Right

Giving It Away - First Draft

I sympathize, I do, with the argument that Obama couldn't win here, with the crap-ass Congress he has and his own inherent bent towards being concilatory. Trouble is, his job at that point wasn't to win. It wasn't to compromise in the hopes of winning even just a little.

It was to sharpen his teeth and lose, HARD.

The way we're all going to be losing, year after year after year, because we keep avoiding the argument.

Republicans are not afraid to drive the bus off the cliff and Democrats are, and that's why the Republicans will always win.

 

Well, hey, if it makes Wall Street analysts happy it certainly makes me happy

Oil prices hit $90 milestone - Yahoo! News

NEW YORK – Oil prices on Tuesday jumped above $90 a barrel for the first time in more than two years, a key milestone for Wall Street analysts who say tightening supplies will eventually drive prices above the $100 mark next year.

Although it means my heating cost will go up (or would, if my thermostat setting didn't go down) and WTF, the government in its infinite wisdom has cut the fuel assistance fund in half because, you know, if you're out of luck you're out of luck and you might as well be cold too. 

Humbug.

"A date which will live in infamy"

USS Shaw explodes after being hit by bombs - Yahoo! News Photos

Pearl Harbor Attack: Dec. 7, 1941

I didn't need the peanut butter really...

...I have enough here to get through the rest of the week, at least. But damn, I had it on my list and then I made the mistake of deleting it from the list before I actually picked the peanut butter off the shelf and right there, in that split second between deleting and picking, I was distracted by a donut and the rest is history.

A very good donut, true. But still. Maybe I need a minder of something. I don't know.

So is he going to blow us all up now?

Judge denies WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange bail - Yahoo! News

LONDON – A British judge denied Julian Assange bail on Tuesday after the WikiLeaks founder told a London court he would fight efforts to extradite him to Sweden to face a sex-crimes investigation.

I thought the news over the weekend was that Assange and his merry band of WikiGeeks had posted a giant, encrypted file of really, really scary super-bad secrets online and intended to dump all these secrets (a "poison pill") if Assange was arrested (a nice Hollywood touch: Take one more step and ze bomb goes off). So now he's arrested (I just assume you can't be held without bail if you're not arrested). Ka-boom?

Meanwhile I'm just thinking about all the geeks running around in the blacknets and firing off their encrypted emails (Oh wait, you didn't think all this passion for transparency and openness extended to them too, did you? Silly, silly. No, that only applies to State.) What to do, what to do?

Yay! Tis the season for more Al Gore jokes

South Florida cold weather: Fort Lauderdale breaks cold record for Dec. 7 - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

FORT LAUDERDALE — South Floridians woke up Tuesday morning to temperatures hovering around the very low 40s that sometimes felt like the mid-30s because of the wind chill factor.

In Fort Lauderdale, a low temperature record of 42 degrees for Dec. 7 that had been in place for 169 years was broken, said Dan Gregoria, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami.

Because, obviously, duh, how can you have global friggin' warming if it's 42 degrees in Ft. Lauderdale? Just tell me that. Ha!

Also what is the Carleton College swim team doing there? I have no idea, and the photo caption is no help. Of course anybody from Minnesota who doesn't want to be in Florida this time of year is flat-out nuts, but aside from that.

Happened two years ago, Yglesias says

Yglesias » The Real Tax Cut Sellout

And I agree.

No kidding, you really can not make this stuff up

‘Obama must answer’ for UN spying: Assange | Raw Story

President Barack Obama should resign if it can be shown that he approved spying by US diplomatic figures on UN officials, the founder of WikiLeaks said in an interview published Sunday.

"The whole chain of command who was aware of this order, and approved it, must resign if the US is to be seen to be a credible nation that obeys the rule of law. The order is so serious it may well have been put to the president for approval," Julian Assange told Spanish daily El Pais.

Hey, look, I'm not a big Obama fan so it's OK with me if he resigns, we can have Biden for a president. Would that be all right with Assange? Will somebody ask him if he approves of Biden? And soon - because if he doesn't like Biden either let's get this done while Pelosi is still third choice. Otherwise we could wind up in real trouble here.

