Cavett on Palin

It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.

[From The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla - Dick Cavett Blog - NYTimes.com]

It does, however, seem to be a gift much prized by Republicans. Republicans have spent so much time perfecting code-worded spin they have, well, spun themselves off into an alternate universe, one surmises, a place with a language of its own. Which they are eminently fit to govern, come to that, and welcome to it. Just let them leave this one alone.

Determination

Dude, just try squirting ketchup on your head like that.

(Awesome photo by Phil Compton)

Maybe I'll go back to bed

Might as well. I've got Vista booted up but it's got 12 updates to install. Twelve freaking updates. Plus, it's been bugging me about a scan. It'll be noon before it's ready to actually, you know, work.

The worst thing is, it's probably all my fault. I don't boot it up enough. Maybe I should do that every day before I go to work and it could use the computer while I'm away. Clearly, we can't both use it at the same time.

My head hurts

WASHINGTON — The prospects of a government rescue for the foundering American automakers dwindled Thursday as Democratic Congressional leaders conceded that they would face potentially insurmountable Republican opposition during a lame-duck session next week.

[From Chances Dwindle on Bailout Plan for Automakers - NYTimes.com]

The Democrats want to give money to the auto companies and the Republicans don't? Dude, I am sooooo confused.

Although I can't help wondering, why don't we just go to the auto companies and place a massive order for busses? Pay them enough to keep their factories running and keep their workers working and put more mass transportation on the street. More work, less oil (or maybe none, with natural gas), less polution and more rides. What's not to like?

The ultimate iPhone wallpaper

It's Clarus, the dogcow, an icon that dates back to the original Macs and served for many years as the orienting picture for the portrait-landscape print setting.

Clarus says, "Moof."


-- Post From My iPhone

So when somebody walks through that machine and makes the bell ring...

As radio frequency identification devices become a daily part of the electronic age, RFID technology is increasingly coming under fire for allegedly being the mark of Satan.

[From Bush Administration: Dismiss RFID 'Mark of the Beast' Lawsuit | Threat Level from Wired.com]

...run!

I feel safer already

"This is something that has been tested with TSA, approved by TSA," Sanez said.

[From American brings mobile boarding passes to O'Hare -- chicagotribune.com]

Seattle bureau laments

So, does this happen to you? You sit down at your computer to find a message "New updates have been installed and your computer was restarted"? Ugh. Why doesn't it just say "We have taken over, move on. Find something else to do for a while.... Shoo."

Yeah, well, it's better than "You have performed an illegal operation." I haven't seen that one for a while. Of course, maybe that's because they changed the laws.

New to the Work Avoidance list

The MIT Museum - very cool.

LOL

As the government’s financial rescue enters a new phase, Wall Street and many ordinary Americans are wondering the same thing: Is any of this working?

[From Bailout Plan Not Working as Fast as Hoped - NYTimes.com]

"Enters a new phase." What they mean is, lurches from one scheme to the next. These guys have no idea what they're doing, do they - not the foggiest. Hey, right, I have no idea what I'm doing either. But I don't have $700 billion to do it with.

And yes, Bunky, it was a blank check. I just hope they save a few bucks for me.

There's no business like show business

Rush Limbaugh has already charged, "This is an Obama recession, might turn into a depression. He hasn't done anything yet, but his ideas are killing the economy."

Ann Coulter recently suggested, "Sounds like there's going to be a lot more Waco raids, Elian Gonzalez snatchings."

Fox's Sean Hannity asked, "Do we wait until he makes a mistake?" and has an Election 2012 countdown on his website.

[From The Raw Story | CNN: Conservatives declare war on Obama]

It's going to be a long, long four years...

...if Sarah Palin can't just settle down and get back to shooting meese (mooses, whatever) and forget she was ever on TV. Consider this flight of rhetoric reported by Maureen Dowd and spotted by our alert Midwest bureau chief:

Here’s Palin defending herself on the contention that she got confused about Africa:

“My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.”

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

[From Op-Ed Columnist - Boxers, Briefs or Silks? - NYTimes.com]

(Emphasis supplied)

Yikes!

Poor George, et al.

For six of eight years, Bill Clinton governed with Republican majorities in Congress. Not surprisingly, there was much continuity between the Clinton and Bush administrations. Both embraced the so-called Washington Consensus, a policy agenda of fiscal austerity, central-bank autonomy, deregulated markets, liberalized capital flows, free trade, and privatization.

On each of these crucial issues, the most significant differences between Clinton and Bush were differences in timing and degree, not in direction. Both administrations were willfully asleep at the wheel. Clinton was fortunate to preside over the early stages of a bubble economy. Bush has had the misfortune of presiding as a lame duck through the final stages of the same bubble and, thanks to the deregulation of the Clinton years, without a regulatory structure capable of containing today’s speculative fevers.

[From Dissent Magazine]

Third shrinks to quarter

The CNN television/Opinion Research survey found that just 24 percent of respondents believe Bush is doing a good job, against 76 percent who said that was not the case. One percent had no opinion.

[From The Raw Story | Unpopular Bush plumbs new depths: poll]

Seems like only yesterday I was convinced a third of us were nuttier than fruitcakes but now it appears - oh, joy! - only a quarter of us are.

A very autumn morning

Big puffy clouds with dark bottoms and dried leaves blowing across the lawn, a little nip in the air. We know where this is going.

-- Post From My iPhone

So who's the nutcase then?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Sunday he's still trying to keep Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman within the Democratic caucus despite anger over Lieberman's support of Republican presidential nominee John McCain....

"Joe Lieberman is not some right-wing nutcase," he said. "Joe Lieberman is one of the most progressive people ever to come from the state of Connecticut."

[From Lieberman can still help Dems, Reid says - CNN.com]

Ready or not, the numbers start to crunch

Despite widespread predictions of record turnout in this year’s presidential election, roughly the same portion of eligible voters cast ballots in 2008 as in 2004.

Between 60.7 percent and 61.7 percent of the 208.3 million eligible voters cast ballots this year, compared with 60.6 percent of those eligible in 2004, according to a voting analysis by American University political scientist Curtis Gans, an authority on voter turnout.

He estimated that between 126.5 million and 128.5 million eligible voters cast ballots this year, versus 122.3 million four years ago. Gans said the gross number of ballots cast in 2008 was the highest ever, even though the percentage was not substantially different from 2004, because there were about 6.5 million more people registered to vote this time around.

...While it may be premature to draw conclusions, Gans said, it appeared that Republican voting declined 1.3 points, to 28.7 percent of the electorate, while Democratic turnout rose from 28.7 percent to 31.3 percent of the electorate.

[From That huge voter turnout? Didn't happen - David Paul Kuhn - Politico.com]

But no, we won't tell

Just as her secret service code name, "Renaissance," pays tribute...

[From Michelle Obama blazes a new trail -- chicagotribune.com]