said.

 

Little Bio

(From Wiki, Taking in full context)

Born in New York, Donovan earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University, studying public administration at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and architecture at the Graduate School of Design.^[2]

During the Clinton administration and the transition to the Bush administration, Donovan was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing at HUD, and was acting FHA commissioner. He became New York City's housing commissioner in 2004.^[3][2]

During the 2008 United States Presidential campaign, Donovan worked for the Obama campaign.^[1]

Dear Cable Asshats,

I am aware that under Clinton Rules journalism, fallacy = news and logic and reason = opinion for the opinion shows and if you do it any other way, you'll lose precious ratings points. I also get that, at a personal level, some of you desparately need to see Obama exposed as a fraud and a corrupt con man, because otherwise your worship of "savvy" and disbelief in and disdain for integrity are just the character flaws of small-minded twits rather than the marks of a great reporter. I likewise understand that your job is to generate content, to fill up airtime, not to report actual news--which, in any case, is hard to gather, hard to write, expensive to produce, and too factually and morally complicated for your viewers. I also get that now that a Democrat is in power, each and every little psychotic fantasy that some Republican politician or operative is willing to voice is "news" while observing that the available evidence indicates there is no story is "opinion" to be voiced on the opinion shows.

I understand, in short, that good faith doesn't enter in to the discussion. You need Content, and so there is no explanation, no level of transparency or disclosure that won't lead to more troubling, troubling Content-generating questions.

Still, let's pretend like we live in a world where journalists have standards and think they should report news. Let's do it just for the sake of developing my argument, okay? Because, I'd like to ask a few basic questions.

First, why exactly, is it that Obama and his team's dealings with Blagojevich regarding the appointment of a successor to Obama's senate seat is the lead story rather than a sidebar? That's the fundamental question I am confused about. Why am I confused? Well, let us break my big question down down into smaller bites.

Is there anything that we know of now that Obama or his people did in connection with the actions identified in the indictment that is more newsworthy than what Blagojevich has actually been accused of doing? Would you agree with me that, based on what we know, the answer to that question is "no, there's nothing?"

Well, then, you must also agree that the story, if any, is in what you do not know? Right? There are unanswered questions, and that is what is so Very, Very Troubling that it makes this a Story That Won't Go Away, correct?

Okay, well then, is it not then incumbent upon you, the asshats highly professional and ethical journalists, to articulate exactly what these unanswered questions are, rather than merely reporting that unspecified unanswered questions remain and that mere existence of these Troubling Unanswered, yet unspecified Questions casts a Very Troubling Shadow, yea, dare we say a Taint, over the nascent Obama Administration? Can we agree on that?

Would you also agree, then, that, by definition, unanswered questions about the Obama team's associations or communications with Blagojevich regarding the Senate seat are only "troubling," and, thus, newsworthy, if they pertain to possible improprieties? That would seem pretty obvious, wouldn't it? And "impropriety," means something that was illegal, immoral or otherwise unethical, right? So, you're not worried or in any way troubled by the fact that Obama has not come out and categorically denied that Rahm Emmanuel and Blago had a fifteen minute conversation about their mutual admiration for John Adams' most recent operatic triumph, "Dr. Atomic," right?

And you would also agree that an unanswered question is only "troubling" and thus newsworthy, if it has some reasonable grounding in the available evidence, correct? And can we agree that "reasonable grounding" means either that existing evidence indicates that something untoward actually occurred or else, actual evidence exists from which one could reasonably infer, without undue speculation, that something improper occurred?

For example, one could speculate that Obama got on the phone with Blagojevich and had a thirty minute discussion about kidnapping and enslaving nubile young white women from Chicagoland Catholic girls schools and selling them to Saudi oil sheiks. That would certainly be very, very troubling, very scandalous, and, particularly by the standards of your industry, exceedingly newsworthy. However, other than the Fox morning show, you would never deem Obama's failure to specifically and categorically state that no such discussion ever occurred either relevant or newsworthy because there is not one subatomic particle's worth of evidence from which one could even infer that such a conversation might have occurred, right? Right? Okay, wipe that dopey, dreamy, wistful look off your faces and pay attention, to me. You would agree that that's not newsworthy, because there's absolutely no evidence to support it, right? RIGHT?

Well then, please specifically identify what illegal, immoral or otherwise unethical acts you believe that Obama, or someone working for him, could possibly have committed based upon the information already known to you, and, specifically identify from what known facts you infer that such acts may have occurred.

Because, unless and until you asshats responsible journalists do that, you are nothing more than obscenely overpaid mean girls maliciously spreading viscous, evil gossip in a gigantic high school cafeteria.

And, yes, I realize that I'm just being a dour old wet blanket, but I think its appropriate to point out that although this kind of thing was jolly and profitable fun during the Clinton years, this ain't then. Far be it from me to wave the flag of national crisis and demand that you stop being journalists and, instead, become the President's transcriptionists. We've run that experiment. It didn't work out too well, not that any of you noticed until a big girl named Katrina shoved your faces into it.

However, the fact of the matter is that we are at the beginning of the most serious economic crisis since the end of the Great Depression, and the jury's still out on whether the "since the end of the Great Depression" qualifier will turn out to be correct. We also have a war or two ongoing, though God knows you don't think those are of much interest either, these days. Given all that, it just seems a tad irresponsible to start distracting the guy who has to get us out of all those messes with demands to prove himself innocent of having done things you won't accuse him of. Indeed, if one might be forgiven an invidious comparison, one might characterize such conduct as gnawing away at the legitimacy and capacity to act of the soon-to-be President at a moment of great national and international peril like rats gnawing holes through the bottom of their ship.

No, I'm certainly not suggesting that you stop looking for a story. Root, investigate, dig. That's what you're supposed to do and, frankly, if you'd done a little of it during the years 2000-2008, we might not be in some of the messes we're counting on Obama to get us out of. (Though, as long as we're being all frank, if that were still your job, very few of you would be doing it here, because most would look at the "Was Obama involved in Blago's pay to play scheme" angle as pretty scanty diggings in which to mine news.)

No, what I am suggesting is that in times of great crisis, it behooves the press to at least distinguish between news and innuendo and, most particularly, not to fill hour after hour with hyperventilation about innuendo regarding the possibility of innuendo. What I am suggesting is that you should STFU about it unless and until you have an actual story. You know, like Bradlee made Woodward and Bernstein do back in the 70s.

Yeah, I know. It is to laugh. Guess I'm just another silly, angry leftist kool-aid drinking blogger who doesn't want you saying bad things about my Messiah. Yeah, that must be it so just feel free to forget I even said it.

(Wow, these open letters are certainly an effective medium for communicating ideas to important people.)

Latest IBD/TIPP poll - 63% of Americans surveyed are against an auto bailout.   The majority of Democrats, Republicans, Midwesterners, non-investors, etc.  all are against an auto bailout

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/Polls.aspx?id=313629919786029#polla

If Congress is supposed to represent its citizens, then maybe the Auto Bailout should have been voted down.  Most Americans are against it.

I've not seen much discussion of this, and the tracks are fast disappearing on the easily accessible web, so I'm dropping it here.

Three separate paragraphs of the Criminal Complaint against Blagojevich mention a "particular" columnist from the Chicago Sun-Times that Blagojevich talks about leaking to: paragraphs 97, 103 and 105.

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How do you value your life?  Your being?

One thing we know is that we will die.  That sets us apart as humans.  For a long time most people engage in the denial of death.  Some people live that way for a lifetime.  Others, even at a young age, perceive their life differently - as part of something more.  They even dedicate a whole life to that.  Most of us are somewhere in between.

Somewhere in mid-life, I began to reckon with death.  I was fascinated with geology - the passage of time.  I love the layers of rock.  I've pondered how mountains erode.  Wind and water and cold and heat and plants do their work.  And mountains wear down.  Layers of sediment build up under the sea.  The land rises and we see the layers of long-gone seas - in mountains.  All around us, right now, we're seeing the erosion of so much we took for granted.

Right now at the Cafe we're a pondering group, it seems.  Pondering the big ideas.  Asking the big questions.  Considering a shaman long dead, the value of her life.  And the value of her death and burial.  Watching civilization as we know it seeming to go up in smoke.  Peering ahead into the new, changed world that is coming upon us, unbidden but relentless.   

So, how do you value your life?   How do you value what is most precious but cannot last?  Does it affect how you live, knowing you will die?

TPM Cafe:  Serving food for thought

There's faith - in something or nothing. And there's doubt in between. Since something can't be proven. And nothing can't be proven either, we have a choice of (at least) three.

Even "faith" comes in many varieties. Many levels of what that means. Some think that means certainty. They go the way of fundamentalism.

I "believe" that people can have "access" to great "wisdom." It's there to be tasted in all traditions. The words must be savored and pondered until the husk is gone and the kernel has been consumed and may seem gone too. Beyond the "words" there is also direct access - in moments - to the same stream of wisdom that fed the words and keeps them alive for those who ponder deeply. Once the heart of wisdom is "touched" or you are "penetrated" and saturated, then you perceive that all the traditions flow from the same vanishing point - and there is no "inside" or "outside" - it's hard to describe.

You don't have to believe any of this. Doesn't matter to me. Because honestly it's all the same.

Peace.

Those who sincerely ponder, whatever course they choose, if they act with compassion .... Peace.

I have always detested potty language.  Obscenity bothers me not.  But potty language always causes me to pause. Sexual allusions are one thing.  But potty mouth always makes me queasy.
Fart is a particularly despicable term.  Expelling noxious fumes from ones anus is disgusting.


It is a natural enough process by which the body and its digestive system relieves itself by expelling methane, a gas that is created during the digestive process.  It appears that for some spicy  foods, certain meats or my mother's cooking appear to enhance this digestive activity.

It is one of the favorite references for stand-up comics and characters in sit-coms. I will usually turn the channel. But ancient Romans and Greeks and English writers like Chaucer could not omit references to the basic human activity.

Off subject, did you know that recent survey demonstrated that 2/3 of the audience will turn the channel when w appears?  So do I.  You get the point?

But now there is a new theory for the End of Times that is as equally disquieting as others that have been endlessly depicted on the History Channel or Discovery Channel or PBS.

In a December 12th piece posted in Salon,  Kirsten Weir discusses yet another scenario where Global Warming destroys all life on earth.  Isn't that delightful?
    
"Some geologists say rising temperatures will uncork vast deposits of undersea methane. If they're right, we're cooked.

During the last year, geoscientists have held several workshops and conferences to discuss what is known -- and the great deal that isn't -- about the "deep carbon" cycle. Next week, at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, scientists plan to hold a special session devoted to one potentially frightening aspect of that cycle: a strange little substance known as methane hydrate.

Methane hydrates, or clathrates, are icelike gas deposits buried under permafrost and deep below the seafloor. Some researchers fear that the hydrates are on the verge of melting en masse and belching out a cloud of methane gas that will send global temperatures skyrocketing."

Now a certain James Lovelock with the help of William Golding has come up with a theory known as the Gaia theory.I am sure we have all seen him on the History/Discovery Channels.

Now Gaia, or Gaea , was the Greek Goddess of the Earth.  According to Hesiod, in the beginning there was Chaos and out of Chaos came Gaea and Uranus.  And Uranus, the God of the Skies, lay upon Gaea and out of this union all flora and all fauna flourished.

The Gaia theory posits that the earth is one gigantic living organism.  It is a complex organization  of the atmosphere, the cryosphere, the hydrosphere, and the lithosphere.

Now you may demur on the grounds that one organism cannot be some collection of other organisms.  Yet we must be reminded that we, as human beings are a collection of organisms to some extent. Most people know that 70% of our body is water, but 60% or more of our body is composed of bacteria.  A terribly frightening concept for people like Monk.

Now how does this concept relate to methane and Armageddon?  Read further:

"The doomsday scenario goes something like this: If global temperatures keep rising, some methane hydrates will melt, sending methane gas bubbling up through the ocean and into the atmosphere. Like any good greenhouse gas, the methane will trap heat close to Earth's surface, causing temperatures to climb even higher. Hotter temperatures will melt more hydrates, and on and on. In other words, methane hydrates could trigger the mother of all feedback loops. The story, says David Archer, a geophysicist at the University of Chicago, "has a great apocalyptic side to it."

In other words, man has succeeded into adulterating Gaea's body with too much spicy foods like chemicals from use of fossil fuels into her air, and pollution of her seas, destruction of her forests and rerouting of her rivers and lakes. To the point that Gaea has an upset stomach.

And one continuous and noxious fart may mean the end of life as we know it.

The end.
 