 

Forty years?

For Europe, WikiLeaks offers cyberdrama with Julian Assange as main character - CSMonitor.com

The Australian founder of WikiLeaks is in the midst of publicizing 251,287 secret US diplomatic cables dating from the past four decades.

So "dump" is really the accurate word here.

Snappy!

There is an upgrade to VMWare Fusion, the virtualization software I use to run Linux on my Mac (yes, I know, there is absolutely no reason for me to do this but gimme a break, I do it anyway) and it's fast. As in you hardly know it's there.

But he won't

Let’s Not Make a Deal - NYTimes.com

So Mr. Obama should draw a line in the sand, right here, right now. If Republicans hold out, and taxes go up, he should tell the nation the truth, and denounce the blackmail attempt for what it is.

Right

GOP, Dems nearing deal on taxes, jobless benefits - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON – An outline of a bipartisan economic package is emerging that would temporarily extend the Bush-era tax rates for all taxpayers, while extending jobless benefits for millions of Americans.

This so-called bipartisan package has been in the cards for quite some time now and all the drama in the Congress last week was just a warm-up act. The R's hold the middle class and the jobless hostage to get their fat cat tax cut extension and - no surprise here - get away with it. My guess is the only remaining detail under discussion is who gets this whole thing to run on again in 2012. The detail is the timing and the D's will take a dive. Again. Because gee, those R's are sooooo mean. 

Wow, Bears go 9-3

Bears Game Day: Cutler TD pass wins it, 24-20 - Chicago Breaking Sports

 

How could you have Christmas dinner without a dirk?

Pushing a Right to Bear Arms, the Sharp Kind - NYTimes.com

...the recent lifting of a ban on switchblades, stilettos, dirks and daggers in New Hampshire, has given new life to the knife rights lobby...

In fact, knife advocates contend that the Second Amendment applies to knives as well as guns. They focus their argument elsewhere, though, emphasizing that knives fill so many beneficial roles, from carving Thanksgiving turkeys to whittling, that they do not deserve the bad name they often get.

 

A worthy note

UNDERNEWS: Morning line

The Obama administration has, in its assault on Wikileaks, launched the greatest government censorship since World War II. It, along with some private institutions such as Columbia University, has threatened citizens if they even read matter in media that is constitutionally protected.

Part of the problem is that the Obamites are control freaks, but beyond that we suspect they greatly fear the content of future releases since nothing published so far explains their hysterical reaction.

(Note that my disapproval of the WikiLeaks leaks does not translate to approval of all the over-the-top reaction they've encouraged. That is another subject for, perhaps, another day.)

Ah, the nostalgia

Suburban Guerrilla » Blog Archive » Historical document

 

And more

Obama isn’t about compromise | Ian Welsh

Until folks get it through their skulls that Obama is not and never was a liberal, a progressive or left wing in any way, shape or form they are going to continue misdiagnosing the problem.  That isn’t to say Obama may or may not be a wimp, but he always compromises right, never left and his compromises are minor.  He always wanted tax cuts.  He gave away the public option in private negotiations near the beginning of the HCR fight, not the end.  He never even proposed an adequate stimulus bill.  He bent arms, hard, to get TARP through.

He’s a Reaganite. It’s what he believes in, genuinely.  Moreover he despises left wingers, likes kicking gays and women whenever he gets a chance and believes deeply and truly in the security state (you did notice that Obama administration told everyone to take their objections to backscatter scanners and groping and shove them where the sun don’t shine, then told you they’re thinking of extending TSA police state activities to other public transit?)

 

Yeah ,wolf

Mounting State Debts Stoke Fears of a Looming Crisis - NYTimes.com

The State of Illinois is still paying off billions in bills that it got from schools and social service providers last year. Arizona recently stopped paying for certain organ transplants for people in its Medicaid program. States are releasing prisoners early, more to cut expenses than to reward good behavior. And in Newark, the city laid off 13 percent of its police officers last week....

