Job, Jobs, Jobs: Chapter II

Taplin's got a little discussion going with rise of Nazis, anti-immigrant sentiment and China thrown into the mix.

Bonus Quote O' Teh Day

“I used to be on TV all the time. I haven’t been on Fox News once since I started talking about this.”

Joseph Farah, publisher WoldNetDaily (which is batshit crazy), talking about his birther crusade

For a little context if you link, Breitbart runs a news aggregation site that Drudge links to all the time. They're all, along with FOX, the right's news mainstays.

Quote O' Teh Day

...it’s not that we think men are better, it’s that we don’t think of women at all.

Claire Messud on women writers.

NOTE: You might as well just go to Andrew Sullivan today, he's got so much good stuff that it would be embarrassing to continue stealing it.

Such A Deal

Sullivan gives up a great one. (Category: Mental Health Break)

Sorry, Elizabeth Edwards

I've been kind of pissed about her deceiving us all that time by continuing to support his campaign as if everything was okay. But Andrew Sullivan published something from a reader today that changed my mind:

As someone who has experienced the awful pain and humiliation of infidelity I can't bring myself to blame Elizabeth at all for making decisions she saw as benefiting her family and not necessarily the country.  I spent one terrible night reading emails from my husband to his internet lover, looking at the dirty photos they sent each other and reading about how he would ditch me and she would ditch her husband and live happily ever after.  The next day I woke up and could not remember a single thing about it.  I walked through my house not recognizing anything, like I was in a dream. 

And to think that infidelity is the very least of the trifecta of heartache and bad luck this woman has endured is just beyond my comprehension.  I imagine that losing a child fundamentally changes who you are.  It changed both of them.  If Elizabeth tried to pretend that her world was not falling apart, that her husband of 30 years did not just rob her of the chance to die well-loved in the bosom of an intact family, I can't fault her.  The mind does funny things to protect us.

Inside Baseball Dept.

From Josh Marshall today:

Back on Tuesday, Reuters' reporter Terri Cullen published a story entitled "Backdoor taxes to hit middle class," which alleged a series of stealth middle classes tax increases proposed by the Obama White House.
The White House complained that the story contained numerous false claims. Reuters pulled the story after conceding it contained "significant errors of fact" and said a new corrected story would be forthcoming. Then they apparently concluded that the errors were so thoroughgoing that no corrected story would be published.
Now comes word from former Editor & Publisher editor Greg Mitchell that Cullen is now no longer working at Reuters, though the circumstances of her departure remain unclear.

Blogs Are For Geezers

I knew that and, presumably, so did you.
A comment now and then would be nice. Hi, anybody there?

Lawrence Lessig

There is a very long article in The Nation by Lessig, who I only earlier this week wrote to, telling him I believe his campaign for a Constitutional Convention is — well, I didn't say stupid, but it is stupid. Not to mention will never happen in a million years.
But since then, Taplin said something nice about him, and now the MetaFilter brigade is on it in reaction to Shelby's shenanigans. He's the senator who put a hold on all pending presidential appointments in a bid to get money loosened up for some federal projects in his home state of Alabama.
So, you can read Lessig's noble proposal if you want. I'm holding out for the Cliff Notes version.

And Here We Are

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

Dwight Eisenhower, 1953

Democratic Rapid Response

Pretty rapid, eh?

What Do These Cities Have In Common?...Fresno, Reno, Billings

Riverside, Austin, St. Louis, San Antonio, Lubbock, Tucson, Bakersfield.

They're the drunkest cities in America, according to Men's Health magazine.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Print out this chart. Show it to your friends.

Must Be An Election Year

Seems the Dems want to get the R's on record about Social Security.
Next up: (keep government out of) my Medicare. Heh.

The Soloist Has Made A CD

Here's LA Times columnist Steve Lopez' update.
There's a link to a video, too, but the buffering was bad when I tried.

Health Care Reform Is Alive

because Jonathan Chait Cohn says so.
He sees a plan.
Sigh.

Senator Richard Shelby: Poster Boy For Corruption

I open up TPM today and get a long whine by Josh Marshall about how the Dems won't message Shelby's hold on 70 Obama appointments.
A commenter catches a piece on the Volker reforms in the Wall Street Journal and I am beyond anger.
Watching all this play out, it is just too much.
I really am afraid the bad guys will win.

Slow News Day

Unless you count the fact that Harry Reid threatened to make all Obama's appointments recess appointments, no doubt having something to do with the fact that an Alabama senator today put a blanket hold on an almost unprecedented 70 appointments that have been languishing for months.
He's apparently "pulling a Nelson," holding things up over two big federal projects stalled in his state.
With Scott Brown sworn in today, the Democrats no longer have the 60 votes needed to overcome Republican resistance.
It seems like only yesterday Reid was sending a Dem to the Senate (believe it was usually Jim Webb of Virginia) daily to keep them officially in session during the scheduled recess to prevent George Bush from sneaking in some last-minute disaster appointments.
Wonder if the Rs will do the same.
This, along with the health car reconciliation "sidecar" process and the unlimited amendments R's will use to derail it, is probably why a friend of mine observed today that he now understands why people hate government.
I must say I now know more about the legislative process than I ever dreamed I would.

'I Don't Need Therapy, I Have Roller Derby'

Even watching is good for you.
Had a remarkably good time at the Slaughter County Vixens' bout a couple years ago, and plan to be at their next one in April.

More Q&A! More Q&A!

NBC could do it every night in Leno's old slot. Republicans will never go for it, though.
Petition here.

Raging Grannies Of South Florida vs. CBS

Not quite raging enough for me, but that's just me.


Story here. If you wanna, you can nail 'em via email. The video has a petition address also.
Leslie Anne Wade, Sr. VP Sports Communication: lwade@cbs.com

Jerry Caraccioli, Communications Director, CBS Sports: gwcaraccioli@cbs.com

Robin Brendle, Communications Director, CBS Sports: rlbrendle@CBS.com

Jennifer Sabatelle, Communications Director, CBS Sports: jsabatelle@CBS.com

Quote O' Teh Day

Patrick Sullivan reminds journalists what their job is. Well, somebody has to.

If the journalist looks like an asshole, get over it. It is our job to look like assholes. We are professional assholes. We get paid to be rude. In order to expose the truth.

The Details, The Devil

So where were we? Oh, yeah, the Senate has to pass all the fixes the House progressives want before they'll pass the Senate health care reform bill, and because of Massachusetts, they have to be passed under reconciliation, which only needs 51 votes instead of the 60 they no longer have.
And the Republicans have said reconciliation may have a debate time limit, but there's no mention of a limit on amendments, so they'll just keep piling them on until November.
Too arcane for you? Well, that's where we are. The amendment thingie has never been tried before, thus the two or three ways the Dems might be able to get around the ploy haven't either.
Stay tuned.
Oh, here's a link in case you want to know more. But really, who would? Isn't it time for Lost or something?

You Can Get An MIT Education

Online. Just no degree. Kewl.

Revolutionary

I cannot begin to explain how profound the impact of the Civil Rights movement was on people in this country. There I was, not quite sixteen, watching it on television and reading about it in newspapers and magazines and knowing we were in the middle of history.
Was this discussed at school? Not to my recollection. I doubt my parents talked about it either, at least not in front of me. But in your bones, you just knew what was right and what was about to change.

On that first day, Feb. 1, the four men stayed at the lunch counter until closing. The next day, they came back with 15 other students. By the third day, 300 joined in; later, 1,000.
The sit-ins spread to lunch counters across the country — and changed history.

Must See TV: The News

What would we do without the Brits?