I've been out of the news loop for a few days-so this may not be current- but isn't it interesting that the first occupation of a company by its employees in over two decades was staged at a company were most of the worker's were Hispanic Immigrants...

I was having a conversation with my friend last night when it came to me, this over sized recession is more than it appears.  As we boomers have been told since the 1970s, we are going to create a big problem for the economy when we retire because the workforce will fall to a ratio of something of the order of 1 worker for every 3 people in the country (I do not recall when I first heard this, or if this is the correct ratio, but this is the nature of the "productivity" problem).  This ratio is considered unsustainable.

The obvious effect of major public policies has been to force more people into the workforce (social security retirement age incrementing up does this directly, social security privatization would create winners-with good investments-who could retire early, and losers-with bad investments- who may never retire).  But all of these have been weak tea.

That brings us to this economic collapse... It is going to create a restructuring of the economy because of the productivity problem.  It may, in fact, be part of the productivity problem... Aging boomers who realized that they were going to have meager retirements took out easy equity loans on their homes to build up their portfolios so that could retire early... a baby boom improvised (economic) explosive device... now it has exploded blowing a hole in our economy....

The boomers can explode again if we don't fix this thing!

Once again, poor Barth is confused. One day the Washington Post is editorializing that

The Wilson-Plame case, and Mr. Libby's conviction, tell us nothing about the war in Iraq

intentionally ignoring how much it tells us about the creation of phony justifications for that very war.

Now they tell us that the case of the Governor who is alleged to have tried to sell the Senate seat vacated by the President-elect, to whom he refers generally as a motherfucker who won't do anything for the Governor but express appreciation were he to appoint someone the President-elect favors, "raises questions" about the President-elect.

What sense is there to make of this?

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Bailout?! Scandal?! ....... Who cares?!

This is simply an opinion piece. My statement, in any way you wish to take it, is simply my statement and may or may not be a shared view within this blog.

 If you're like me your getting tired of seeing the Current news on Blogo-Gate and left to wonder what the current President is going to do to help out American. I am also sick and tired of them Pulling Obama away from getting ready to tackle the Economy and force him to answer "What was you doing on the Day Blago tried to sell your Chair?".

I want answer to when I will have health care and when the states will be green, not to this scandal or bailout. I wished that congress could kick out bush and let Obama in now so Obama can finally have the power he need to start the change instead of letting him set there and watch the world waste away from Bush's ugly values at work!

Why are "We the People" getting push aside for "Oh the Scandal!"? Why is the "American Dream" Losing to the "Republican Dream"?

 

Lets make this a Poll and find out who else is sick of this and what your worried about!

Religion, Zealots and the opposite of faith.

The disclosure this past few days of how politics is conducted in Chicago has given the world a completely different view on the proposed incoming administration of Barack Obama. The corrupt political machine, from which has arisen the apparent clean President-elect who we all applauded just a few weeks past, has now been exposed to be a money-grubbing, foul-mouthed, rapacious, arrogant, self-serving, corrupt coterie of a powerful group of men who will stop at nothing to achieve their aims of power and property at the expense of the electorate.  That this is the group behind the new president should fill the world with horror.   The Bush administration was bad enough - but this one looks to be even worse.   God help America and God help the world.

Have you ever marvelled at how these embittered curmudgeons spew incomprehensible hostility and seem satisfied in believing think they've said something sensible and useful?

Here's a typical such misanthrope, wriging on Politico:

 "How ridiculous our "government" is becoming. All of the scandals and tripe coming from DC isn't enough so more "nutcases" need to be elected? Good Lord. Dodd, Frank, Stevens, Pelosi, Reid, Paulson, etc. The new dingbat squad is lining up to improve the image of Congress? Sure, Al Franken(stein), Chris Matthews, "The Nanny", wrestlers, actors, Chicago politicians... sounds more like a freakin' bad sitcom or reality show. Can't wait to see Gov. Rod appoint himself to Obama's senate seat. Any day now, I expect to hear Pee Wee Herman is running for a Congressional spot. All of the lives that have been sacrificed for our country and we don't care enough to see it shown respect and insist on some standards."

It's plain raving.  And so common amongst the right, eh?   Oh, and peaking of maintaining stanards, oh why, oh why, did the spiteful list omit the Distinguished Governor of our 49th State?

Like millions of Americans, I'm less than wildly enthusiastic about taking billions of dollars in tax money and using it to prop up failed private companies, regardless of their line of work.   So I greet the news that lame duck Republicans of the Senate have somewhere found some basic principles to stand on, and have blocked such a massive taxpayer windfall to the auto companies, with some relief.

I was never really all that into the idea, you see.  Beyond my simple reluctance to see the government using our money to bail out private companies that are apparently incapable of operating efficiently enough on their own to stay in business, well, there's this -- it offends me on a basic, fundamental level that apparently, the United Auto Workers feel taking a wage cut to a mere $45 an hour is unacceptable. 

To this, I say, quite bluntly -- and I feel pretty safe in saying that in this, I speak for millions of other Americans currently struggling to find work -- if you have a job you're trying to fill at $45 an hour, please tell me where to submit an application. 

I, personally, do not find the prospect of making $45 an hour to be demeaning, insulting, offensive, or intolerable. 

But, having said all that, I also want to say this -- where was this highly principled stand during the first bail out?

I wasn't any happier about the prospect of taking billions of public dollars and turning them over to the private brokerage houses and investment banks than I am about giving similar (well, as it turns out, much lesser) amounts to the automakers.   I would have been a lot happier about it, though, if anyone in Congress -- Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, anyone at all -- had declared ringingly at that time that not one red taxpayer cent was going to be turned over to the banks and the brokerages until they first (a) submitted detailed business strategies to Congress regarding how the money would be spent to keep their doors open, and (b) as part of that strategy, the banks and brokerages had to agree that all their employees from CEO on down would  reduce their salaries to the equivalent of $45 an hour.

$45 an hour is the equivalent (without overtime) of $93,600 a year.  Of course, many workers in the industries Congress is currently either bailing out, or refusing to bail out, work more than 40 hours in a week, and I certainly have no objection to them getting paid overtime.  Assuming an average of 10 hours per week OT, that's an extra $675 per week, which adds up to another $35,100 per year, for a grand total of $128,700 per year.

(Just to interject a little home truth here, that $35,100 -- the amount for 10 hours per week of OVERTIME over the course of one year, at $45 an hour -- is more money than I've ever made in any year of my life to date.  And I just turned 47.) 

Anyone want to guess what the reactions of, say, AIG's upper management would have been, had they been told that to save their company, they each needed to agree to only make around $128,700 per year?  

So, what we're left with in this mess is that Congress, specifically lame duck Republicans, are extremely principled about spending tax payer money to bail out private companies -- as long as the employees of those private companies tend to campaign for Democrats, raise money for Democrats, and vote for Democrats. 

When it comes to throwing our money at people who largely campaign for, raise money for, and vote for Republicans, though, we-e-e-e-e-llllllll, then the story changes a little bit.  Apparently, for the guys who tend to vote Republican, we don't need any preconditions or oversight.  We know those guys. We can trust those guys to do what's right.

As long as what's right, of course, is sending their upper level execs off to a swanky resort for a 'conference' while trying to conceal that 'conference' from the public. 

As long as what's right, of course, is paying out millions of dollars of our money to their executives -- not as 'bonuses', of course, because people might object to that, but, instead,  as 'retention payments'.

So here's how I feel about this -- those conditions the Congressional Republicans just tried to put on the automakers?  Which, from what I've heard, I have no objection to, and would be happy to work under myself, and which I think the UAW should fall all over itself to agree to, if it were even half smart?  We need to retroactively impose identical conditions on banks and brokerage houses which have accepted Federal bail out money. 

If they don't want to accept those conditions, well, then, the government should move to confiscate any and all corporate assets those companies may have, in an attempt to recoup tax payer dollars that should never have been paid out to these guys in the first place. 

I'm tired of this crap.  Can I have $152.5 billion dollars to tide me over until I can find a job?  I'm perfectly willing to submit an economic recovery plan to Congress, and I'm happy to agree to only pay myself $45 an hour until I'm back in the black again.

Oh, wait.  I forgot.  I'm a worthless, no good, lousy unemployed Democrat.  I'm not 'too big to be allowed to fail'.  I'm nothing at all.

Just another American citizen. 

I just powered up my DVR to watch Bill Moyers Journal, on this episode of "The Journal" Bill had a guest named Emma Coleman Jordan and during their conversation it was pointed out something I did not know,

         THAT HALF OF THE FIRST $160 BILLION HANK PAULSON HANDED OUT WENT TO PAY SHAREHOLDER  DIVIDENDS!!!! 

                  FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!!!

"Gipsies", Tramps and Thieves!  Talkin' 'bout the government that we see, call them "Gipsies", Tramps and Thieves!

And people wonder why those Chicago workers at Republic were upset.

It is Reverse Robinhoodism as the Bush Administration steal from the poor to give to the rich!

 

 

This is simply an opinion piece. My statement, in any way you wish to take it, is simply my statement and may or may not be a shared view within this blog.

 

(Taken in full context from Yahoo, and is a Politico cover. Take it with what ever grain of salt you have to)

 As General Motors announced the temporary closure of 20 plants Friday, Republicans who fought a White House-backed bailout plan want Americans to blame the United Auto Workers and think about Rod Blagojevich.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4melKlRyS40

What is soul? I'm sure Elvis could tell us about it, and James Brown too, and many, many more could tell us about soul. Their tunes sure hit MY soul button.

There's soul food, and it's good. Hot cornbread with a bit of butter, collared greens with some bacon fat or, better yet, ham hocks cooked inside the pot and then removed just before serving it up.

There's David Soul, a somewhat good actor whom I remember first from "Here Come The Brides" well before Starsky and Hutch. A somewhat decent singer who did a soulful rendition of "Black Bean Soup" as the B-side to his romantic ballad "Don't Give Up On Us, Baby", which was probably written for the ex he allegedly beat up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6u4KfwoOTw

Yeah, there's a lot of soul going on. Lots of souls worth saving, and lots of souls NOT worth saving.

But....who am I to judge which souls are worth saving? Who am I, little ole' I, to decide whether or not David Soul truly beat his wife, or Baretta truly murdered his, or Robert Wagner or even O.J. Simpson, even?

Was I there? Do I have proof? No. Neither do any of us, for the most part.

But we sit in judgment of others, all day, every day, making decisions based on our own base and usually uninformed beliefs. Guilty before proven innocent. String him up, make him suffer! Man should not love man, we say. Government should not intervene in our healthcare, we say. Money is the end all and be all, next to God In Whom We Trust, we say.

Got proof? Got soul? Ever hold a dying pet, or human, in your arms and hear their last breath and wish to ANYTHING, ANYTHING, that you could give them their next one, and their next one, and their next one after that? Sure, there's CPR, but if it doesn't work, what then?

You have to let it go. No choice in the matter. Case closed.

What can you give to them who die, not knowing where they go? What can you take with you when you go, not knowing what you'll need?

The mark made here on Earth, that you leave behind, is the only thing that will matter in the end. And in the end, even that won't matter, when all matter is gone.

But it's the closest thing I can think of to a legacy.

What we do here on this planet, while each of us lives, may not be witnessed or recalled by all, but some thing some time that we do might make a difference, and if that's all we've got, then we should maybe try to make a difference while we can.

 

 

Nice one, George. You've pissed off your so-called "evangelical base" by saying the Bible isn't meant to be taken literally and that evolution is just alright by You. The Jesus Freaks feel used and betrayed.


Big deal. Let them bawl. You're no longer any use to them. And with one foot out the door, it's not like You need them anymore either, right?

Wrong.

The jewel of Your historical fiction "legacy" project is the George W. Bush Presidential Library. Your selection of wifey Laura's alma mater SMU as the site was all cloak and dagger-like and shit; chock full of drama and controversy from the word go. Over objections from the "Faculty, Administrators, & Staff" of SMU's Theology School(!), You & Your backers (Karl Rove leading the charge) rammed that sucker through faster than You can say Bail-Out or FISA or The Patriot Act or Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.

Good times.

Your everlasting monument to self-delusion is scheduled to break ground next year. Jamming Your -- OK, Dick's -- twisted agenda down Americans' throats as President proved remarkably easy. Standing on the verge of becoming the most unpopular ex-Presidents ever, you'll find raising the scratch for a temple to Yourself far harder. Should've thought of that before You put the tagger at a half-a-billion buckaroos.

