Late Night Phone Call

Briing, briing.
Hello?
Hi. Is this The Onion? Hey, I've got this great story idea and it's actually true.
Sorry, we do satire.
Yeah, I know.

Study: McCain Voters Lost Testosterone

What Did I Tell You Last Week?

Genius, pure genius.

Again, the opt out is gaining steam politically, but it's still very young from a legislative perspective, so it would be easy to overinterpret statements like these. Let's just say that we probably haven't heard the last of it.

Rope-a-dope, rope-a-Ben fucking Nelson!

I posted this Oct. 8.

What Is Our Place In The Universe?

I love John Hodgman. And I love TED.
16 minutes

View From My Window 12:05 p.m. Oct. 20, 2009

Andrew Sullivan's blog will probably never accept one of these because I don't know what to do about the reflection. But I accept everything I submit.

Okay

She's in the shower, might as well settle in.

Ball, check. Bone, check. Slipper, check. Where'd I put the Frisbee?

Slipper, what slipper?

You Never Know

When you're going to run into something really cool in a comments section of a really cool blog.
This from one of DeLong's:

Vegetarianism is unhealthy.
Had we evolved to be vegetarians, we would have huge stomachs, massive jaws, and have pointed head because a crest on the skull is required to anchor the massive jaw muscles required to be a vegetarian. We would, on the whole, look more like gorillas than humans. And function like them too.
The last all vegetable eating human precursors were A. robustus and Ramidus (if I am recalling correctly). They did not survive. Their brains could not enlarge because they had too little long chain fatty acids and protein. They had to eat all day, had large stomachs, small brains, and little mobility, rather like the gorilla, a vegetarian primate.
A baby raised as a vegetarian will have an underdeveloped nervous system and a small and poorly functioning brain.
A vegetarian diet forces excess reliance on high carbohydrate, high glycemic foods. There is no there way to obtain adequate calories but to eat this way. Otherwise, you have to eat too frequently and too much bulky vegetables to be active. So, you are almost forced or induced to be inactive.
Countries like India where vegetarianism is widely practiced are undergoing an explosion of Type 2 diabetes. Of course, there is a linkage because they consume large amounts of rice and other simple, high glycemic foods, destroying their metabolism and sliding into insulin resistance, accelerated aging, and diabetes.
Ultimately, I ponder over how gene expression is altered in veganism and its diet variants. Remember, the model is DNA makes RNA makes protein. That is all the genes do; they make proteins. How is their expression altered when there is either too little protein in the diet or when certain proteins cannot be made given the nutrition. Virtually all the messengers in the body are proteins. So are all the catalysts. I could go on, but you get the idea. Don’t do it.

I have no idea if this guy's even close to accurate, but it was fun to read.

Superfreaks: For The Last Time

Berkely economist Brad DeLong edits the climate change chapter. For free.
And promises his readers that this is the last time SF will be his topic. As do I.
Let's hope L&D use his suggestions because apparently, as one commenter notes:

So what you're suggesting is that they remove every selling point of the book and make it, uh... correct and well-written?

Guess I should visit DeLong more often. (Don't give me any more of that Kolko stuff, anon.)

(Wow. Last four from Weeds Season 4 just arrived. So long good intentions.)

Superfreaks Now Super Irrelevant

Say, gadzooks, real climate scientists!
Although book sales will be through the roof.

Welcome, The Yes Men!

Forget Balloon Boy. Oh, you already have?
This is really good.
I so love that not only the U.S. Chamber of Commer, but Reuters, the NYT and Wapo got punked.
I so love it. What more to say?
What Do We Want? More Punking.
When Do We Want It? Now!
Coming to a theater near you.

I Said This Last Week

 Obama knows the public option, insofar as most Americans understand it, is popular. So why not get his opponents to fight it in their states where they can be hurt, rather than nationally, where they can tar Obama as a “socialist”. Sneaky.

So does that mean I can have a column in The Times of London, too.
Nah, didn't think so.

I Like The Mouse Colon Best Just Because Of The Title

But the images of winners past and present in the Nikon microphotography contest help a lot on this Sunday, when "it's all in the oneness" is much on my mind.
I, for one, am glad Andrew Sullivan is a religious person. It helps me to be led there at times.

