My take on last night’s debate AKA The Hillary Show

Last night’s debate was all about Hillary and then some. As I watched it, the image that kept popping up in my head was the conclusion of King Kong, when the gorilla, perched atop the Empire State building, swats down all those pesky planes that were buzzing about. Damn near everyone on stage took at least one good swing at Hillary and I don’t think anyone really landed a solid punch. This is not to say she was flawless; her answers on Iran and licensing illegals were flat out awful and her appeal (or lack thereof) in the general election will remain an issue until she improves her unfavorables or finds a satisfactory retort. Furthermore, she garnered a huge allotment of time and said very little in it.

Edwards was sharp but seemed a bit too eager to pick a fight with Hillary and while I applaud his willingness to scrap, I think he needed to dial it back a bit. There is a fine line between combative and hectoring. That said, he is determined to change the media meme that this is an Obama vs. Hillary battle and that is a good thing.

Obama was, to my mind, a huge disappointment. Almost nothing he said was interesting, original, or inspiring. His performance last night was as exciting as cold oatmeal.

Dennis Kucinich is too honest to be President. Seriously, if someone asks you, on national TV no less, if you have ever seen a UFO and you answer straight up yes, then your filter is not discriminating enough to be leader of the Free World. At least hedge with “I saw something that I cannot explain” rather “Yes”.

Biden had the line of the night. On Rudy Giuliani: There's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, a verb, and 9/11. Perfecto.

Dodd did OK given he was asked like three questions. Ditto Richardson.

Which leads me to the problem with the format; specifically, anyone not named Clinton, Edwards, or Obama was pretty much ignored. I have no idea how much time each participant got but it was obvious that those three received the lion’s share and them some. This has happened to one degree or another in every debate but it is annoying nonetheless, though not nearly as annoying as the utterly ridiculous “lightening round”. Come on people, do we really need to use a game show device in deciding who is qualified to be our next President? Thirty seconds is not enough time answer a complex question with any degree of meaningful detail. The whole concept is like the New Coke; no one asked for it, no one liked it besides, and it proved to be a big distraction. I hope the debate organizers drop that the whole contrivance.

Happy Halloween

This is still funny. Have a safe and sane holiday everyone.

This could be a campaign killer

Unless Obama gets on the stick and jettisons this bigoted McClurkin fellow, he cannot be the Democratic Presidential nominee. If one is to be the standard-bearer for the Party, association with anti-gay extremists, in my book and quite a few others I would think, is a deal breaker. Someone in the campaign needs to understand that and get out in front of the coming firestorm. Otherwise, Obama’s already troubled campaign is going to crater quickly and irredeemably. As John Aravosis put it, “Obama is definitely not ready for prime time”.

You expected something different?

Michael Abramowitz has a piece in the Post today titled:

U.S. Promises on Darfur Don't Match Actions
Bush Expresses Passion for Issue, but Policies Have Been Inconsistent

Um, no shit (see New Orleans) and, as with everything else it seems, it is all about Iraq, oil, and Bush's blundering foreign policy. Basically, the US cannot be seen as invading a third Muslim country. In that part of the world, wisdom is short, memories are long, and the word “Crusade” is on the tip of many tongues. Invading Sudan is begging for more trouble. Furthermore, we no longer have the soldiers for another deployment. That ship sailed about the same time as the surge began so the military option is off the table. And what of economic sanctions you might say? Well, trying to undermine Sudan economically (read petroleum) will piss off China. China buys a huge amount of oil from Sudan and that oil is powering the Chinese economy; anything that Beijing sees as a threat to its economic growth, it also sees as a threat to national security. So in the end, Bush may give Darfur some lip service but the Administration lacks the will and the soldiers to do anything about it.

My inner populist wants to scream

This kind of shit infuriates me to the n-th degree. On the one hand, the upper-class tax cuts so favored by Republicans have enabled America’s rich to claim an ever-increasing share of this nation’s wealth.

Trickle Up economics has just scored its greatest success and it is being covered up. I wonder why. Could it be embarrassment? The Internal Revenue Service recently released its fun-filled report on 2005 individual income taxes. The headline is that the super-rich were even more super than in any year since 1986 when the IRS first had comparable data. The news pages of The Wall Street Journal duly took note, but not many others did. The top 1 percent of all taxpayers earned 21.2 percent of all the money that individuals in the country earned in 2005. So one-hundredth of the taxpayers earned one-fifth of all income.

[Snip]

From 1947 to 1992, the top 5 percent of all families never consumed more than 17 percent of the national "aggregate income." But since 1993, that top 5 percent has never earned less than 20 percent of the national bundle.

On the other hand, the poor are finding it harder and harder to get by.

NEW YORK - The calculus of living paycheck to paycheck in America is getting harder.

What used to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a healthy dinner.

Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It's starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 7-Eleven Inc. and Family Dollar Stores Inc.

Food pantries, which distribute foodstuffs to the needy, are reporting severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking their help.