$500,000,000. Maybe Poppy does have diamonds stashed in a Basel safety deposit box (it's possible -- he's an ex-CIA Director, ex-Carlyle Group "advisor" & Prescott Bush's son. This is one present Pop ain't gonna buy, Junior. Say for the moment we ignore the absolute fucking insult inherent in the construction of an ridiculously expensive edifice to Your egotism in the midst of a worldwide economic disaster that occurred on Your watch because of Your watch. Where are You going to come up with the K.A.S.H.?

Pop's out. Ordinary Americans? That's chump change, George. You're wicked unpopular and, not that You've noticed, times are hard. You're not gonna get dick from the Captains of Industry or Wall Street either. AIPAC and the like are far too mercenary. Plus they've already moved on. Hell, when even Adelson's strapped, You know You're screwed.

Jimmy Swaggart, newly minted Presidential Medal of Freedom owner Chuck Colson, James Dobson, Tony Perkins -- I confess to have a hard time remembering the ones who still haven't "gone gay" --  these people were the few left standing from which You could squeeze filthy legacy library lucre. Tit for tat turnabout what with all that faith-based initiatives tax-payer cash You spiffed them. You made the Jesus Freaks feel special. It's not like You gave that money to Jews or Muslims or liberal Christians.

You had to blow it. You always blow it. Speaking dismissively of The Bible, You've gone and pissed off the Evangelicals but good. Probably Karl's Mormons too. And "mainstream" Christians. Jesus Christ, George, how long's it gonna take You to get it through your thick skull that the "M" in "SMU" stands for Methodist?!?!

Look, churches depend on gifts too. People who have ever less to give don't take kindly to having their churches' donation plates dumped into a rich man's hole in the ground. The Jesus Freaks, Mormons and Methodists will not risk offending the faithful. They will not give you one red cent.

So, who's gonna buy you that library now, George?

-AF
Cross-posted at:
Andrew Sullivan Is A Fraud

With all the politics today, I forgot that when I woke up this morning it was minus 23 degrees.
For some reason I started to think about winter--I don't know why.  It is not winter yet. At any rate, I remembered this older winter story that has no politics in it.


Four or five years ago, I was living at a local resort in the far north. It was January tenth and the sun was out and it was about 15 % f (above zero) and my dog told me it was time for our morning four mile sojourn into the snowy wilderness. It is a Tuesday and only a few old folks stay up here through the winter. There was no wind and in the cold it is so quiet.

There is a purity to it all. Bugs and creepy crawly things are all dead. Bacteria and viruses are all dead. The trees pretend to be dead.

I got on the usual gear. underwear, long underwear, heavy pants, shirt, sweater, overcoat, boots. The 52 year old and the 55 year old dog (in people years) proceeded outside into the tundra. We always took the road less traveled. A path off the main road.

We got about two miles out and Scout did her business and while I was waiting, I had the urge to get some relief myself.

Necessity is the mother of catastrophe. It is no easy task to find one's johnson under these circumstances, but I managed to pull him out and oh what a relief it was.

Just at that moment, Scout became curious as to my stream of thought--so to speak--and so I had to keep her away from my immediate chore. Goddamn it Scout, get away from there.

She thought I was playing with her.  I had the leash but I am trying to hold her off in one hand and take care of business with the other. And I am trying to to pee on my own shoes.

Now I emphasize that at this time of year, Scout and I are the only living creatures on this path for months. Except on weekends.

But out of the blue, some rich lady in a $300.00 winter skiing/running suit turns onto my path.

There is me trying to relieve myself and control the dog.

I felt like some degenerate in a New York subway.

The runner looked at me in disgust.

I did not attempt to greet her due to my condition at the time.

I never did it again. 

Obama gets called a motherf#$%$% on the Blagojevich tape, and yet it's his responsibility to come clean.

That's the angle being taken by our worthless Mainstream Media.

Ed Rendell:

"They have never been in an executive position before," Rendell said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "The rule of thumb is whatever you did, say it and get it over with and make it a one-day story as opposed to a three-day story. Politicians are always misjudging the intelligence of the American people."

The man who just cracked on Janet Napolitano for having no life is giving Barack Obama advice on handling the press?

Are you kidding me??

And they were worried about Biden??

Eugene Robinson:

The scandal involves Obama in only the most tangential way, as far as anyone knows, and actually seems to cast him in a favorable light. But the longer he leaves obvious questions unanswered, the longer the president-elect will have to talk about the seamier side of Illinois politics rather than initiatives such as saving the U.S. auto industry or revamping health care.

Maybe, I'm the one who misjudged Ed and Eugene. I like these guys, but they're dead-ass wrong.

What exactly is your responsibility for a story when you're as much a victim in these circumstances than anything else??

You actually had Reporters questioning Obama over the fact that he didn't repeat his call for Blagojevich's resignation.

You actually have reporters parsing when Obama used "I" versus "we" in his Press Conference yesterday.

I'm starting to get the feeling this is as much a result of Press Corps addicted to News Cycle Journalism with nothing to cover, finally getting their teeth into something, and if necessary making @#$% up to feed the beast.

Apparently covering the Financial Apocalypse is just too damn boring...

If Obama doesn't walk up to the State House, and put Blagojevich in cuffs himself, somehow it's his fault.

I expect this B.S. from Fox News...not Democrats and otherwise smart columnists...


Originally posted on Fort McHenry II.

Rod Blagojevich is the one who broke the law (alledgedly). Rod Blagojevich is the Governor with a 8% approval rating. Blagojevich is the Governor who's been made to look like a buffon on International Television (him and his wife cussing everything in sight). Blagojevich is the guy they're trying to get removed from Office. Blagojevich is the one who's made his state look like a fool...

...yet it's Rahm Emanuel that's getting the death threats??  The guy who may have turned Blagojevich in.  The guy who may be responsible for getting him busted.

...yet it's Barack Obama who has to explain himself to the media?

Someone explain America to me.


Originally posted on Fort McHenry II

Upon hearing that the auto bail-out bill (which is actually H.R. 7005, the Alternative Minimum Tax Relied Act of 2008) failed a cloture vote last night in the Senate 52 - 35 and attracted 10 Republican votes, my immediate thought was: Which Democrats voted nay? However, upon looking at the actual role call vote, what is more clear is that the media is misreporting the result.

Currently, the Senate is really a 49 - 49 tie, with Democrats nominally exercising the power of the majority. President-elect Barack Obama's seat is currently vacant (see Blagojevich, Rod) and Vice President-elect Joe Biden not voting. It's possible that Senator Biden (who has not yet resigned his seat) could possibly vote if his was decisive (the Vice President does break ties in the Senate, after all), but it's far less likely that he would intervene on a procedural vote.

In fact, the real vote was actually 53 - 34, because Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the Majority Leader, only voted nay for procedural reasons; had he known he had the votes, his would have been yea. That leaves only three Democrats voting nay: Senators Max Baucus (D-MT), Blanch Lincoln (D-AR) and John Tester (D-MT). Again, had the cloture tally been closer to 60, at least one or two (if not all) of these three could've been convinced to vote yea even if they then turned around and voted nay on final passage.

Therefore, as H.R. 7005 currently stands in the Senate, finding five, maybe six, more votes would most likely roll into enough votes for cloture. The little reported fact (and if you do the math) is that there were 12 Senators that didn't vote. Looking at those non-votes, you had three Democratic Senators that would have certainly voted for cloture: Senators John Kerry and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) as well as Ron Wyden (D-OR) - remember, Senator Biden is most likely a non-vote - which gets you to 56 yea votes for cloture.

That means there were 8 GOP Senators not voting: Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN), John Cornyn (R-TX), Larry Craig (R-ID), Linsey Graham (R-SC), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Ted Stevens (R-AK) and John Sununu (R-NH). Of this group of 8, fully five of them were either defeated for reelection or retired. If the behavior of the likes of Senators John Warner (R-VA) - much respected by PN - and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) are indicative, then it is reasonable to believe that at least a few of these Senators could be at least convinced to vote for cloture, even if, again, they voted nay on final passage. Of these five, it is reasonable to assume that the votes of Senators Hagel, Smith and Sununu are gettable, which brings you to 59 votes.

At 59, you could then have several scenarios to get that last vote. As mentioned earlier, you could easily see any one of the 3 Democratic nays (if not all) vote yea on cloture and nay on final passage. In addition, the two convicted members on the list (Stevens and Craig), you could reasonably hope to get Senator Alexander (a member of the Gang of 14) or two flip more reasonable Republicans such as Senators Judd Gregg (R-NH), who just witnessed Democrats sweep Republicans in his home state, and Mel Martinez, who recently announced that he will not seek reelection in 2010. The bottom line here is that there seem to many several routes to get to 60 votes and enough incentive for Senators to be working through the weekend and Majority Leader Reid's capitulation on the floor last night disappointing.

I've been looking at the Obama transition website, change.gov, particularly at the American Moment tab, under which is the Share Your Vision tab.  This is where you can share ideas with the Obama transition team.  Since I'm quite impressed with the tpmcafe community I was thinking about ways that the two could possibly interact, and came up with an idea.  People could write posts that are intended to be submitted to change.gov, have the community evaluate and polish them, then submit good ones to change.gov with a link showing all the recommendations and comments.  That way, ideas could be submitted with the backing of a community instead of just being recommendations of individuals.   These ideas, in order to be new to Obama's people, would probably tend to address the smaller nooks and crannies of public policy, and would need a good level of detail, which the comments and discussion could help provide.  My suggestion for a title format for such posts is what I'm using here: Ideas for Change.gov: (fill in the blank).  Following this format would let readers know that the post is a proposed submission to that website. 

One suggestion I would make to change.gov is that they should have a discussion café just we have here at tpmcafe to evaluate, polish, and recommend ideas to Obama's transition team.  This would be an obvious benefit to the website.  Somebody who's been here longer and is more web-savvy would be better able than me to make such a proposal in the necessary detail, so I hope somebody tries.  Here's my first offering:

 

Ridematch.com

When I commute to work (alone) in my car, I'm always struck by the fact that most of the other cars also have only one person in them.  Clearly, a whole lot of gas is being used pretty inefficiently in transporting people this way, and a whole lot of unused transportation capacity is just whizzing around (or crawling along) on the highways every day.   

The obvious way to save some of this gas and use some of this extra capacity would be to have more carpools.  This would be great if it could be arranged.  Less oil dependence, less traffic congestion, no increased crowding on mass traffic, easier parking, it's a win-win-win-win. 

So why doesn't it happen?  Well, I sure wouldn't do it.  Set aside for a minute the fact that it's hard to find people who make the same commute that I do.  Even if I found some, what would it be like?  Maybe they smoke.  Maybe they're chatty (I'm not).  Maybe they like music I don't, or talk radio.  Maybe their car smells.  Maybe they're bad drivers. Maybe they're secretly driving without a license, or insurance.  Maybe one is a serial killer.  Maybe they're just really annoying.  All in all, there are so many ways that I could dislike carpooling that I'm just not interested.  And I've got lots of company, driving alongside of me every day. 

Some transportation planners advocate a coercive approach to deter driving alone.  They want to make it a lot more expensive, make it impossible to park, force you to put up with more congestion, in general they want to make driving alone so unpleasant that it's even worse than mass transit or carpooling.  Gee, I wonder why this is politically unpopular?

Here's a different approach.  Take steps to make carpooling more likely to be a good experience.  I've checked out a few carpooling websites.  They're lame.  Basically they try to match you up with someone who has a similar commute and that's it.  Actually that's all they really can do because the number of people participating is to small to serve preferences more detailed than that. 

What's needed is the carpooling equivalent of the dating site Match.com.  In Match.com you post an anonymous profile detailing who you are and what you are looking for in a dating partner.  Carpoolers need the same thing.  On my proposed site, Ridematch.com (the name would have to be bought from a current owner) you would post an anonymous profile.  It would have detailed information about who you are, your route and times, what kind of driving experience you prefer, what kind of car you drive, whether you want to contribute by driving or paying, how many people you would be comfortable with, and so on.  People would contact each other in the same way as on Match.com, by clicking on another profile to indicate interest, emailing if the interest is reciprocal, then speaking by phone, then meeting.  The website would also take drivers license and car info and check to see that license, registration and insurance are all up-to-date, and could also check driving records and conduct criminal background checks if any drivers expressed that as a preference and the potential carpoolers for them consented. 

Think about it, lonesome drivers.  Wouldn't you be a lot more receptive to carpooling if you felt that all your important preferences would be honored and the others were checked out for safety?  I would.  This is design-your-own-carpooling, not I-hope-I-don't -hate-this carpooling.  

Now come the policy issues, starting with free-market thinking, which would contend that if this was really what people want, then markets would have provided it.  Incorrect.  The service being discussed here is a network linking different customers.  It only has value to potential customers if it has other customers to connect to, and it needs a very large base of customers to serve the needs of people so precisely.  So it can't get started unless it is already very large.  That means it never gets started by market mechanisms alone.