Random Thought

Will I ever get over the need to believe that when it comes to important matters, there are adults in charge who know what they're doing, when clearly my experience tells me otherwise, primarily having at times been an adult in charge?
Ans. No.

Superfreaks Revisited

Krugman spanks 'em again. For not doing their homework.
But that's not what selling books is about these days.

Those Freakonomics Guys? Scratch 'Em Off The List

 I loved the first book, but didn't follow up much in the critique category. Now, it seems, not so much good. And their climate change crap is just that. Shit.

 Says one commenter:

Two of Levitt’s most famous papers are false: i.e. his key findings evaporate once elementary programming errors are corrected. This includes his controversial paper with Donohue that claims that the Roe vs. Wade decision was a cause of the signicant reduction in crime in the U.S. in the 1990s.

I guess I just got carried away with the romance of Levitt's story, Dubner's good writing and the whole notion of contrarienism, which is my ego taking over for, um, actual thought. Mine is a classic American human story. I am so disappointed in myself. But I can take it. Lesson learned.
BTW, I got this from Sullivan, where you can get some other links. And if you really want to burrow in, take a look at commenters on the first link.
Me? I've got This American Life's big health insurance story to attend to. Anybody got any Prozac?
UPDATE: Okay then. We're screwed.

Is It The Moon, Or Is It The End Of Western Civilization?

I've been glued to breaking political news on my favorite internet sites for more than two years, but I just popped over to TPM after the Weeds interlude and I swear I have never seen such bizarre.
Josh Marshall wonders if wrestling and necrophilia have ever played a role in a political campaign before this year's Chris Dodd race in Connecticutt, the NRA thinks Hillary and third-world dictators want to take away somebody's (not mine) guns, Obama spokesman notes that biracial background don't seem to have adversely affected either his boss or himself despite what some Louisiana justice of the peace thinks, and some COP (Crazy Ol' Party) folks make news for the second day in a row in their quest to find Muslim plots teeming in the halls of Congress. So far nothing new on ballooon boy, but the day's not over.
I'm almost afraid to check HuffPo, which had headlined Arianna calling for Biden's resignation, a story I studiously avoided.
Was she kidding or has she jumped the shark? Dunno.
Back to Weeds, I guess.
This would all make more sense if I really was high.
And to top it all off, Andrew Sullivan found this:

Fewer people joined the Army this year than last year. The Army exceeded its recruitment goals not because recruitment went up but rather because recruitment goals were lowered. The Army is the service that has been having the hardest time finding new recruits in recent years, in part because it has borne the heaviest burden—and suffered by far the most casualties—in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Don't trust anything you hear or read, ever.
Love,  Former  reporter

Complete This Sentence

If I could be any fictional character, I would be...
Nancy Botwin. 
Seriously, not a single character in fiction has appealed to me this much since Scarlett O'Hara who, I don't believe, had as much fun in bed as Nancy.
They both have the same resilience, cunning and beauty and they are both wonderfully imagined characters written by women with, at least on paper, my secret agenda.
Edgy, risky, flawed. I know Glenn Close and Holly Hunter have some good roles, and The Mirren was another all-time favorite with at least occasional satisfaction, but their characters live real lives and so must suffer alarming consequences.
Nancy, like Scarlett, will always come out okay. And so will her kids.
Misspent my morning watching the middle shows to Season 4. Oh, that Estefan! Whew!


For those of you who haven't heard me say this, for a taste of what else Mary Louise Parker can do with a great role, rent Angels In America, the best American film ever.
In both cases, nothing without the writing.
Happy Friviality Friday.

Smart Guys Finish...Us

 Krugman thinks Trillin nailed it.