While economists debate whether the country is headed for a recession, some say the financial stress is already the worst since the last downturn at the start of this decade.

A good portion of this wealth concentration is directly attributable to cutting tax rates for the rich. The rational behind lowering top tax rates is that those in the upper tiers will spend more and hence generate greater growth in the economy. While that argument looks good on paper, it is complete and utter bullshit. A rising tide does not necessarily lift all boats.

Most modern societies, as a matter of course, redistribute wealth. Whether that redistribution is handled in an organized manner via taxation or the much messier version, with the business end of a gun (see any of the Communist revolutions in the 20th Century) is largely a function of how healthy the society is. History tells us that the larger the inequity, the more likely things get violent. Andrew Jackson once opined that a society should not be judged by how extravagantly it’s wealthy live but how well it’s most common citizens live. Looking at America in 2007, I think President Jackson would conclude that we have a good bit of work to do.

Treason

In what must be an effort to appeal to New Hampshire voters, Rudy Giuliani, noted Yankees fan, says that he is rooting for the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series. Good Lord man – have some respect for yourself and don’t be such a suck up. Matter does not root for the anti-matter. Cats do not root for dogs. And Yankee fans never, ever, on penalty of death even, root for the Boston Red Sox (or vice versa). Reaction in New York was totally predictable and totally New York.

“They should burn his seat that he sat in at Yankee Stadium — how’s that?” said George Patsin, a Brooklyn restaurateur. “They should burn it on TV so I can watch.”

God bless New Yorkers, they are a breed apart. Don’t just burn his seat, put it on TV as well – awesome.

Eloi and Morlocks

A trip to Wal-Mart is all you need in the way of evidence to confirm this.

The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist.

100,000 years into the future, sexual selection will mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed.

Why I (mostly) oppose the death penalty

Because finding a dead man innocent does him no good.

Not gonna do it

Rep. Tom Davis has wisely decided not to challenge Jim Gilmore for the opportunity to get whooped by Mark Warner in the race for Virginia’s open Senate seat.

Foxes running the henhouse

The Bush Administration seems to have perfected the art of choosing the wrong person for the job. Alberto Gonzales as AG, Mike Brown at FEMA, former mining executive Richard Stickler at the Mine Safety and Health Administration, not to mention Rumsfeld, Chief Justice Roberts, and Dick “Headshot” Cheney. One only need to look at New Orleans, Iraq, the state of our civil liberties or Harry Whittington’s face to judge to results of these decisions.

In keeping with the general theme of ideology before competence, Bush has chosen someone completely opposed to the idea of contraception to run the government office charged with overseeing national family planning and reproductive health programs.

You may remember Bush's previous pick: Eric Keroack, who was medical director of a pregnancy-counseling (read: antiabortion) clinic that considered birth control "demeaning to women" and believed that making contraception available, "especially among adolescents, actually increases . . . out-of-wedlock pregnancy and abortion."

Keroack resigned after it was revealed that state Medicaid officials had taken action against his private medical practice in Massachusetts. Bush replaced him with Susan Orr, former senior director for marriage and family care at the conservative Family Research Council and an adjunct professor at Pat Robertson's Regent University. Orr seems to be Keroack Lite.

In 2001, when the Bush administration proposed lifting the requirement that health insurers of federal employees provide coverage for contraceptives, Orr cheered. "We're quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease," she said. "It's not a medical necessity that you have it." Tell that to girls like Ana.

The year before, Orr fought a D.C. Council bill requiring all employers to cover contraception -- with no exception for those, such as the Catholic Church, that have religious objections. I agree that a "conscience clause" should have been included, but Orr's opposition was disturbingly vitriolic. "The mask of choice is falling off," she said. "It's not about choice. It's not about health care. It's about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death."

“…collaborators with the culture of death”? Words fail me.

If you think about it

Maybe send some positive vibes to the West Coast. A lot of good people have lost loved ones and homes out there and a good many others are putting themselves in harm’s way to fight those fires. Good luck SoCal.

The war on Halloween

For years, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and their merry band of outrage whores have lambasted anyone they judged to be insufficiently reverential to the biblical importance of late December and thereby offending all of Christendom or some such nonsense. These nuts fly off the handle at the most trivial, insignificant bullshit. There are no anti-Christian mobs burning down Christmas tree lots, disrupting Midnight Mass, or otherwise mucking about with your Christmas spirit. If there were, OK then. But if you fly into a fit of rage when a cheerful, hardworking sales clerk greets you with “Happy Holidays” when you prefer the more Christian and therefore more correct “Merry Christmas”, well then you need some anger management classes and two scoopfuls of perspective. The Defenders of Christmas point to these imagined slights as evidence of a conspiracy to kill God one holiday at a time. The truth is that the war on Christmas is a contrivance within the tender egos of crazies like O’Reilly. It exists because they perceive it to exist, if only as a misconception of their own victimhood.