The obvious policy recommendation that flows from this is that the government should set up this website, or provide funding and subcontract the implementation to a private concern (perhaps Google?).   The government should also advertise the website, and also give business strong incentives when the site is first launched to have their employees put up profiles.  Obviously, participation should be free.  If a large fraction of the commuting population could be signed up, then more and more people would find good matches, and word of mouth would cause more and more signups, creating a virtuous cycle.  At this point the site would have high traffic and so would probably actually be profitable simply from advertising revenue, which could be used to pay back the up-front costs. 

It's also useful to think about how this idea might interact with other social and economic changes and with other policy options.  First, since a recession is now occurring and people are tightening their belts, this would probably be more attractive now as a way for people to cut their expenses.  Also, high oil prices are very likely to return eventually, and this would become more attractive to people in that scenario also.  A lot of people bought expensive SUVs and now are regretting it, and this could be a way for them to actually use those vehicles in a socially conscious way (now that's an amazing thought). 

Another thing that interacts well with this idea is congestion pricing, which means increasing tolls during rush hours to reduce driving at those times and thereby cut down on traffic congestion.  Of course this a good idea on many economic grounds, but it always meets huge resistance because people can't really turn to mass transit at those times, since mass transit is already badly overloaded in many areas during rush hours.  Ridematch.com would allow congestion pricing to be much less onerous because it would give people a reasonably comfortable option to avoid the extra costs.  Also, some commuters now using mass transit would start to carpool, offsetting those drivers who would choose to turn to mass transit if congestion pricing was implemented. 

Fewer cars on the road, less energy use, less traffic, and more available parking.  People could read, snooze, work, chat, or listen to music comfortably while someone else drives them to work in a nice SUV, secure in the knowledge that what they are doing has been accepted beforehand, and that others have agreed to respect their desires.   And all it would take is for the Obama administration to commit some seed money.  No big transportation infrastructure required.  What's not to like?  

At least they never got their hands on the nuclear codes:

There were only 10 left. All of the batteries had died. There were no chargers for sale. But people were snatching them up. So, we bought a couple.

And ended up with a lot more than we bargained for.

When we charged them up in the newsroom, we found one of the $20 Blackberry phones contained more than 50 phone numbers for people connected with the McCain-Palin campaign, as well as hundreds of emails from early September until a few days after election night.

We traced the Blackberry back to a staffer who worked for "Citizens for McCain," a group of Democrats who threw their support behind the Republican nominee. The emails contain an insider's look at how grassroots operations work, full of scheduling questions and rallying cries for support.

But most of the numbers were private cell phones for campaign leaders, politicians, lobbyists and journalists.

We called some of the numbers.

"Somebody made a mistake," one owner told us. "People's numbers and addresses were supposed to be erased."

"They should have wiped that stuff out," another said. But he added, "Given the way the campaign was run, this is not a surprise."

Hilarious!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/12/mccain-campaign-sells-bla_n_150678.html

Anybody know who the final Cylon is? I am even open to good guesses if the rational is sound.

To those that have know clue what I am talking about I am sorry for the diversion.

 "12,000 years ago... In a cave, 12 miles from Nazareth...."

I'm reading to the Ice Weasels again. Most stories, they don't like. This one, they're wearing it out. Or rather, wearing me out. 

It's time-consuming, and a bit frustrating, because I know that they can read. For instance, just this afternoon I sat with Sir Charles Kerwallop-Bollock while he tabbed back & forth through the 87 plastic-encased pages of the "Operating Instructions for a Pioneer PDP-4360HD Plasma TV" (translated by one Sulaiman bin Bedlam of Kuala Lumpur), and lemme tell you, Chuckie's paws were a blur. 

See, Tech manuals are easy, 'cause there's no emotional content. You see a Weasel reading one, and the only unusual thing you'll notice is an excess of drool. The only thing they "feel" is a straight-up surge of information on how to dismember these suckers. After the info's been absorbed, comes the metallic disembowelling, and devouring.

But stories? No chance. They won't touch 'em. When they want a story, they haul one over to me, plunk themselves down in a circle, hold each others paws, steady themselves, and ask that I read it to them. And then, if they like it, reread it. And reread it again.

The problem with them reading directly is that the Weasels respond, quite actively, to what they read. They'll act out the moods, the conflicts, the twists & turns of the stories. They call it "dancing," and sometimes it's got that feeling to it. They bounce along on their toes, little paws held up in front of them, bobbing up and down, and it's kinda cute - sortof  B-52's, Love Shack. 

But the dancing tends to "escalate" with the quality of the story. The more twists & turns, multiple characters & (better) multiple personalities, bad puns & cosmic haha's, made-up spacemen & inside-outskie parallel universes get thrown in - the faster they rev.

Most news stories, TV shows, sitcoms, Hollywood movies - to them, that crap might as well be a Tech manual. They get the message, of which there's always & only ever one per story, and respond accordingly. They spit. Throw old appliances. Hurl. Heckle. "Caaaaaaaake," they mock.

But a good story - well, those are dangerous. Huck Finn gets 'em running around in a circle, whooping like mad, doing this aerial somersault thing that's quite impressive, even if it does end up with a lot of blood & bandages. You escalate to Alan Moore, and they'll start gnawing themselves, then the neighbors, and by the end, I'm damned hard-pressed to call the sight of a couple of hundred Ice Weasels clawing at their own flesh "dancing." 

And Tom Robbins? Forget it. I won't read that shit to 'em anymore. It's like crack meets ecstasy meets, I donno, naked Natasha Kinski in Cat People. They're ecstatic by the Foreword, leaping & piling-on in great fur-heaps when the pleasure hits, carnassials gnashing & shearing in despair if it looks like the joy juice is gonna stop flowing, and at the climax, all those anal scent glands release, and the level of sexual & sensual arousal reaches heights probably only matched by a Pentecostal Girls Choir watching Elvis in leather.

Thus, the need for prophylactic measures. i.e. Me. Doing the reading. To them. And lately, they can't get enough of this one story. So I read them version after version, from the original scientific report in pdf through the mass media coverage, even throw in a couple of blogs. (They hate blogs. "Reading that TPM gruel again, are we multigrain?" Once they start in on the nasty stuff about "wanting to be Josh's boytoy," I tend to give in & read 'em whatever the hell they want. On the plus side, it does mean I'm fairly safe reporting on them here. Not like they're gonna read it.) Anyway. A riff in Time they've taken a liking to: 

"A new figure in humanity's history emerged last week when archaeologists announced the discovery of what could be one of the world's oldest known spiritual figures. After years of meticulous excavation just miles from Israel's Mediterranean coast, scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem unearthed a 12,000-year-old grave that held the remains of a diminutive 'shaman' woman...."

"The grave is thought to belong to the Natufian culture, a nomadic society which existed roughly between 11,500 and 15,000 years ago. Located near other burial sites in Hilazon Tachtit, the woman's body was distinctly encased in a limestone enclosure, a tomb sealed by a rock slab that Grosman's team managed to lift in 2006."

Which got them pretty excited. Picture a stuffed furry animal, 4 feet tall, titanium teeth, Taser in one paw, blowtorch in the other, cartwheeling, and shouting in an extremely high-pitched chittering language. Now picture 280 of them cartwheeling, blowtorching & Tasering - each other - in perfect harmony, and you've got a show that would intimidate the Chinese Olympic Organizing Committee.

That's the gist of the story. If you're up for a long ramble, there's more. And if you don't know what an Ice Weasel is yet, well, that's damned sad. And you can look here. But meanwhile, it'll cost you a Rec for the rest of the story. Life is hard.

Read more »

At a time when Blago seemed sure to dog Obama through at least inauguration, comes the Repubs decision to kill the bailout, destroy several companies, and make a whole bunch of Americans ever so thankful this Christmas for their actions.

Who is going to care about the latest round of Chicago corruption with the Repubs destroying the economy?

If the Repubs really wanted to roast Obama, they would of passed the bailout and gotten right back to Blago. 

"you can house and care for a chronically homeless person for at most fifteen thousand dollars, or about a third of what he or she would cost on the street. The idea is that once the people in the program get stabilized they will find jobs, and start to pick up more and more of their own rent, which would bring someone's annual cost to the program closer to six thousand dollars."

What if the maximum wage determined the minimum wage?  So that a CEO desiring a raise was thereby raising the salaries of his or her lowest paid workers.

Here's some food for thought (according to the latest statistic I was able to find in a simple google search):

In 2005, an average Chief Executive Officer (CEO) was paid 821 times as much as a minimum wage earner, who earns just $5.15 per hour. An average CEO earns more before lunchtime on the very first day of work in the year than a minimum wage worker earns all year.

It's worth clicking the link to see the graph of how obscenely inflated the highest salaries have become over time - in comparison to the lowest paid workers (from a factor of 51 in 1965 to a factor of 821 in 2005)

And how does the minimum wage compare to a living wage?  More food for thought, compiled just 2 months ago by a job seeker in Seattle:

I want to use a recent job offer to discuss minimum wage and living wage jobs, and talk about the actual cost of health care, not in esoteric terms, but using the real numbers from a job offer I received just two weeks ago.
...........

Salary offer: $32,500 a year, full benefit package.
...........

Just for comparison, a minimum wage job currently pays $8.07 an hour, and this rate will go up in January to $8.55. This would be a yearly salary of $16,785 to $17,784 a year, respectively. This is roughly half of the salary I was offered at this institution.
...........

Along with this offer, I received the insurance plan information from the employer that spelled out employer and employee contributions. From that information, I created the following data.  [follow link and scroll down to table]
............

I'm not making these numbers up.

As you can see, as an individual, it really isn't that bad a deal. But add another person-spouse, child, parent- and it gets tough. Add a spouse and more than one dependent, and the cost is astronomical.

It is also important to note that this is a job offer at nearly twice the minimum wage. This is what is described as a living wage, and no doubt the person they hired for this job had a college degree and experience in the work.

[italics and bold are mine]

Next, let's consider, as this student did, how minimum wage living conditions compare to slavery:

Just who is it that has the authority to decide who is worthy of excess and who is worthy of crumbs?
..........

When I think of earning $5.15 per hour and then being told to provide my own housing, transportation, food, clothes, etc., I cringe. There is no way it could be done. The figures just don't work. Idealistically, it may sound like living in slavery would be worse than living "free" on minimum wage but realistically, living in slavery may actually be the better of the two evils. A ludicrous thought? Yes, according to my Sociology professor, but realistic to me. To work for an amount that does not pay for acceptable food, shelter, clothes, and transportation is worse than slavery and gives no hope for survival. A life of poverty with no hope to do better possibly drives people to crime, drugs, and dependence on others.
...........

Ironically, CEO's who shovel in millions of dollars in pay are actually dependent on workers accepting less pay and minimum wage workers in order to be able to feed their greed. Why are these CEO's who have taken much and turned it into nothing worthy of a $700 billion bail-out by "our" government when some who work hard and honestly are only "worthy" of minimal pay? CEO's can be compared to slave owners in that they consider themselves more deserving and minimum wage workers can be compared to obedient slaves because in reality, they are able to exercise no control over their destiny.

[italics mine]

I'm no expert in economics or sociology.  But I'd call myself an expert in empathizing with pain.  Apparently CEO's and many in the media lack such compassion. 

This is a topic that needs to be discussed.  Limits need to be placed.  In Europe CEO's earn far less (as a multiple of the minimum paid worker, with Spain as the lowest among them).  I can speak from experience that one brother-in-law in Spain was able to live far, far above the average Madrid resident on even that relatively low multiple, which is nevertheless far, far below the US CEO multiple.

Here is an eloquent plea by a German who was interviewed on Radio Vatican:

The escalating salaries of managers are a scandal. They violate our sense of justice. However the real scandal is indifference toward workers. Persons with responsibility are not concerned about their workers doing well. Quite the contrary! The high salaries that the managers give themselves must be paid by employees whose incomes stagnate. That is the great fraud! While on one side, not enough money can be shoveled there, the other side is often in distress. The real shame is that persons with responsibility stand back and watch. Most economic leaders probably do not even worry about the inhumanity. In contrast, payment of a minimum wage is vehemently refused out of "concern" that jobs could be endangered. The one-sidedness of this way of looking at things is terrible because people are not worried about paid wages enabling survival. Instead an economic upswing is announced officially that will not reach the majority of workers. This deceit has been occurring for decades. It is practiced by all government departments and nearly all the media, not only by the wealthiest persons.

This is an essay question.  Please discuss!