“It seems to me that crying wolf is probably a good thing to do at this point,” said Felix Rohatyn, the financier who helped save New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970s.

So you don't have to read Dickens any more?

Victorian Literature, Statistically Analyzed With New Process - NYTimes.com

The titles of every British book published in English in and around the 19th century — 1,681,161, to be exact — are being electronically scoured for key words and phrases that might offer fresh insight into the minds of the Victorians.

WikiLeaks something something blah blah

Look, I drank the Kool-Aid on the subject of classified documents many years ago so don't expect me to be all yippee about leaking the secrets in the diplomatic pouch. WikiLeaks can squeal all it wants about Australian porn filters or miscreant bankers but, as I've said before, as far as I'm concerned this leaking of State Department documents is a leak too far.

It is also, as far as I've been able to see (if you expect me to read all 200,000 documents you need to refill your meds) a lot of fuss about not very much at all. It's got the newspapers clucking for a few days but hey, Paris Hilton can do that all by herself.

What the present leaks appear to reveal is that the State Department is supporting U.S. policy around the globe. Which is exactly what they're supposed to do. This is not to say I agree with the policy, but simply that the place to wrestle with it is not at State.

Take, for example, the "revelation" (yes, those are sarcastic quotes) that the Obama administration pressured Spain to drop a legal proceeding against Dubya Bush. So what? Obama has never made any secret of his disinclination to prosecute the Bushies, his "Justice" (ditto) Department has appeared in defense of thugs, and to all appearances he has not only continued but extended some of the least savory Bush policies. Yeah, I think all that needs to change too. But I do not give a fig about what happens in Spain.

Nor am I outraged that diplomats report the government of Afghanistan is corrupt - I'd be outraged if they didn't - or that the Saudis have more than one iron in the fire, or that the leaders of China are unhappy with what they find on Google. Something something blah blah. Not much. You see what I mean.

But listen. I continue to believe that in the case of our differences with Iran a diplomatic solution would be preferable to a war. Ditto North Korea. Ditto Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, here and there - mostly, wherever. And to the extent WikiLeaks has made diplomatic solutions less likely - even just a little - and war more, I think the WikiGeeks, no matter how passionately they believe they're really living in the Matrix (and no matter how cool it is to have servers in a cave), have done us all a big disservice.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

But just so you know, I am also in favor of reinstating the draft.

And you can consider yourself lucky if you get to keep the pot

Noted by our Midwest bureau:

All the President’s Captors - NYTimes.com

We’re now at the brink of a new economic disaster that will eventually yank a chicken out of every pot.

(And, may I add, from the same opinion piece...)

Obama should have pounded home the case against profligate tax cuts for the wealthiest before the Democrats lost the Senate. Even now Warren Buffett — not a socialist, by the way — is making the case with a Christie-esque directness that usually eludes the president. “The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we’ll all go out and spend more, and then it will trickle down to the rest of you,” he told Christiane Amanpour on “This Week” last Sunday. “But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.”

(The only problem I have with that is...wait, the Democrats lost the Senate? Dude, the Democrats haven't even lost the House yet. They may be lame ducks but they're still ducks. Or maybe just quacks.)

Let the games begin

JPMorgan sued for ‘abetting’ Madoff | Raw Story

NEW YORK — The trustee charged with recouping assets for victims of Wall Street fraudster Bernard Madoff said Thursday he was seeking $6.4 billion from JPMorgan Chase for supporting the scam.

Fat cats: Give us your money or we'll take away your gruel (and Merry Christmas, suckers)

Senate Republicans Defeat Reauthorization Of Jobless Aid, Tax Cuts

Senate Republicans and a handful of Democrats Saturday defeated a bill to reauthorize unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and a plethora of tax provisions for the middle class not because of the bill's trillion-dollar deficit impact, but because it did not include tax cuts for the rich....

After Saturday's vote, it seems the only way Democrats will be able to overcome Republican opposition to the benefits will be by attaching them to a reauthorization of tax cuts for the rich.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said after the vote that he expected a tax cut deal to be reached by Thursday.