Equally ridiculous is the war on Halloween. The same fundamentalists who believe every Nativity scene is sacred, even the really gaudy porcelain crap from the Franklin Mint, are fighting to extinguish the jack-o’-lantern’s candle. As with the war on Christmas, silliness is in great supply and fools abound. Witness the master theologians of The Church of Greenville at Standing Springs. Please, do not be hoodwinked by the amateurish design or simplistic graphics of this website, these folks are serious. You see, through what must have been an exhaustive period of research, peer review, and who am I kidding, the master theologians of The Church of Greenville at Standing Springs have determined that celebrating Halloween is Devil worship and offer twenty-two scripturally supported points against that wicked practice. Here are but a few of these cogent and thoroughly constructed arguments:

2. November 1, the first day of the Celtic year, was a feast day to Samhain, lord of the dead, by the Druids. But the Christian God is the God of the living (Mark 12:27)!

10. The worshippers of God are to come out of Roman Catholicism by special warning from heaven (Rev 18:4), and Halloween is obviously a Roman Catholic holiday.

17. Halloween is popular with the world, which is evidence that it is an abomination to God (Luke 16:15). Friendship with the world makes God your enemy (Jas 4:4).

20. Christians do not threaten “trick or treat” to anyone for any reason, so parents should not endorse such profanity (Gal 5:14; Eph 4:31-32; I Thes 5:15; Jas 2:8), and neither do Christians deceive others with masks, even for a joke (Pr 26:18-19; Rom 13:13).

We have Druids, the damn Catholics (twice I might add and way too common for an original conspiracy theory) what with their false God and all, the foreigners like it so it must be evil, capped off with some semantic idiocy and that crap about masks (And somehow the Jews make it out unscathed. How often does that happen?). There are people who believe that the Druids, Catholics, and foreigners are foisting Halloween on your family so that you too will begin to worship the Dark Lord. This is some wild, black helicopter, tin-foil hat wearing shit and there are lots of people who believe it.

To me, that is the scariest thing about Halloween. Boo.

Perfect

Kid Rock arrested in Waffle House brawl

The headline of the story fits the guy’s persona to a tee, but you really must click through and see the mug shot. I mean that is the spot on perfect mug shot for a trailer park Detroit playa arrested for fighting in a Waffle House.

Going to the mat

I got this email from the Dodd campaign. The Senator is upping the ante and threatening the f-bomb.

Are you willing to go to the mat to restore the Constitution?

Just last night, we heard there are plans to disregard Senator Dodd's intention to place a hold on a FISA bill that includes amnesty for telecommunications companies.

That would be a pretty extraordinary move, but Chris Dodd has pledged to stop this horrible bill any way he can. So if the hold is not honored, he is prepared to go to the Senate floor and filibuster.

I love this. It is good policy, good politics, and shows some real backbone. Well played sir, well played.

This seems wrong to me

I am a pretty liberal guy. I support government-sponsored needle exchange programs and methadone clinics as they are a public health service that benefits society but I think I have to draw the line at safe injection rooms. I know nothing about these programs other than what is in the article but my gut reaction is that this is icky and represents an implicit endorsement of drug use. Putting that aside however, it seems to me that this money would better serve to augment the woefully insufficient treatment options for this population. Just my two cents…

Rudy Giuliani, Drama Queen

From the PoliticalWire:

"If we are not careful and you don't elect me, this country will be to the left of France."

-- Rudy Giuliani, quoted by Iowa Politics, on the Democratic presidential candidates.

Oh please Rudy, get a grip. In all seriousness, this weirdly messianic fantasy that he alone can save America from impending doom should disqualify him from holding ANY high office. I think the guy is off his nut and I don’t know about the rest of this country, but I find the prospect President Giuliani way more terrifying than socialized medicine, excellent cuisine, or Francois Truffaut films.

Today’s required reading

Kagro X has a brilliant post up at DailyKos regarding the Mukasey confirmation hearing yesterday and the consequences the Administration’s illegal detainment and torture policies.

It is similarly unfathomable -- or once was unfathomable in America -- that a nominee for Attorney General of the United States would ever have to say anything other than "no" to the question of "Is waterboarding constitutional?"

George W. Bush's detainee policies have, quite simply, rendered honest and conscientious service as an Attorney General impossible. One simply cannot serve both this president and the law faithfully. It is a paradox and an impossibility, because this president does not serve the law faithfully. And what it means, at bottom, is that George W. Bush's "administration" is an enemy of the rule of law, and has so diminished our capacity to live by it that no honest Senator should permit him the charade of attending to it with the window dressing of confirming an Attorney General.

Word. And how sad it is that this is indeed the situation in which we find ourselves.

Chris Dodd mans up

Dodd has promised to hold the FISA bill.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said Thursday that he will block a Senate vote on a White House-backed surveillance bill because it would include legal immunity for telecommunications companies that helped intelligence agencies carry out warrantless surveillance of Americans.

Dodd, a presidential candidate, said he will use his senatorial "hold" power to prevent the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation from being considered by the full Senate. The move would effectively stall a measure that President Bush and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell have said is essential to protect national security.