Looks like the missing ballots issue in MPLS was decided by simply accepting the original count from election day.  Big Plus for Al Franken.
In addition the Canvassing Board has recommended that the absentee ballots that were improperly rejected be counted and the number forwarded to the board.  The decided not to decide how they would deal with it. 

All in all good news for Al Franken.

The Gates foundation announced grants to relieve family distress. This is admirable. Attached with those grants must include conditions granting the foundation audit rights to randomly sample client feedback.

The purpose of this note is to outline for the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice, and the Gates Foundation various performance indicators warranting government and private review.

We encourage the Obama Administration to work through the Department of Justice with the Gates Foundation to appropriately bring criminal prosecutions against entities which are violating Federal law, or engaging in illegal discrimination.

Read more »

Here is a quote from an AP article on the GOP rejection of the automotive bailout bill:

"I think it would appear that the people who voted against this are carrying out the will of the voters as expressed through the phone calls to our offices," said Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).

This is just so transparent. Republicans could care less about America or American workers. And there are democrats who are the same. This is a continuation of stealing from American workers and transferring the proceeds into the pockets of Wall Street investors. There is no regard to what it actually costs to live in this country. And to top it off you can be sure it'll make things worse when workers can't pay their mortgages.

I was just watching Sen Corker on MSNBC and he is scum. Gettelfinger weighed in on this and directly accused Corker and the republican caucus of a direct attack on labor. How can you miss the conflict of interest of these republican senators who have foreign producers in their states. The tax break incentives handed to the foreign producers absolutely makes the idea of cost equity a sham. It's a big lie all the way. Nor can I get my head around the idea of the big 3 providing health care coverage as a negative. Absent a national health care system where will workers and their families obtain care? Republican resistance to move to a national health care system while being critical of employers who provide health care is absurd. Our senators don't care about that though. They have a great health care plan that is unique just for memebrs of congress. What fucking assholes.

(found on Flickr)

Neither a Google search nor Wikipedia could turn up an answer to this question, so I'm posting it here for an answer.

It seems these days that any time there is a contentious vote in the Senate that breaks along party lines, the minority party "threatens" filibuster, forcing a cloture vote, which requires 60 votes to pass instead of the usual 51. Effectively you now need a super-majority to get a bill through.

I'm all for the filibuster as a method to protect the minority party, but why don't they ever make these knuckleheads actually filibuster? Why doesn't Harry Reid make his aging, 70+ year-old colleagues stand there for days and read recipes and storybooks? Isn't there a political advantage in doing so? Wouldn't the majority party then have gobs of footage of Senators wasting the chamber's time at 3am, refusing to allow a vote?

The only guess I can come up with is that the Senate has so much to do that to let the body "debate" for hours and hours and days and days would tie up time needed to vote on other legislation.

Anyone else know the answer to this?

Looks like, for now, some Southern Republican Senators have succeeded in their effort to kill the U.S. auto industry, and further diminish their favorite bogeyman, labor unions.  Their reasons are multivalent but the fact that the south boasts large, highly subsidized foreign auto plants, featuring thousands of non-union jobs is certainly front and center.

We know the South threw billions of subsidy dollars to land these jobs, but at what cost?  And how good is the labor pool to work at these plants?

An August, 2005 article in Facing South, the online magazine of the Institute For Southern Studies, Toyota Reveals Limits of Great Southern Jobs Scam offers some insight...

Last month, Toyota made a decision that didn't get a lot of press, but sent ripples of concern through state houses across the South.

The Japanese auto giant announced that it was going to bypass offers of hundreds of millions of dollars in "recruitment incentives" (corporate subsidies) from several Southern states, and would instead set up shop in Ontario, Canada, which was offering much fewer give-aways.

The decision to head north was an embarassment for Southern states eagerly competing to lure Toyota, on several levels. Not only did they lose a trophy job-creator for their state. But the reason Toyota gave for the move was especially damning:
"The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people who have not worked in a Toyota plant before, is minimal compared to what you have to go through in the southeastern United States," said Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, whose members will see increased business with the new plant [...]

Several U.S. states were reportedly prepared to offer more than double [the] subsidy [Southern states were offering]. But Fedchun said much of that extra money would have been eaten away by higher training costs than are necessary for the Woodstock project.

He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.

And where did the money to subsidize these plants come from?  From education, of course...

Starting with Alabama's successful bid to lure a Mercedes plant in 1992 with an incentive package that eventually cost over $300 million in tax breaks and other give-aways -- while the state's education system was under court order for lack of funding -- Southern states have shoveled billions of dollars to huge foreign automakers, turning the South into the "new Detroit."

But now companies are waking up to the limitations of locating in a state that cares more about handing out tax breaks than investing in its people.

What has always been a question for me is aren't there any blue collar Republicans that are union members?  Don't any blue collar Republicans drive F-150's and would be laughed out of the good-old-boys club for showing up in a Toyota? 

The answer came from of all sources, Joe The Plumber.  On CNN, on election day, the host asked him, "Joe, you currently don't make $250,000, why is it so important to you that those who do be allowed to keep their tax breaks."  Joe's answer put it all in perspective, "Principle." 

"Principal," that ought to keep food on the table for all those blue collar Republican union auto workers.  What a country.

  

With $700B, or even, I daresay $350B, the government could, instead of
bailing out mismanaged coroporations and people who took on
disproportionately large debts compared to their incomes, pay off the
mortgages of middle class Americans (those who make, say, less than
$150,000 a year) who still hold a job, and who have faithfully serviced
their mortgates since before and even through this crisis. What effect
would THAT have on the economy?

A few speculations:

1. The creation of a new investor class.
2. Investment in a faltering stock-market would skyrocket.
3. The purchase of goods and services would rebound dramatically.
4. The mortgage companies would be absolved of much of the debt they
currently hold (since it would be paid).
5. Many of the now "toxic" mortgage-backed securities would be restored.
6. Credit markets would loosen.

  Of course, a sweeping and radical move of this kind would never take
place due to the many special interests spending hours and millions on
lobbying Congress and Treasury to bail out their particular mess. And,
of course, the fiscally responsible, gainfully employed majority of
Americans don't really have a lobbying firm pushing their agenda, they
figure that Congress is supposed to do that for them. The reason that an
economic bailout feels so wrong even to supporters is because deep down
we know that we're putting good money after bad. What if we just put
good money after good instead?

Christianity as a Lifestyle Choice. That is what it is. You always hear them talking about personal choices and lifestyle choices of others.

For over seven minutes last night, Jon Stewart grilled former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on his opposition to gay marriage. Huckabee is touring the country to promote his new book, "Do The Right Thing." When Stewart compared gay marriage bans to interracial marriage bans, Huckabee restated his view that homosexuality is simply a behavior choice:

STEWART: Segregation used to be the law until the courts intervened.

HUCK: There's a big difference between a person being black and a person practicing a lifestyle and engaging in a marital relationship.

STEWART: Okay, actually this is helpful because it gets to the crux of it. ... And I'll tell you this: Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality. And the protections that we have for religion -- we protect religion. And talk about a lifestyle choice -- that is absolutely a choice. Gay people don't choose to be gay. At what age did you choose to not be gay?

Huckabee tried to insist that "60 percent of the American population" opposes gay marriage. Stewart interrupted him, calling it a "travesty" that gay Americans have to plead for their civil rights... (READ ON)

The truth is that being gay or lesbian is not likely a lifestyle choice. The facts would seem to suggest that it is the way you were when you born - in pretty much the exact same way that you are born black, white, whatever, etc. - and environment may only be a factor in how it can effect the genetic code that people are born with. And not just no, but HELL NO! I am not going down that Nazi like road of eugenics to "eliminate or treat" what some of you crazies want to call a disease... That is just sick.

And even if it were a choice?

Who cares... Exercising free will, to make your own choice, is as much a right as it is a personal responsibility. Even according to the Bible, Free Will is a Divine Institution:

1.Free will, 2.Marriage, 3.Family, 4.Government etc.

Yeah... You hear a lot from the religious wing nuts about the "Divine Institution of Marriage" - the second divine institution...

But they conveniently choose to skip the First Divine Institution in their bankrupt arguments.

Free Will - The one God supposedly gave everyone to choose their own destiny.

Religion is quite simply and for certain nothing more than a lifestyle choice...

You aren't born that way. Even if you are a believer - God gave you the free will to choose to believe. In fact some of these religions make a big deal out of converting people into believers. Because. People. Were. Not. Born. That. Way.

They made a choice.

People choose their religions all the time. Often they change their choice of religion on a whim.

Often that religion of choice has clearly bigoted views that they would like to force upon the rest of the world. Anti-Marriage Equality views would be included there. It is no different than other bigoted religious views that have been argued for in the past:

The term "miscegenation" has been used since the nineteenth century to refer to interracial marriage and interracial sex, and more generally to the global process of racial admixture that has taken place since the Age of Discoveries, particularly through the European colonization of the Americas and the Atlantic slave trade. Historically the term has been used in the context of laws banning interracial marriage and sex, so-called anti-miscegenation laws. It is therefore a loaded word and is considered offensive by many.

Today, the word miscegenation is avoided by many scholars, because the term suggests a distinct biological phenomenon, rather than a categorization imposed on certain relationships. The word is considered offensive by many and other terms such as "interracial," "interethnic" or "cross-cultural" are more common in contemporary usage. However, the term is still used by scholars when referring to past practices concerning multiraciality, such as anti-miscegenation laws that banned interracial marriages.

Christians and their ever changing views on traditional marriage...

I am pretty sure most of them have given up the bigoted views against interracial marriages.

Huckabee talks about "5000 years of traditional marriage" based on his own personal lifestyle choice's rulebook - the Bible - but will, no doubt, refuse to accept what that loaded definition actually includes if implemented as law:

Added to that list of new laws would be the many forms of rape marriage that are traditionally acceptable according to Huckabee's God and Bible...

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT
If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.

Just remember that these are precisely the views and lessons that have formed people like Mike Huckabee's "family values and morals" in the religious lifestyle choice they have made.

History will not be kind to you and yours, Huckster...

Time and time again these family values types have had to be forced to re-define their idea of traditional marriage because of what societies morals have defined as abhorrent practices. This time is no different than any of the other times. It truly sickens me that in a nation where all men are supposedly created equal... That we constantly have to sink down to these morally corrupt and repugnant people's level to argue for the most basic civil rights of other men and women. Their right to choose.

Those of you on the other side of these arguments - and I assure you, they are all the same arguments repeated over and over again - will be viewed in the history books as the bigots and haters that you are. But let's be clear on this...

That was your choice to be viewed as a homophobic bigot.

Not mine. My choice and belief would be that other people have no right to stick their noses in to the love lives, bedrooms and marriages of other adults. And I never had to ask for Mike Huckabee's or any one else, Gay, Lesbian, heterosexual, religious, atheist or other, for permission to get married - other than my wife-to-be at the time. All of you on the wrong side of this argument have been left with the freedom to choose your religion, your morals, your values and even your spouse.

The LGBT community deserves the same rights, the same freedoms guaranteed to them under the Constitution, to make all of these same choices without your 5000 years of traditionally misguided, immoral and bigoted input.

"In the future I think it will be difficult to explain why this happened, perhaps even more challenging to explain why this key national decision was left in the hands of lame duck senate Republicans. "

It's an easy answer here Josh. Unless we tie them up and stash them in a basement somewhere, the Republicans in the Senate have votes.

On a side note, the New York Times reports "The Senate voted 52 to 35 with 10 Republicans joining 40 Democrats and 2 independents in favor." Where were the other 7 Democrats? This still wouldn't have gotten us to cloture, but it would have been nice to see the Democratic senators united FOR ONCE!

Cross posted at Daily Kos, Open Left, and firedoglake.

Three and a half years after New Jersey's Legislature enacted a law to require voter-verified paper records, the Legislature is poised to undo it. After 37 states have managed to take concrete steps toward transparent and verifiable elections, New Jersey has not gotten the job done.

Bills moving fast in both houses of the Legislature to undo the three-year-old requirement for voter-verifiable paper records.

Now it looks like the state Senate could vote as early as Monday. New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt spoke eloquently today at a hearing of the Senate State Government Committee.

Read more »

I hope these Senators that are holding up any assistance to the automakers realize that each day they continue to make political hay over the issue only serves to hurt our economy even more.  Americans continue to hear, on a daily basis, about the possibility of a loss of thousands of jobs because of the auto dealers problems.   Each day they are reminded of how easy it is to lose one's job and therefore ones livelihood.