 

Promises, promises

She Who Must Not Be Named - NYTimes.com

This is it. This is the last time I’m going to write the name Sarah Palin until she does something truly newsworthy...

"Keeping government open"

WikiLeaks Archive - Resentment, and Shrugs, Around the World - NYTimes.com

PARIS — In the world of diplomacy, known for its ambiguity and opacity, the WikiLeaks organization says its function is to “keep government open.” But with the release of some 250,000 American diplomatic cables, the outcome may be more ambiguous, closing doors to United States diplomats, turning candor to reticence and leaving many people leery of baring their souls and secrets to American officials.

Facets

Photo: Phil Compton

For the easily surprised...

U.S. Adds 39,000 Jobs in November - Rate Rises to 9.8% - NYTimes.com

In a jolting surprise to the economic recovery and market expectations, the United States economy added just 39,000 jobs in November, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, according to the Department of Labor....

More than 15 million people remained out of work last month, and 6.3 million of them have been unemployed for six months or longer.

This is starting to remind me of people who write weather forecasts and don't look out the friggin' window. Surprise, my ass.

And we have moron Republicans (and yes, you, Juan Williams) saying hey, why don't they just go get a job. Here's an idea: We could find a few hundred jobs in the Congress if we just throw the current collection of rascals out. Let them just go get a job.

 

Catfood commission slinks off

Stand Up And Be Counted! | Talking Points Memo

By the statements of the members, we know only 11 were in support. But actually put their votes on the official record? Nah.

Worms? Does that include worms?

A shopping guide for the holidays : The New Yorker

“Nobody’s ever too old for toys,” a ten-year-old named Addie Ezersky told the writer. “Even if they say they are. That is my theory.” A young mother the writer knows agrees. She says that toys will endure, for two reasons: to give parents a break to use the bathroom or wash dishes, and to keep kids away from what they really want to play with—namely, sharp objects and disgusting things.

There'll always be an England

Rod King and the slow-driving movement : The New Yorker

Rod King, the founder of a British slow-driving advocacy organization called 20’s Plenty for Us...

Beep, beep.

Unpersuasive

American Diplomacy Revealed — as Good - NYTimes.com

Assange himself clearly understands nothing of Iran or the Middle East or diplomacy. In an interview with Time, he expressed approval for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “coming out with a very interesting statement that leaders should speak in public like they do in private whenever they can” and bought into Netanyahu’s view that this, in Assange’s words, would “lead to some kind of increase in the peace process in the Middle East and particularly in relation to Iran.”

Huh? Netanyahu was referring to Arab leaders’ now-documented private calls for a U.S.-led war against Iran, an option he also favors. And that, for Assange, is a step forward to peace! He’s all over the place.

What should we make of this brainy naïf who told my colleague John Burns that America is a threat to democracy? He’s a loose canon; let him be. My impression is he’s self-armed with a spade and he’s digging.

And what of the messenger’s message? The cables are intriguing, offering plenty of voyeuristic titillation but no gasp of discovery. They provide texture but break little new ground. Yet their publication has done significant damage to the courageous work of America’s diplomats and may endanger lives. That’s a tradeoff that I find troubling and unpersuasive.

Exactly that.

Alas

Freezing Out Hope - NYTimes.com

It’s hard to escape the impression that Republicans have taken Mr. Obama’s measure — that they’re calling his bluff in the belief that he can be counted on to fold. And it’s also hard to escape the impression that they’re right.

The real question is what Mr. Obama and his inner circle are thinking. Do they really believe, after all this time, that gestures of appeasement to the G.O.P. will elicit a good-faith response?

 

Trading stuff we don't need to trade for stuff we don't need to trade for

Senate plans weekend votes on Democratic tax plans - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON – A deal to extend expiring tax cuts for all taxpayers is starting to take shape even as Senate Democrats plan weekend votes on bills that would let the tax cuts for the wealthy die.

Planning a trip?

Underclothes That Display The 4th Amendment When X-Rayed by TSA

4th Amendment Wear is a series of underclothes that have the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution printed on them with metallic ink that so that it will show up when worn through a TSA X-Ray machine.