Bravo Senator, well done. And to the rest of the Senate (Clinton, Obama), this is what real leadership looks like.

Looking good in the Commonwealth

With the usual caveats of it is still early, remember what happened to George Allen, blah, blah, blah, Mark Warner has staked a big lead in the coming Senate election. And I mean seemingly insurmountable big, thirty points ahead big, going to kick the shit out of whoever the opposition is big.

But that only tells half of the story here. My beloved Virginia has not voted for a Democrat in a Presidential election since Johnson in 1964. That, ladies and gentlemen, may very well change. Just how fed up with the GOP are my fellow citizens of the Commonwealth? Pretty damn fed up indeed.

The Senate race will unfold against the backdrop of next year's presidential campaign, and the poll suggests that the state's 13 electoral votes could be up for grabs. By a margin of 11 percentage points, Virginians would prefer that the next president be a Democrat, indicating that even a reliably red state could flip in 2008.

Eleven points on the generic ballot – wow.

Funny

Been meaning to post this for a while but I kept forgetting. Lo and I saw David Sedaris a couple of weeks ago and he was hysterical. I laughed so hard my face hurt. If you get a chance, go see him. You will not be disappointed.

SCHIP veto override fails

The House fell 13 votes short but you can be damn sure the heartless bastards opposing SCHIP will find a couple hundred billion dollars for the stupid war. These are dark days my friends.

What complete pussies

Once again, the Senate Democrats cave to the all-powerful Bush and fail to defend your Constitutional rights. This is just fucking embarrassing. Why on God’s green Earth does our side cower when the Administration requests to curtail further our protections under the Fourth Amendment? WTF?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The founders’ intent could not be any clearer here. The government cannot legally tap your phone or seize your records without a goddamn warrant, period. Yet the Democrats have allowed, even supported, this and more. And what is worse, they do it out of fear that the Republicans will call them weak on national security. Well, newsflash dickheads, they are going to do that anyway. So why not stand on principle and say NO? It is shameful. As has been said before, we need more and better Democrats.

There is a lot of talk the Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) may place a hold on the bill, effectively killing it before it reaches the floor for a vote. Here’s to hoping that Mr. Dodd does the right thing when his colleagues will not. If he does manage to stop this bill, I am going to write him a check ASAP. We need and deserve that kind of leadership from our President.

Brownback to drop Presidential bid

It looks like the Senator from Kansas has tired of tilting at windmills. This is not exactly surprising in that Brownback was a prohibitive long-shot to begin with but as a darling of religious conservatives, I figured he would have received more support from the wingers than he did.

This job is so fucking great

Swearing at work, an area in which I excel, is good for morale. The University of East Anglia even says so.

LONDON (AFP) - Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers.

Yehuda Baruch, a professor of management at the University of East Anglia, and graduate Stuart Jenkins studied the use of profanity in the workplace and assessed its implications for managers.

They assessed that swearing would become more common as traditional taboos are broken down, but the key appeared to be knowing when such language was appropriate and when to turn to blind eye.

The pair said swearing in front of senior staff or customers should be seriously discouraged or banned, but in other circumstances it helped foster solidarity among employees and express frustration, stress or other feelings.

Too true.

Shocking

With a nod to realpolitik, Bob Jones III, Chancellor of the super-fundie Bob Jones U., has endorsed Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination. I must admit that I find this endorsement startling. Jones is a true heavyweight in the Christian political movement and a fellow not known for his religious tolerance. I figured he would stand on his principles, such as they are, and get behind Huckabee or Brownback, but Jones saw the writing on the wall. And as is the case so often with these types, it is all about Hillary.

Jones didn't immediately respond to a message left Tuesday evening by The Associated Press. But he told a Greenville newspaper that supporting Romney is critical to make sure former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani doesn't win the GOP nomination and that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn't win the election.

"If it turns out to be Giuliani and Hillary we've got two pro-choice candidates, and that would be a disaster," Jones told The Greenville News for a story on its Web site Tuesday.

Romney and Jones would appear to be a political odd couple, with the Southern fundamentalist Christian throwing his support behind the Mormon who was governor of Massachusetts.

But Jones said his endorsement came after he decided Romney would do the most to represent the average conservative American.

"As a Christian I am completely opposed to the doctrines of Mormonism," Jones told the newspaper. "But I'm not voting for a preacher. I'm voting for a president. It boils down to who can best represent conservative American beliefs, not religious beliefs."

A couple of things here. First, to the Bob Joneses of the world, there is no difference between “conservative” and “religious”. Those words and the beliefs that define them are interchangeable, indistinguishable, and fundamental to their worldview. This “voting for a president” line is merely rationalizing a decision he is not terribly comfortable with but one that he believes necessary nonetheless. The phrase “President Hillary Clinton” generates more terror in this crowd than a dozen four year olds watching The Exorcist with the lights off. I don’t know if it is Hillary herself or because she is a woman of considerable ability or what, but this crowd hates her with the fury of a thousand suns. Jones figures he must back whichever anti-abortion candidate has the best chance to defeat her, regardless of that candidate's religion. Which brings me to my second point – I think Hillary will be a huge liability if she wins the nomination.