Remember how you felt each day hearing about a possible terrorist attack after the WTC attack in 2001?  Did you lose sleep over it, I know I did?  When you saw the words, "breaking news" on television after that, did your heart always skip a beat?  Would your eyes turn toward the television quickly as though you expected to see even more horror? Well in case you didn't know it, we were experiencing the politics of 'fear' back then - put onto us by the Republican Party.  Why do you suppose President Bush asked us to "go shopping" back then?  It was because even though he wanted us to be 'afraid' which helped him politically to get the things he wanted (Iraq, Patriot Act, etc..), he also knew fear would cause us to stop shopping which would damage the economy.

Once again the republicans are creating fear -- only this time they are actually hurting our nation's economy by doing so.   Are you starting to worry about losing your job, or a family member doing so?  Are you starting to pull away from buying things, driving somewhere or going out to eat?  Well folks, as each day goes by and as folks read or see stories about others losing their jobs -- we spend less money because we are afraid.  This means less revenue for companies to keep afloat and hire workers.

The mind's psychology can cause more pain then the actual event sometimes.

Congress needs to stop playing games (most of the Senators that are voting NO on any assistance have foreign car dealers or other car dealers in their states) and settle the big three auto dealers problems, even if only as a temporary measure.  Don't say 'yes' to wall street but no to mainstreet.  Americans need to stop seeing 'bad' economic news -- or we will all pay.

I can't help but feel this morning as if war has been declared and I can only hope that every no vote cast in the Senate last night results in war being declared on these union busting idiots. Protests and riots need to take place at everyone of these Senators' offices and homes over the holidays and may they never have the opportunity to forget that they have brought our economy down on their heads. This event will mark the true decline of our way of life and may we hear from the masses " OFF WITH THIER HEADS!!"

Paul Volker, in WSJ this morning notes the rumblings of a movement in China that is awesome to behold, that underlines the power of the web, and that calls out for a response from tens of millions of bloggers all over the free world.

"China's democracy movement has moved in fits and starts since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. But a manifesto issued this week marks a brave new chapter in the fight for political freedom.

More than 400 Chinese citizens living inside China published "Charter 08" on the Internet. The document calls for a new constitution to establish multiparty democracy and includes a scathing account of Communist rule. It describes its ambition for a political system in which the military, courts, schools and churches are accountable to the constitution rather than to a political party."

You know, I can come to this site,  and say just about anything that comes into my parochial mind.  I KNOW that when I criticize the President or the Governor or the head of our secret police, that there will be no knock at my door. No recriminations. I read articles and opinions posted on scores of sites attacking our government every day.  These are posted without risk.

Government employes might be fired from their positions from time to time and the matter ends up in court. But even under the current Administration, I do not see anyone facing criminal charges unless they are giving away government secrets. We do not have a perfect system, but the issue is always: Compared to what?

Volker continues:

"In a year that has seen a crackdown on political dissent, especially during the Olympics and March Tibet protests, this is a bold step, and the authors don't mince words: "Our political system continues to produce human rights disasters and social crises." It continues: "[A]s the ruling elite continues with impunity to crush and to strip away the rights of citizens to freedom, to property, and to the pursuit of happiness, we see the powerless in our society . . . becoming more militant and raising the possibility of a violent conflict of disastrous proportions. The decline of the current system has reached the point where change is no longer optional."

These brave 400 Chinese can be arrested at any time for merely expressing a view.  But they are taking on a one party system, in fact their entire government.  In solidarity.

These people could be thrown into some hole, or some hold, never to be heard from again. For doing something I take for granted every day.

PV continues:

"An introduction to the charter by American Sinologist Perry Link -- who translated it into English -- likens it to Charter 77, the document signed by Vaclav Havel and other Czechoslovakian dissidents in 1977. Like those dissidents, two signers of Charter 08 were detained by police this week and about a dozen have been questioned, according to Amnesty International.

The Czech dissidents waited 13 years to realize their democratic dream. In China, the reality of self-government also seems far off and Charter 08 won't produce immediate change. But the boldness and bravery of its statement suggest that the democrats' day will come."

I wrote a comment to blog written by an American in China just a couple days ago.  I just wonder if 400,000 or even 4,000,000 bloggers using the net around the Free World could chime in.

Since Corker and Shelby lead the charge against AMERICAN automakers we must call this the Shelby/Corker Depression. 

So please note this in your references to this new level of TREASON by those REPUBLICANS in the Senate that lead the FIGHT against AMERICAN automakers and how they put foreign owned companies ahead of AMERICANS!

I have called and emailed these 2 morons office's and ask you do the same. 

What I'm hearing is Bonior declines when people push him, saying it's time for a younger generation to lead the labor movement charge for the feds.  He has reportedly been pushing Mary Beth Maxwell, about whom I know very little.  Maybe she'd be terrific.  I've heard some speculation that Jennifer Granholm is now more likely to be nominated for the job as a result of some of the other Cabinet picks to date.

I appreciate the sentiment coming from Bonior.  But he is forceful and the cause of building the labor movement is very much in his gut.  And I would really, really like at least one person in the Cabinet meetings of whom both things are true, notwithstanding our President-elect's reassurances that the vision and the final calls are his. 

Maybe he could commit to giving Obama a couple of years, at the outset, all the while grooming a successor?  This is a golden opportunity coming up and it can't be frittered away on account of Washington newbie mistakes. 

I like Granholm very much and think there's got to be an important role for her to play in moving things in Washington.  But I'm not sure that building a useful labor movement in this country is a cause that is in her gut.

Andy Stern, whose name has popped up as well, is certainly interesting, passionate, and committed.  But he may have burned too many bridges in past fights to be able to be effective in that role, I don't know.

Biden stated that Obama will be tested in his first six months, however this big test could be created by allies of the United States. If the Likud wins the elections in Israel this make an attack on Iran more likely. A future conflict between Israel and Iran could leave American soldiers in Iraq vulnerable to increased insurgent attacks or even a Iranian invasion of Ihat country. Meanwhile the Hindu nationalist BJP party could take power in India, and this raises the possibility of an Indian attack on Pakistan. An Indian attack on Pakistan could strengthen the radicals in that country or make Pakistan move its military to the Indian border and thereby ignore its border with Afghanistan. In the next six months Obama will have his hands full trying to control both the Indians and the Israelis in order to prevent future conflicts.

The Republiclans like to pride themselves on being the party that best represents the values of rural America when it comes to owning guns, bashing gays, and owning a pickup truck. This third value appears to be in jeopardy if the auto bail bill does not pass. The Republicans in the senate have blocked attempts to save the American industry and making the future production of big Ford pickup trucks possible. If the rednecks lose the tradtion of owning Ford F-150 pick ups they will only have one party to blame.

   As I write this, 3:15 EST, the markets are bracing themselves for another sell-off, courtesy of Senate Republicans
   And it looks like Olbermann's network is only too happy to put some wind in the sails of the Ship of Fools with a headline like this: "New Senate Star Emerges from Auto Row"
   Who's the star? Corker.
   If you're losing count of the double standards, remember when Obama said Democrats should not use the filibuster but should concentrate on winning elections instead?
   Yet, all through the election cycle, we've heard about the "Magic 60" ad nauseum, because everyone knows, I guess, that Republicans are obligated to obstruct every damn thing that does not originate with Pat Robertson, Ayn Rand, or other haters of the working class.
   Was I the only one shouting at the TV when congressman Gary Ackerman (D?! NY) lambasted the CEOs for coming to Capitol Hill in private jets? And for a paltry $35 billion?
   The deafening silence regarding the $700 billion and, apparently hundreds of billions more -- that somehow did not require legislation -- continues to this day. How many of those unknown robber barons showed up on private jets? Why did the AIG spa story disappear? It is a much more clear example of the arrogance and presumption of the ruling class, to the tune of $100 billion and counting, but there's your answer.
   The Ruling Class.
   If you don't think there is one, observe the attack on the UAW, cloaked as a "free-market solution" for the troubled auto industry. It's one of the last real manufacturing unions left and a lot of the remaining union workers in the US are in the public sector anyway. Don't think it matters? Well, if you thought there was a "race to the bottom" before, in terms of wages, hours worked, benefits, pensions, etc. just stick around. With the UAW gone, that "bad example" will bring a lot of others with it.
   Which is exactly what makes them flap their hands with excitement.
   And the media is all too willing to play along, to play up the "drama" of the "Senate's new star" who bravely stays up late trying to decimate working people in the US.
   And the $700 billion?
   "Hey everybody!! Look over there!! That car maker is on a private plane!! Get him!!"
   And spare me the talk about how bad the American car companies are. No shit. I don't own one. Did they increase fuel efficiency? Not at all. But people kept buying anyway. Until the bottom fell out RE gas prices, catching them with their pants down.
   So what? Forget the companies themselves and think about the general economy, the parts manufacturers, the dealerships, the dozens of satellite business, and, if it doesn't nauseate you too much, think about the union workers. And the fact that we've been talking about $15 billion for two weeks.
   All I am saying -- for cryin' out loud, all I'm saying -- is keep your eye on the $700 billion.
   Is that so hard?
   With the American media, it's damn near impossible.
  

  

With the United Auto Workers refusing to accept Senate Republicans' drastic take-it-or-leave it Hobson's choice on rapidly cutting union benefit overhead, an automakers' bailout for 2008 is as dead as a Fred Thompson presidential campaign.

First, there are advantages. Yes, advantages, and I'm assuming that GM isn't so bad off it can't make it a couple more weeks, especially since part of this time includes normal holiday plant shutdowns.

The  next Congress won't enough GOP Senators to block any bill it doesn't like, including stripping out state environmental standards (California CO2), beating down employees, etc. And, Obama can have the bill waiting for his signature, and appoint his own czar.

That said, passing a decent bailout this year would have been preferable.

So, looking beyond last night to the big picture:

Who's to blame?

• Well, per the story, one problem is the Big Three have been in business longer in the U.S. than have the Japanese Big Three. They've got more pension overhead because they've got more retirees per current employees.

There's no "blame" there, of course, but there is a reminder that we may be comparing apples and oranges at times.

• Beyond that, as I've already said about two dozen times on my blog, the Big Three, and above all, the General, have plenty of blame to shoulder in different ways.

And, the United Auto Workers has its fair share.

Not counting enabling Michigan politicians, I would slice the blame within the industry as roughly 2/3 management and 1/3 unions. Besides BOTH being anti-environmentalist, the UAW knew enough of what was up, and wrong, on the management side. And, there is one other reason, detailed below, to fault the UAW to some degree. Within management, I'd give 2/3 of that blame to General Motors.

Per previous posts on this issue, I've noted that GM ignored early in-house minivan designs and hybrids research back in the '70s, as prime mismanagement examples; even today, its Allison division is a leader in making hybrid buses, but it still doesn't have a full-hybrid car.

I've also blogged on how UAW President Douglas Fraser invited the Japanese Big Three here in the late 1970s, but never made an effort to unionize their plants, despite having had advance contacts with the Japanese equivalent of the UAW and despite Honda's first plant being in Ohio, not the South, for example.

Both management and the UAW have plenty of blame on the "green" side, along with those enabling politicians. (Can somebody park a Suburban on John Dingell's front lawn?)

In short, a lot of these problems are a lot older, and more festering, than problems in the financial sector. Whether they are fixable without a structured bankruptcy (and how that would even be done on a privately-held Chrysler is a question itself) is an open question.

Finally, two wrongs don't make a right.

Rather than using the argument about how Crazy Uncle Henry Paulson's been so lenient with his investment banking A-list buddies, the argument should be flipped - the incoming Congress has the opportunity to be just as tough with the financial sector as with the Big Three. (I'll have a post up with more of these thoughts this afternoon.)

On, and especially given that normal assembly plant holiday shutdowns are just around the corner, Krugman (before he tried to qualify his words) is right -- GM should die.

As Josh has  reported, the Big Three bridge loan is dead.  The Republicans are getting what they want: bringing on a full-scale depression AND sticking a final knife in the guts of the labor movement, twisting it, and breaking off the hilt.

The Southern Republican Senators who torpedoed the deal will take much richly-deserved blame, but we also can't forget who let this happen:

Harry Reid.

I can't IMAGINE anything like this happening under Lott or Frist  -- meaning, I can't imagine Lott or Frist allowing something this important to go "against" them.  Remember the "nuclear option" in the 109th Congress?  Reid just let the Republicans set off an atom bomb in the Midwest, giving it his trademark Stern Rebuke, and doing nothing (another trademark).

Par for the course.  What a useless piece of human waste.

Republicans routinely go nuclear.  Democrats routinely let them.

What a wonderful party I belong to.