"The Joy of Stats"

I may have to revise my opinion of WikiLeaks somewhat (probably not much)

Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe | Mother Jones

In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.

This is cold

News » Fuel aid slashed

The local agency that administers fuel assistance to the area's low-income residents is planning to do more with much less this year. It expects about half as much money from the federal government as last year, rising fuel costs and more people to apply.

Last year, Community Action gave out up to $1,240 per household, which was for families at 100 percent of the poverty level. This year, the agency is planning on doling out a maximum of $515.

It gets cold here in New England and there is no way you can heat a house or even an apartment all winter on $515. Even if you can afford to double it - or even triple it - you're liable to have some chilly evenings in store. And now with people out of work an barely able to manage as it is it's unconscionable to cut fuel aid like this.

I say let the congressbimbos come here and live the winter with no heat themselves. Screw them and all their horses, every one.

 

My bet would be on the zombies

Lame Ducks Gone Mad - NYTimes.com

Maybe things will work out. Maybe the White House will not cave, and the Republicans will not be intransigent, and the Democrats will get their act together and be canny and unified.

Maybe we should not rule out the possibility of zombie otters.

 

The question of the hour

Bailouts Are For Banks: Unemployed People Get Zilch

How could there have been so many billions for Wall Street, so much room to lower taxes for people with golf memberships and country houses, yet a $500-a-week check to help him pay the rent while he looks for another job suddenly threatens to bankrupt the nation?

Story not told

Robert Reich (The Big Economic Story, and Why Obama Isn't Telling It)

Unless the President and Democrats explain why the economy still stinks for most Americans and offer a plan to fix it, the Republican explanation and solution – it’s big government’s fault, and all we need do is shrink it – will prevail.

That will mean more hardship for tens of millions of Americans. It will make it harder to remedy the bad economy. And it will set Republicans up for bigger wins in the future.

 

No, not even Obama's panel, it turns out

National debt: Will anyone buy Obama panel's bold plan? - Yahoo! News

The co-chairmen of President Obama's fiscal commission have agreed to a bold plan to slash federal deficits and put America's fiscal house in order. The problem is they're not sure if the rest of the bipartisan commission – let alone Congress – will sign on....

"We'll get somewhere between two and 14 votes," said [co-chairman] Bowles...

 

It is a wonderment indeed

Enough To Make You Crazy | Talking Points Memo

Sometimes you have to step back and just marvel at the madness of it all.

So ha, take that, you wimps

Senate fails to advance unemployment insurance measure - Nov. 30, 2010

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Senate failed Tuesday to advance a bill that would have extended the deadline to file for federal unemployment insurance through next year.

Democrats sought to pass the $56.4 billion measure through unanimous consent, but Sen. Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, objected, saying the extension should be paid for by rescinding unobligated discretionary funding.

It was our very own naked senator from the commie hippie pinko state of Massachusetts who shot down an extension of unemployment benefits in the Senate. Quelle disgrace. 

Here's a guy who would feel at home in the TSA

Do Scans of Our Teeth Help or Hurt? - NYTimes.com

A cone-beam CT scan with minute radiation exposure seems to be a small price to pay for a healthy smile with no headaches and no snoring....

 

The writer, a dentist, is a clinical professor at New York University College of Dentistry.

 

Humorist Mad Kane pens a remedial limerick

Premature Concession Syndrome — A Remedial Limerick « Mad Kane’s Political Madness

 

Spuds!

Washington state potato booster in spuds-only protest - Yahoo! News

SEATTLE (Reuters) – The head of the Washington State Potato Commission ended a self-imposed diet of potatoes-only that he said allowed him to shed more than 20 pounds in two months.

Chris Voigt, 45, began his spuds-only regimen to protest a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule barring low-income recipients of food vouchers under the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program from using their benefits to purchase white potatoes.

And while Voigt is not recommending his diet to others as a "healthy sustainable" weight-loss plan, it did help him lower his blood sugar, cut his total cholesterol by over a third, and reduce his weight from 197 to 176 pounds, he said.