In the current climate, the Christian Right is fragmented, uninspired, and generally demoralized. Their candidates took a beating in the last election and they have yet to consolidate behind a single candidate in this cycle. I fear that Hillary can be the unifying force that is missing on the Right. If Hillary scares Bob freaking Jones enough for him to vote for a Mormon, then I think my fears are justified. So the big question then is can Hillary be a better candidate for the Democrats than a boogeyman for the GOP. I don’t know and I don’t really want to find out.

Pot calling the kettle black

President Bush doesn’t think that Congress is working hard enough. This from the guy who spent more time on vacation than any other President in history. I swear to God, Mr. Magoo is more self-aware the than W.

Colbert for President

This is going to be so much fun.

Shortly before making the announcement, Colbert appeared on "The Daily Show" (the show which spawned Colbert's spin-off) and played cagy, claiming he was only ready to consider a White House bid. He entered the studio set pulled by a bicycle pedaled by Uncle Sam and quickly pulled out a bale of hay and a bottle of beer to show that he was "an Average Joe."

Colbert said his final decision would be announced on a "more prestigious show," which turned out to be his own.

"After nearly 15 minutes of soul-searching, I have heard the call," said Colbert.

[Snip]

Colbert said he planned to run in South Carolina, "and South Carolina alone." The state, one of the key early primaries, is also Colbert's native state. Earlier this week, South Carolina public television station ETV invited Colbert to announce his candidacy on its air.

Exactly how far the mock conservative pundit planned to stretch his impression of a presidential candidate wasn't clear.

I hope he takes this as far as it can go. Few things will be as destructive to the conservative platform in 2008 than Colbert satirizing it. Not to mention, it's going to be funny as hell.

Drought

Lo, J. and I traveled over the weekend to visit Lo’s parents in North Carolina and watch our Hokies beat up on Duke. Because we drove down Friday night, we did not see just how dry Central Carolina is but when we drove back Sunday morning, I was stunned. We drove a stretch of I-85 that runs past the Durham area and traverses Falls Lake. That lake is one of the primary reservoirs for the Triangle and folks, it is dry. Furthermore, it has been dry for long enough for huge swathes of greenery to sprout from the lakebed. In 10 years of traveling that route, I have never, ever seen that. As a result, Durham has less than 50 days of water remaining in its reservoirs.

When I discussed this with Lo’s Dad, I posed the question “what happens when a major city runs out of water?” Neither of us had a clue and nor could we come up with an applicable parallel. Therefore, I pose it to you. Has anyone ever heard of a town of a quarter million people simply running dry? What happened? And could we witness some sort of reverse Katrina, where a lack of water causes the evacuation of a city?

Drunken Mexican priest punches cop

I don’t care who you are, that headline is funny. It sounds like a Mad-lib for goodness sake.

Science is cool

Biologists have created plants that can extract toxins from groundwater and then metabolize them into harmless substances.

Genetically modified poplar trees in Doty's lab sucked 91 percent of the toxin trichloroethylene from a liquid solution. Natural plants were only able to remove 3 percent of the toxin, which is the most common ground water contaminant in the United States.

The genetically modified plants in the study were grown in vials and were just several inches tall. But these tiny plants were able to metabolize the pollutant into harmless byproducts 100 times faster than the natural plants.

Bummer Monday for the GOP

Larry Craig says he will appeal a judge’s ruling that disallowed Craig to withdrawal a guilty plea in his now infamous bathroom sex sting.

Another safe Republican has opted to retire. For those keeping score, that is 11 GOP retirements in the House and 4 or 5 for the Senate, depending on the fortunes of the aforementioned Senator from Idaho.

Finally, a former General that once ran the Iraq war calls that misadventure "a nightmare with no end in sight." Naturally, a catfight of recrimination ensues among the remaining Republican supporters. I think I have seen this movie before.

These headlines will, no doubt, do little to improve sagging Republican morale in Congress.

Gore wins the Nobel

Now if only someone could convince him to run in '08...

Today's required reading

Digby.

Life imitating Art, Tom Tomorrow style

Oh so true.

…these are difficult times for satirists; there’s almost nothing you can think of that’s more ridiculous or appalling than the things that are really happening.

I got nothing

Just wow.

There is dumb and then there is this…

It is not so much that the guy thought the counterfeit one million dollar bill was real. But why did he think he could get change at a grocery store? That is just stupid.

Preach it sister

‘Dear Abby’ comes out in favor of gay marriage.

SAN FRANCISCO - For years, rumblings have surfaced on the Internet, conjecture about her casual references to "sexual orientation" and "respect." Now, Dear Abby is ready to say it flatly: She supports same-sex marriage.