After all it's not often one lives to see an event that our mathematical models predict can only occur once in 73-603 trillion billion years!

http://www.eurointelligence.com/article.581+M5f21b8d26a3.0.html

Gives new meaning to the saying "You don't see that everyday!"  So now it is safe & right to sneer at the disgraced "quants"

http://www.wilmott.com/blogs/paul/index.cfm/2008/11/17/Actuaries-Versus-Quants

The math got very very intricate and also very very wrong.

Currently my own wacky little model is predicting an upswing in Q3 2009.  But maybe that's the outcome that won't happen for another few hundred billion years! 

I'm going long on pencils and apples.

(Dedicated to Ellen and Quinn)

Damn the senate.

 

Damn the republicans from the south.  They are about to kill the US auto industry for the sake of clinging to false precepts about economic conservativism.  Richard Shelby is a traitor, a man working against the interests of the United States at the behest of foriegn corporations.  The senate itself is no longer a functioning legistlative body, the idea that 60 votes are needed to move any bill foward is insane.  Do away with it and lets just have a house or representitives.  The very idea that 41 people can hold up any legistlation moving foward is crazy, these procedural tactics used by the republicans have killed one bill after the next for the last two years and they promise to continue into the future.  Where is the nuclear option, we have heard enough from the GOP, let them sit on the side and gripe for a few years but in the meantime lets get this country moving again, lets not get slowed down by a bunch of backward rednecks and fools looking for a pat on the back from Rush Limbaugh. 

 

Opposing the bailout does not even make financial sense. If the big three go down, which looks like it could happen, you are going to have about 2 million out of work within 6 months.  Figure that those two million will get unemployment, foodstamps... etc. paid for by the federal government amounting to about $1000 a month.  Figure those 2 million will also no longer be paying into federal and payroll taxes which will cost about $1000 a month in lost revenue.  The monthly carrying cost for 2 million unemployed is going to be about 4 biilion per month, before you add in the cost of all the pensions and health benefits for retired workers that will have to be picked up by the federal government.  I swear, the republicans are either damn stupid, or activly working to undermine the United States.

 

One other thing, Lets get some pride back in buying American again.  Most people probably do not activly serve thier country or community, there are only so many cops, soldiers, fireman and teachers in the world.  Enough with the milton friedman free market philosophy, we should be economic nationalists.  Take the small step of supporting your fellow citizens instead of other nations.  A car is probably the second largest purchase after a home, If you buy a foriegn car, you are letting your country down, you are turning away from the most basic service you can give to your country by supporting it economicaly. 

Some Members of Congress, to ensure "continuity," want Obama to keep Hayden and others in the intelligence-national security areas.

Using Congress' logic, Obama should keep the entire Bush cabinet. Congress likes the Bush Appointees because Congress shares the Bush Administration's contempt for the rule of law, FISA, and Geneva.

And US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan refuses to resign. Fine, we'll find out whether Congress will consider impeachment. Despite the Bush "precedent," Congress remains a separate branch of government.

There should be no excuse for Obama from ordering DOJ to disclose to Congress the information related to the illegal FISA and Geneva violations.  Or will Obama remain the 101st Senator?

The argument for "Continuity" was the pretext Bush used in 2004. Didn't we vote in 2008 for change?

The American public is not required to remain loyal to only this Constitution. This Constitution can be changed and modernized. There is the option to put another Constitution on the table.

Best I can tell the Republican Congress of the last 8-12 years had a lot to do with the deregulation that led to this mess. 

And they ran the country into the ground with unwise spending sprees creating massive debt

Sounds a lot like the accusations against the big 3.

But of course the big 3 greased up republicans to fight the CAFE standards - and if they had embraced the CAFE standards and started building efficient cars 10 years ago they wouldn't have suffered such huge losses when americans stopped buying SUV's.

SUV'S  were too expensive due to gas prices which were run up because speculators knew the financial system was in danger and were looking for a new way to manipulate markets and make a huge profit.

So the wall street brokers who broke the credit markets, inflated and then destroyed the housing market, speculated wildly on oil (and other commodities) once the stock market started diving driving oil prices through the roof, THOSE wall street brokers got a bailout. 

But not the auto companies, becuase they need to take responsibilty for their poor choices while nobody else does.....

These LAME DUCK republicans should realize the reason voters chose to vote them out was because of votes like this, and their complicity in the the creation of the un and under regulated shadow banking system that destroyed the economy...

Hi there, come on in.  Thanks, good to see you, too!  At least the rain seems to be letting up.  Can't put anything over on you, can I?  I did indeed enjoy the storms.  Find yourself a seat and I'll grab something from the kitchen.  Hungry?  I haven't shopped recently but I'm sure I can find something that doesn't move on its own.

Dollars are tight - for everyone (mostly).  I've been hearing a lot about holiday shopping and how to cut corners.  I began thinking of those things, as well ... and started remembering some of my favorite gifts I've given over the years.  In a weird way, they come to mind much quicker than favorites I've received.  Some cost quite a bit; some almost nothing unless you count time, imagination and joy in the doing as a price.

 

Read more »

Back during the election, and especially during the primaries, I spent a lot of time decrying Democrats who acted like they had PTSD from decades of domestic abuse at the hands of the Republicans.  Some, I said, crumpled into the fetal position at the mere thought of the commercials the omnipotent necromancers of the GOP would run, while others overcompensated, insisting that we had to become our enemies to defeat them. 

Well, instant karma's gonna getcha, every time. 

Today, I ran smack dab into not one, but two separate cases of PTSD I had unknowingly been carrying around.  The first was political.  I realized today that the way the media has reacted to Blagopaylosah was so much like the mass insanity of the Whitewater years it was triggering flashbacks.  It's possible that this thing is a momentary fancy of the MSM that will run out of steam once it has some real news to report.  Thing is, they already have plenty of real news to report.  Just ferinstance, the fact that, as DHinMI put it at Kos, today, "[g]iven the choice between being reckless ideologues or doing what's best for the country, the economy, and millions of American families whose income is connected to the auto industry, the Senate GOP decided to be reckless ideologues."  

What's triggered my flashbacks is the fact that we have a "story" where there is clearly no there there, yet the fact that they can't find any there in the nothing only exacerbates the insane feeding frenzy. The lack of evidence of wrongdoing is deemed proof that such evidence remains to be found and the MSM and the GOP are falling back into the same ugly co-dependant resonance that marked their relations (heh) back during Whitewater-Vince Foster-Monica's Hummergate.  I admit my 90s flashbacks have made me at least borderline shrill.  (But at least its not just me--Digby, the Queen of Shrewd, is worried about it too.)

But, speaking of the Republican plan to punish America and the world with a new Great Depression to repay their rank ingratitude for all that the GOP has done for them, I also had to confront my other case of PTSD, today.  The one that involves real trauma and, therefore, transcends the realm of mere  metaphor and approaches that of actual pathology.  

Many years ago, during another recession, I suffered a long period of unemployment/underemployment.  As the months passed, I endured the calls from credit card companies, drastic downgrades in the quality of my diet, the forebearance of all luxuaries, and during the last few months of it, I shared my apartment with the spectre of homlessness. If you've been through anything like that, you know it's scarring.  The sense of helplessness---which in itself can become pathological--and the stress and the constant anxiety take their toll and they leave their mark.   

They sure did on me. After I got a job and got back on my feet (along with the rest of the country) my reaction was perverse and rather shameful.  Where previously, I'd been prudent to the point of parsimony, as soon as my credit was restored, I spent profligately, drunken sailor style, getting myself into a spot it took years to dig myself out of when I came to my senses.  Where before, I had been open-handed with those less fortunate, I had a major compassion shutdown that lasted years.  I didn't completely turn into Ebenezer Scrooge, but I applied a flinty capitalistic attitude to transactions as mundane as calculating a tip in a cheap restaurant and, unless it involved animals, it took a very sobby sob story indeed to move me to real charity.  

And then there was the complete loss of confidence of my worth as an employee.  My deep seated anxiety (which reinforced my already perversely overactive sense of loyalty) caused me to stick with a job that daily presented me with intolorable conditions, and to do so for a lot less than I was worth, to boot.  That went on for several years. The fear of unemployment can do that to you when it ceases to be an abstract phenomonon.  Or at least, it did for me. 

I thought I'd gotten better.  Hell I have gotten better.  My sense of compassion was already coming back, even before the end of the 90s.  Eight ugly years of Republican rule took it to heights it had never reached before (though the increase in my income may have a bit to do with that, as well).  I grew back some of the cocky self-confidence I'd had as a smug know it all twenty-something. 

So when the 2001 recession didn't really worry me much, I thought I was better.  Then this one hit. 

Here's the deal. I've been worried since the credit freeze up hit back in September.  Having had more than a little exposure, both academic and real-world, to what credit actually means and how critical it is to the functioning of the economy, it worried me a lot.  As things kept getting worse, I've become more worried, but I realized today that I've also been indulging in a a lot of denial and avoidance.  I knew things were bad and that the risk of something really, really serious--the D word (and the one Prozac doesn't help, at that)--was theoretically possible. Nonetheless, I've nurtured this little fantasy that there's still time to avert a catastrophe.  That somehow, we'll muddle along until January, then Obama will run up a good Keynesian fix, unemployment will trough short of 8% and then all we'll have to do is figure out how to stop the inevitable inflation without stallling out the recovery.   

Then I read this from Ambinder:

 It's quite unsettling to talk to members of Barack Obama's transition teams these days, especially those who are helping with the economics portfolio. Without going into details, the sense I get from them is that they are very worried that the economy will get a lot worse before it gets better. Not just worse... a lot worse. As in -- double digit unemployment without the wiggle factors. Huge declines in aggregate demand. Significant, persistent deficits. That's one reason why the Obama administration seems to be open to listening to every economist with an idea and is stocking the staff with the leading lights of the field. In one sense, the general level of concern among Obama advisers and transition staffers is reassuring; they get the magnitude of the problems, and they're not going to assume that, just because the bottom has never dropped out before -- certainly not in the lifetimes of most people doing policy these days, the bottom will never drop out.

That's when I realized that I was, and for weeks had been, scared spitless.  I've just been whistling my way past the graveyard the whole time.  The truth is that I've been looking nervously at the demeanor of people out shopping, counting cars in the mall parking lot and empty tables in restaurants for weeks, now.  When a retail business in a place I shop closes up, I take notice in a way I didn't before.  Every conversation I have with a client begins and ends with a discussion of the fall off in business and the inability to get some grace from lenders, no matter what business they are in. Despite all that, I've maintained an irrational confidence that things aren't as dire as they seem.   

Tonight, however, I realized that for the first time in my life, I've been feeling the precise kind of  fear that FDR was talking about in his first inaugural address.   FDR's most quoted words in that speech, are applicable to any kind of fear:

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

However, in the sentences immediately following, he starkly ennumerated the reasons why people at that time, in fact, had good reason to be afraid:

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

FDR could say that because, by the time he was inauguarated, it had already happened in a big way--it was just stating the bleeding obvious truth, not making a scary prediction that could send the markets into a further tizzy and turn a possibility into a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

We will not hear any such bleak, stark descriptions of the situation from Obama, I think, because all of that stuff is only starting to happen now.  God willing (I find my agnosticism wearing thin, just of late), we can avert the worst of it and turn things around before it spirals completely out of control.  He sure doesn't want to do anything to lower his chances.     

But I do feel the fear Roosevelt was talking about. The specific fear.  Its a constant crawly feeling in my gut these days.  A fear that says "sure, its not hitting our bottom line much now, but if this keeps getting worse, it will, and then I could end up out on the street."   Its a fear born of personal experience plus too much knoweldge of history and too many dire stories  of the Great Depression from my elders.  I'm scared for me, for my mother, brother and sister.  I'm scared for my girlfriend and my cats and for the whole damn world.   

I've been feeling it for weeks, but today, I finally admitted it to myself.  The truth is, we'd damn well better hope that Obama is a lot better than FDR was at dealing with this crisis.  And the turth also is that that's why I have had absolutely no goddamned patience for the cable asshats blathering on and on about whether they can parse Obama into the Blagopaylosah scandal.  We are facing a national emergency, yea, an international emergency, right here, right now that's worse than anything we've faced since, hell, the Cuban Missle Crisis.  A little rallying around the President-Elect would seem in order.  Unless, of course, you're some cable asshat with a multimillion dollar contract an no fear of losing everything.     

News Item: Obama: I Am 'Appalled And Disappointed' By Illinois Scandal, Blagojevich Needs To Resign

10.  Try to move it quickly ... Just remember Andy Card's warning - "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce a new Senate Seat in August."