"I believe if two people want to commit to each other, God bless 'em," the syndicated advice columnist told The Associated Press. "That is the highest form of commitment, for heaven's sake."

Word.

Appealing to my inner child

Someone recently found, IMHO, the single greatest comic book ever.

A near-mint copy of Detective Comics No. 27, a pre-World War II comic featuring Batman's debut, was recently found in an attic and sold to a local collector.

The comic is considered to be the second-most valuable available and can fetch up to $500,000. The only comic considered more valuable is Action Comics No. 1, in which Superman makes his first appearance.

Batman has always been my favorite superhero, primarily because he is a mere mortal with no extraordinary powers. What Batman has working for him is a ton of money and an overdeveloped revenge reflex, by which I mean to say he is out of his mind. Outwardly, Bruce Wayne is a millionaire playboy but on the inside, he is a broken man.

As a child, he witnessed his parents’ murder. The psychological trauma of that event metastasized into a deep seeded psychosis. Wayne’s madness and wealth gave birth to Batman, a costumed vigilante lunatic hell-bent on the Sisyphean task of eradicating evil from Gotham. Batman is the ultimate in chaotic Good, a badass maniac delivering street justice, constantly trying to avenge the injustice that drove him mad. You can have Superman, Wolverine, or Spiderman. Give me the Dark Knight any day.

And now they are going after kids

This is about as nasty as politics gets. Seriously, attacking a twelve year old, visiting his home, and harassing his family and neighbors in an effort to smear him. Again, this is a kid just telling his story, not some adult running for office. If you can stomach it, follow the links in the Updates.

Grandpa Fred’s big day

General consensus is that Fred Thompson did OK in his first debate, neither lighting up the stage nor falling off it. I guess that is true but why oh why would he spend so much time talking up the great state of America’s economy while in Dearborn, Michigan. When one wants to witness the sorry state of US auto manufacturing, Dearborn and Flint are the absolute front lines. The unemployment rate in Michigan is 7.4%, way, way above the national average. Focusing on how super-bitchin’ things are elsewhere seemed to me kind of heartless and dismissive of the audience.

Fred Barnes is a fucking moron

Via Media Matters, the estimable editor of The Weekly Standard:

You know, I've thought for a long time that Obama's not in quite as strong a position on the war in Iraq as he really thinks he is. Remember, when he famously came out against the war, it was back in a time when the entire world believed that Saddam Hussein in Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that he would probably be willing to use them himself at some time or pass them along to terrorists who would use them. And yet, Barack Obama was against going to the war at that point. I don't think that shows that he is very strong on national security, which he needs to be.

Jeez, with such a steaming pile of specious reasoning before us, where to begin? First, not everyone believed Saddam was this imminent threat that must be dealt with RIGHT NOW. That bit o’ thinking was ginned up by Perle, Wolfowitz and the rest of the “intellectuals” at PNAC, the Heritage Foundation, etc. Second, concluding that Saddam would pass these weapons to terrorists was pure conjecture and/or wishful thinking used to justify the war. Fred, dumbass warmongering cheerleader that he is, dutifully touted this line as well as any old thing to make war more likely. So fuck you Fred for presupposing that the rest of us are that stupid and gullible. Furthermore, declaring as weakness Obama’s unwillingness to be hoodwinked by the lies that precipitated the war is in itself weak. I give Obama credit for not being a sucker. He saw this disaster for what it was, folly dressed in faux humanitarianism and fueled by deceit and ego. Given that Iraq is such an utter clusterfuck, his national security cred, in comparison to Chickenhawk Caucus (to which Fred is a member in good standing), is pretty solid in my book.

Public Service Announcement

Just a gentle reminder that tomorrow is the last day for Virginians to register to vote for the election on November 6th. Remember, if you don’t vote, you can’t bitch about the outcome.

The State Board of Elections site has everything you need to know.

Today’s required reading

Krugman, in his usual devastatingly effective tone, deconstructs the myth that W has strayed from true conservatism. But this bit really stuck out for me:

People claim to be shocked at the Bush administration’s attempts — which, for a time, were all too successful — to intimidate the press. But this administration’s media tactics, and to a large extent the people implementing those tactics, come straight out of the Nixon administration. Dick Cheney wanted to search Seymour Hersh’s apartment, not last week, but in 1975. Roger Ailes, the president of Fox News, was Nixon’s media adviser.

Nixon, Bush, Cheney, and Ailes – that my friends, is a truly horrifying harmonic convergence of Beltway evil.

Legends

For the life on me, I cannot think of a single band in the past twenty-five years more culturally influential than the Pogues. That one act revived international interest in traditional Irish music as well as spawned the genre of Celtic punk. Indeed, some argue that the Pogues emergence and popularity helped to temper the anti-Irish sentiment in a generation of English youth. To call them iconic hardly does the band or its music justice.

The Pogues are also one of my all-time favorite bands and I regard “If I Should Fall from Grace of God” as one of the handful of near-perfect albums ever recorded (and yes – it is that good). The title track, “Turkish Song of the Damned”, “Birmingham Six”, “Fiesta”, and “The Broad Majestic Shannon" are all masterpieces in there own right and I defy anyone to listen to “Fairytale of New York” without cracking a smile. That album is simply amazing and sealed in me an undying appreciation for their music. In fact, my love for them is such that in 2003, I was all set to fly to Dublin to see one of the reunion shows. My love for Lo, however, proved to be greater as I ended up spending the money on her wedding ring instead (again yes, I still lord that over her from time to time).

I bring this up because Oct. 4 marked the Pogues’ twenty-fifth anniversary, which when you consider it, is something of a miracle. Seriously, Shane MacGowen should have been dead years ago. The fact that they were able to reunite after a decade and sell out shows in Europe and the USA is a testament to the band’s stature and importance. So to you lucky bastards on the West Coast that get to see the upcoming tour, I say pogue mahone.

Here is “If I Should Fall from Grace of God” in all of its frenetic glory. And if there really is a God and He loves me, one day I will get to see them play this live. Enjoy.

Haaaaahhhhaaaaahhhhhhaaaaaaa

Larry Craig, to be known from now on as the gift that keeps on giving, has decided to remain in the Senate, reneging on a prior pledge to resign. Craig’s GOP colleagues are less than pleased with this decision.

Senator John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, demanded that Mr. Craig keep his initial pledge and leave the Senate.

“The type of behavior we are talking about here is not exactly something that I think a senator should be engaged in,” said Mr. Ensign, who again raised the possibility of public ethics committee hearings into whether Mr. Craig brought discredit on the Senate, which could be grounds for action against him.

[Snip]

“I can’t think of anything good about it,” said Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia.

“You don’t want to know what I really feel,” said Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina.

Aside from needling his former friends, Craig’s continued tenure in the Senate ensures that Letterman’s staff writers will have no shortage of material for a good while.

Opportunities

Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) is retiring, opening yet another safe GOP seat to a serious Democratic challenge. Conventional wisdom says that Tom Udall will run for the Dems and either Heather Wilson or Steve Pearce for the Republicans. So for fun I did some research and looked up a few voting scorecards for these House members. Here is what I found:

ACLU
Wilson – 0%
Pearce – 0%
Udall – 100%

League of Conservation Voters
Wilson – 17%
Pearce – 0%
Udall – 100%

Christian Coalition
Wilson – 76%
Pearce – 100%
Udall – 15%

Udall’s record is about as good as you could ask for. Wilson’s, meanwhile, is just appalling and Pearce’s is that much and then some. He hit the wingnut trifecta. Seriously, a zero from both the LCV and ACLU and a perfect score from Pat Robertson’s crew? That is scary.

More Healthcare stuff

The lovely and talented Sara discusses our broken insurance model here. Go get an education.

The secret menu

I have never been to an In-and-Out but I have heard about its 4-item menu (burger, cheeseburger, the double and fries). It turns out that there is actually a secret menu of cholesterol-laden delights ranging from the gut busting “4X4”, four patties and four slices of cheese, to the silly “Flying Dutchman”, two patties, two slices of cheese and nothing else, not even a bun. For some reason, I find that pretty cool.

FWIW, sign me up for the “Animal Style”, mustard-cooked beef patty, additional pickles, and extra secret sauce with grilled onions. I am not exactly sure what mustard-cooked means but it sounds positively delicious.

Oh what fun

For reasons unfathomable to me, the Washington Post hired worthless hack Rammesh Ponuru to moderate their conservative discussion forum. In that forum, Ponnuru, as a matter of course with conservative mouthpieces, has chosen to defend Rush Limbaugh’s “phony soldier” remark (transcript here). In return for protecting the drug-addled, porcine talk show host, Ponnuru’s ass was flamed to a well-done crisp. Here is a sampling, typos and all:

Look, he said it. Spinning it as to what he meant, didn't mean, wanted to mean, maybe meant, etc., is nice of you committed rightists, but he said it. And Rush complaining about things being taken out of context is like Ronald McDonald dissing hamburgers. Maybe instead of shoring up the sand under Rush's wide behind you guys ought to get a less embarrassing mouthpiece.

[Snip]

I heard him say it for God's sake. He called the vets who spoke out against the war "phony soldiers". The audio is available. This reminds me of Bush saying no one warned him about Katrina - then a tape surfaces of someone telling him exactly that - and the press just lets it go. George Orwell would not have believed how on target he was.

[Snip]

Ramesh may be the kind of self-deluded ideologue who can't even see the issue objectively - or he may be one of the operatives who know their own hypocrisy but don't care because the end justifies the means. You see, despite all the rebuttals that may appear on this page, the home page still carries the smear of Media Matters and Harry Reid.That is Ponnuru's real objective - attack the messenger. I could understand the National Review giving him the space for his partisanship. But the Washington Post only demeans itself by treating a smear as a genuine point for discussion and allowing it's author to adopt the mantle of moderator. (Has anyone seen a sign that he is "moderating" this discussion? No.) What a load.