  9.  Get it placed in a few movies, or television shows, and people will line up to buy it like Happy Soup!

  8.  Ticket brokers, but you have to be careful of the various states that have "Scalping" laws

  7.  Talk to Sarah Palin, cut her in, and maybe you can package it with the Bridge to Nowhere

  6.  Two Words - Time Share!

  5.  If you're willing to put "GoldenPalace.Com" on it, you could get millions!

  4.  You could get Billy Mays, however, it's a tougher sell if the seat doesn't mend something

  3.  eBay, but it probably would sell faster if it had an image of the Virgin Mary with it

  2.  Holy Cow! ... Too bad Phil Rizzuto died... Think of the potential - "Hi, I'm Phil Rizzuto, from the Senate Seat Store"... You could have sold it like hotcakes!

  1.  SenateSeat! ... Apply directly to Rod Blagojevich! ... SenateSeat! ... Apply directly to Rod Blagojevich! ... SenateSeat! ... Apply directly to Rod Blagojevich! ...


Bonus Blago's Bazaar Riffs

Josh Marshall:  Amazing

Robert Stein:  Selling Obama's Senate Seat

Steve Benen:  THE INEVITABLE PUSH

Nate Silver:  Appointed Senators Rarely Win Re-Election

Rex W. Huppke:  Rod Blagojevich shows foulmouthed side ...Etiquette experts say such language still unprofessional

Prescott Carlson:  Bla-lego-vich

(Cross Posted at The Garlic)

In his presser today, Obama didn't really answer any of a number of questions related to the contacts between his TEAM and Blago's ADMINISTRATION, beginning with not talking about contacts between subordinates of the two, the timeline of Obama opting to give Jarrett a WH job rather than see her connected to the Senate seat, etc.

I'm not saying Obama's done anything wrong; I'm just saying he's said nothing new about what he knows/doesn't, when he did/didn't, who he told/didn't, why/why not, etc.

As for his press candor, he -- and even more, incoming press secretary Gibbs, can play their communications cards just as close to the vest as BushCo.

Let me add, for people not familiar with where I come from, I'm a registered independent left-liberal who voted Green - Green, not Nader, no less - in the last two presidential elections, so before you say so, I'm not trolling.

Do you remember "Drill Baby Drill?" Against all logic and the advice of almost all energy experts, John McCain stuck to this mantra of "Drill Baby Drill." He even got Obama to say that he'd consider it and many liberals to believe that it was actually necessary to decrease the price of gasoline across the country.

Well walking home from work today, I saw a gas sign that read $1.79 for a gallon of unleaded. And as far as I know, we aren't drilling off shore. So this is just a memory of one of John McCain's stupidest campaign stunts.

Senate Republicans are holding the auto company work force hostage after giving trillions to Wall Street. What a crock. Labor has been getting hammered for years and this is more of the same. Detroit management went with high margin vehicles and Wall Street went the route of high risk investments and both screwed the pooch.

And who are they going after to pay for their screwup? Why the working persons of this country, of course.

I saw this coming weeks ago and just knew it would come down to this. It's all part of the Bush crimewave. After stealing trillions to cover their failed high risk investments now they are going to give still more to Wall Street by taking still more money out of the pockets of working Americans which will end up in the pockets of investors.

This country is run by criminals for sure.

Much has been made of the notion that, among Barack Obama's supporters, Obama is considered "The One".  It's a nutty, somewhat psycho/paranoid reference to the film, The Matix, but we get it, We're accused of being "Kool-Aid drinkers", of being hopeless idealists, of being self-blinded to the failings of "Our Dear Leader", of being hero worshipers.  Our critics accuse us of lacking discernment.  We're told we lack the basic skills to assess the  obvious human frailties of The One we have chosen as our president.  But I have a question for the critics: Do you know for a fact that Barack Obama is NOT "The One"?  Because some (very few) leaders like Obama DO happen from time to time.  How do you know that he is not one of these?  How do you know for a fact that Barack Obama is not the next great leader of mankind?  Of the world?  Do you?  How do you know?  Give me some evidence, please.  Beyond just, "I don't believe it."

Muhatma Ghandi was a regular guy who decided to stick to his guns.  He became a revered world leader who, because his local issue was one that captured the world, achieved greatnesss. Gautama Buddha died a painful death after eating pork that was offered to him by a follower.  According to Buddhist doctrine, Gautama Budddha was probibited from eating meat, yet He chose to follow doctrine over "reality".  Was He corrupt?  Was he weak?  Why was He considered great?   The history of Jesus of Nazareth is obscure, but He was clearly human.  Who was he?  No one really knows.  The man who said, "The kingdom of God is within you and all around you. It is not within buildings of wood or stone. Split a piece of wood and you will find me. Look beneath a stone and I am there." Jesus the man clearly did not believe in the world you live in.  Who was He? 

So what is the problem with Obama?  I'm not trying to deify the guy, but why can't he be better than the rest of us? What is the critics' problem with that notion?  What evidence do Obama's detractors have to support the notion that Obama is less than great?  Buddha was an average human.  JFK was average.  Reverend Martin Luther King was human.  Jesus was human.  Is it not possible that Barack Obama is human too?  One of those extraordinary humans who comes along once in a generation?  I believe Barack Obama IS the one.  For me, that's no big deal. 

Recall the problem after 9-11: There was fast action, poorly defined roles, and little Congressional interest in challenging unconstitutional conduct or dubious information.

Post 9-11: We (re)learned when government officials make excuses to ignore the law -- law, as a lesson of history to apply, going forward --  we have a recipe for a disaster.

The same is happening with the auto bailout. Washington is on the verge of bailing out the auto industry using worthless information, and poorly defined authority:

NYT: "I have a banking staffer who can carry out the responsibilities of this so-called czar," Mr. Corker said. "I mean it's a liaison. This person has no power."

As after 9-11, we've got in this (auto) bailout: Vague information, demands for fast action, and dubious accountability. Despite the smokescreen of these defects, who reviewed whether this bailout was constitutional?

This is starting to smell like the National Recovery Administration, which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional because it violated the Separation of Powers [emphasis added]:

"Extraordinary conditions, such as an economic crisis, may call for extraordinary remedies, but they can not create or enlarge constitutional power. . . . In the final analysis the contention made rests upon a non-existent power in the Federal Government to enact any act deemed by it necessary or desirable to promote the general welfare. " [ Schechter Poultry v. US, 295 U.S. 495, ]

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Forget the BlagObamagate crap sucking up most of the available media bandwith.  Here is the lead paragraph of the current top story from the Washinton Post online:

"A bipartisan Senate report released today says that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials are directly responsible for abuses of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and charges that decisions by those officials led to serious offenses against prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere."

Full story is here.  Massive kudos to reporter Joby Warrick for laying it out clearly and the WaPo for putting this front and center where it belongs.  The report makes it clear that the sanctioning of prisoner abuse (TORTURE) originated with The Decider himself.  This should get top billing from all news orgs and be seared into the brains of all Americans.  Not to mention providing further motiviation for war crimes prosecutions.

BTW, the report was released by Senators Carl Levin and John McCain.

I'm not at all a fan of Nicholas Kristof, but he's got some good ideas going here. I've always been a little concerned about any potential influence that ADM might have on President-Elect Obama; appointing someone like Pollan (or a less prominent but perhaps more qualified candidate like one of the people listed at FoodDemocracyNow) would be a clear sign that he won't be unduly swayed by the agribusiness lobby.

Sometimes the best solution is the most simple one:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would make about $4,700 less as secretary of state than her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice.

Congress late Wednesday lowered the salary for the nation's top diplomat to keep Clinton's nomination from running afoul of the Constitution.

An obscure section on compensation for public officials, the Emoluments Clause, says that no member of Congress can be appointed to a government post if that job's pay was increased during the lawmaker's current term.

In other words, Clinton, D-N.Y., might have been ineligible to serve in the post because she was serving in Congress when Rice's salary was raised to its current level of $191,300. So late Wednesday, the House and Senate quietly rolled the secretary of state's salary back to $186,600, its level in January 2007 when Clinton began her second Senate term.

Even at the lower rate, Clinton would still get a raise over her Senate salary.

Senators now make $169,300 and are expected to receive a raise to $174,000 next year.

 

This week has seen the "nationalization" of Rod Blagojevich hate - something Illinois residents have come to expect. Rod now is the poster-boy for all the vices, but mainly "hubris" - that oh-so intellectual damnation. It's something Chris Hitchens and Rachael Maddow could agree on.

 

As we say with burglars or murderers, the accompanying vices of sloth or pride are the 'real' sin - not theft or killing - e.g. "He was a successful burglar - till he got 'lazy' in his method." Or "He was a great serial murderer, but then he became too proud of his murders and spilled the beans."

 

Right now, Senators from union busting states in the south like Alabama and North Carolina are really making no bones about their desire to smash union labor - and the entire mid-west economy if it comes to it. That an Alabama Senator would crush the Midwest economy in order to do his duty for Mercedes or BMW truly shocks my conscience - but I suppose it is to be expected. These senators will be handsomely rewarded by Chamber of Commerce types for smashing the labor movement.

 

So Rod's sin was that he was too frank about his horse-trading. But that falls in line with other examples of his "hubris." We've been hearing for years about how Rod refuses to play ball with Illinois' elite families. Dick Mell, his father in law, seemed offended at one time that Rod wouldn't kowtow to him - imagine a city council member who expected to dictate terms to a governor - but that was one of Rod's sins. Another was his refusal to 'play ball' with the Madigan family. Majority leader Mike and his state prosecutor daughter Lisa have certainly benefited from Rod's ouster.

 

Now as an outsider, I was always puzzled at why the Governor was expected to kowtow to a city councilman, or why we outsiders were expected to pity poor, poor Mike Madigan.

 

Personally, what do I care about the hurt feelings of elites? Mike Madigan - a Democrat - had resisted the imposition of Rod's signature accomplishment "Kid Care" - the state sponsored program to insure children with uninsured parents. Similar protests were made by 'reasonable' elites regarding Rod's insistence that senior citizens should get free bus rides in return for state help with the public transit.

 

Rod refused to be deferential to important families. He refused to accept the "reality" that poor children or seniors that have been kicked out of their cars don't have any "clout." Morality means divvying up the spoils according to who is the highest on the totem pole. Under his predecessor George Ryan, that meant handing a giant bag of money to the liquor concession or mobbed-up gambling interests. George Ryan was making his money on the backs of Secy of State employees - forcing low level employees to sell his fundraising 'tickets' - and that meant they had to trade commercial driver's licenses for money. That resulted in the deaths of children - but hey they weren't Mike Madigan's children - like his daughter Lisa the prosecutor for the state. 

 

Why can't Rod get behind schemes to massively subsidize gambling, or sports teams? Providing health insurance to poor children is seen as nothing but 'grandstanding' by Illinois elites. How could Rod be as naive as to direct state funds toward the weak and literally infirm? And when Rod starts putting the arm on the strong - well that's truly a sin Illinois elites cannot pardon.  

The Eulogy will be given by Joe Klein who once said at a time of great turmoil in the world....

"I've been watching cable news this afternon--I know, get a life!--and you know, Barack Obama comes from the same state as Rod Blagoyevich. That is really suspicious! What did he know and when did he know it? This is the first major scandal of the Obama Administration! He has to explain himself. You notice he hasn't had any press conferences since this thing broke...oh, wait. He's having a press conference tomorrow...And Patrick Fitzgerald said that Obama is no way involved in this? I'll bet! That's not what Sean Hannity thinks! It's a coverup for sure. Will Obama be the first President to be impeached before he's inaugurated? 

Stay tuned...but only if you have a strong stomach."

 

Unlike many of the attendees, Joe loved journalism and practiced it waaayyy more than others. That cannot be said for the pallbearers and others who thought journalism was old and deserved to die. They, felt that tabloid gossip was more hip and had more life- so, on the condtion of anonymity (because most are affilicted with  the condition of "a lackofspineity" said the following)

 

" F journalism, it is so newsy"

 

" Why report facts when we can report feelings"

 

" Facts only get in the way"

 

" I like cheese"

 

It is a  sad day for many Americans, who thought that they could trust the judgement of reporters to decipher between real news (like the economic downturn, torture, wiretaps and things like that) and fake news (like sex scandals, money scandals, pigs, lipstick, houses, kindergaten letters). Sure, fake news is sexy- but that is what the last 5 minutes of evening news is for, or better yet, If we are consumed with fake news- what will Andy Rooney gripe.  about now? I guess, all is left is to turn to the esteemed Stephen Colbert from the Colbert report. Although, he reports news from his gut and not his brain- he has the decency to tell us.

 

Other attendees include

 

Andrea Mitchell (practic