[Sip]

You give no proof. The transcript would be proof. I heard the discussion and Rush clearly meant "phony soldiers" to mean soldiers who disagree with the war. He also called Murtha a "phony soldier". Murtha is not a man who has lied about his military bona fides so your explanation just went the window.

And so on.

When scorn turns into pity

While I enjoy mocking Brittany Spears as much (probably more) than the next person, I feel horrible for the girl right now. Her parenting skills, public image, and relationship with her mother are a mess, the career has been reduced to flaming wreckage (the VMA thing was just awful), the drink and drugs, then rehab and the head shaving incident, and now the kids have been placed in the custody of K-Fed. And don’t get me wrong, much of this was her own doing but, Jesus, how bad does it have to be for him to be judged the more suitable parent? I hope, for the kids’ sake as well as her own, that she has people that are looking out for her and that she can get her head straight. She seems to be following the same life trajectory as Elvis and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.

President Asshole

Bush vetoed the expansion of SCHIP, determining that his “philosophy” is more important that the healthcare of underprivileged American children - nice. The compassionate conservative agenda triumphs yet again.

The Giuliani Schism

The wingnuts are threatening to abandon the Republican Party and run their own candidate if Rudy wins the GOP nomination.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 — Alarmed at the possibility that the Republican Party might pick Rudolph W. Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate.

The threat emerged from a group that broke away for separate discussions at a meeting Saturday in Salt Lake City of the Council for National Policy, a secretive conservative networking group. Participants said the smaller group included James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, who is perhaps its most influential member; Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council; Richard A. Viguerie, the direct-mail pioneer; and dozens of other politically oriented conservative Christians.

Almost everyone present at the smaller group’s meeting expressed support for a written resolution stating that “if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate we will consider running a third-party candidate,” participants said.

Dobson, Perkins, and Viguerie are three of the biggest nuts guns in the modern conservative movement. If they can persuade their followers to quit the GOP, the uneasy coalition between the pro-business wing and the Christian conservatives may unravel. It goes without saying that such a split would doom the Republicans to minority status for the foreseeable future and as such, we should do all we can to encourage it. Go Rudy!

Vetoing healthcare for kids

Sebastian Mallaby has a good column today exploring why Bush’s expected veto of the SCHIP legislation is both bad policy and bad politics. More interesting though is that Mallaby seems to be the rare Washington pundit that recognizes as false one of the primary arguments against government sponsored healthcare: that the private sector can do it better.

But the most troubling aspect of the Bush veto is not statistical. It is, as he would say, "philosophical." "What I'm describing here is a philosophical divide that exists in Washington over the best approach for health care," Bush declared at his news conference. His real objection to Congress's proposal is that it represents "an incremental step toward the goal of government-run health care."

Leave aside the fact that the children's health insurance program is government-financed, not "government-run." Private insurers administer benefits, and private doctors and nurses deliver them; this is not, as Bush's spokeswoman charged last week, "socialized-type medicine." The larger point is that private markets in health care are not necessarily better than the government-run variety.

[Snip]

Because there are limits to the empowerment of consumers, there are limits to how well a private health market can function. And that's before you get to the question of the uninsured, to which the free market has no answer. Some degree of government intervention in health care is therefore inevitable and desirable. It is ideological nonsense to suggest that this intervention displaces an otherwise efficient private market.

Finally, someone within the Beltway understands that markets are not perfect in every scenario. When one experiences a healthcare emergency, it is unlikely that one will be in a position to negotiate prices or examine other treatment options. Understanding that piece of the puzzle, while somewhat obvious, is a step in the right direction.

Airlines

Thankfully, I have a job that does not require me to travel very much. I am not much a fan of flying and have had, on a couple of occasions, truly awful flights. For example, Continental lost my bag on the way to a conference in Jersey. I got it back at three AM on the morning of my first 8 AM meeting. As much as that sucked, it was merely a warm up for my return flight. In that marvelous experience, I was stuck on the Newark tarmac in August for almost four hours with a full passenger compliment and no air conditioning - awesome. That happened about 10 years ago, when, unlike today, an airline holding its passengers hostage was uncommon. In short, most airline service has been dreadful for a while and it is only going to get worse.

More than 1 million pieces of luggage were lost, damaged, delayed or pilfered by U.S. airlines from May to July, according to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. June and July ranked among the 20 worst months for mishandled baggage in 20 years.

The shoddy service is the crest of five years of steady deterioration in the ability of major airlines to deliver a checked bag. In 2002, 3.84 reports of mishandled bags were filed per 1,000 passengers. In July, the figure was 7.93.

[Snip]

Analysts say the industry's problems are not likely to be resolved soon, setting the stage for more aggravations, especially during the holiday travel season.

Time to pack light and carry-on. Merry Christmas, y’all.

Newt’s out

It a shame really, all that fun we could have had at his expense…