Obama's Race Speech

After a day of travel to and from Seattle to hear Nicholas Kristof and think about the 100 million missing women, I needed something hopeful to think about.
Andrew Sullivan picked it up at The Dish:

[L]ast March 13, when the incendiary sermons of Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, blew up all over the cable networks, Obama had spent the entire day and evening in the Senate. That Friday, after enduring a series of tough interviews, Obama informed Axelrod and campaign manager David Plouffe, “I want to do a speech on race.” And he added, “I want to make this speech no later than next Tuesday. I don’t think it can wait.” Axelrod and Plouffe tried to talk him into delaying it: He had a full day of campaigning on Saturday, a film shoot on Sunday, and then another hectic day campaigning in Pennsylvania on Monday. Obama was insistent. On the Saturday-morning campaign conference call, Favreau was told to get to work on a draft immediately. Favreau replied, “I’m not writing this until I talk to him.”
That evening, Saint Patrick’s Day, less than seventy-two hours before the speech would be delivered to a live audience, Favreau was sitting alone in an unfurnished group house in Chicago when the boss called. “I’m going to give you some stream of consciousness,” Obama told him. Then he spoke for about forty-five minutes, laying out his speech’s argumentative construction. Favreau thanked him, hung up, considered the enormity of the task and the looming deadline, and then decided he was “too freaked out by the whole thing” to write and went out with friends instead.

On Sunday morning at seven, the speechwriter took his laptop to a coffee shop and worked there for thirteen hours. Obama received Favreau’s draft at eight that evening and wrote until three in the morning. He hadn’t finished by Monday at 8 a.m., when he set the draft aside to spend the day barnstorming across Pennsylvania. At nine thirty that night, a little more than twelve hours before the speech was to be delivered, Obama returned to his hotel room to do more writing. At two in the morning, the various BlackBerrys of Axelrod, Favreau, Plouffe, and Jarrett sounded with a message from the candidate: Here it is. Favs, feel free to tweak the words. Everyone else, the content here is what I want to say. Axelrod stood in the dark reading the text: “The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made.… But what we know—what we have seen—is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope—the audacity to hope—for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”
He e-mailed Obama: This is why you should be president.

Contrarienne, Paris

From The Sartorialist, of course, still my favorite eye candy.

Health Bill Petition O' Teh Day

Here

Anna Deavere Smith

NPR did a story on her new theater piece today and there's a YouTube up, but I think the audio is better. She's also an artist in residence for the Center for American Progress. I've admired her for years.

Let Me Down Easy began eight years ago, when the Yale School of Medicine invited Smith to be a visiting professor and interview patients, doctors and administrators — people like Ruth Katz, who was being treated in the hospital and was told by an oncology fellow that her medical records had been misplaced. He doesn't seem to think that's an unusual occurrence — though when he asks Katz about her employment, and she tells him she's one of the medical school's deans, her files turn up within half an hour.

Here's Terri Gross' interview with her.

Joanie!

In 1963, my dad gave me albums by my two newest music enthusiasms, Joan Baez and Barbra Streisand. Joanie abides. Barbra, not so much.
The American Masters show tonight was great.

Why Is Baseball Like Insurance?

They're both exempt from anti-trust legislation.
A condition that may not last much longer and got a much-needed push this week when AHIP, big I's front group, released the flawed report on the Baucus bill.
Perhaps Democrats are mad enough now to include anti-trust in the health reform bill.
Shumer says it will be there.

Good TeeVee

No, not an oxymoron. I love TV.
Just a reminder, the Joan Baez doc is on PBS at 8 and my new fave, Modern Family on ABC at 9 tonight.

Bad Econ 101

Okay, never mind that reserve currency thingie. That was so last week.
Today both Taplin and Jerome A Paris over at Daily Kos have highlighted this very, very bad news.
Taplin wants a lot of innovative government investment in green stuff to save us. Jerome, whose expertise is green technology, just wants a lot government investment. Like, yesterday.
Second stimulus, anyone?
It is my considered opinion that most of the country is still expecting to see those mall stores back open. Except in Michigan, of course. Still don't know what hit us.
I'm going to see Capitalism next week.

Petition O' Teh Day

Some piece-of-shit Dem senator is being protected by leadership in his intention to hold up a public option. My money is on North Dakota's finest.
Anyway, for what it's worth, let Harry Reid hear from you.

Random Thought

Watching the PBS special on the history of Latin music in America, it became obvious from a short clip (which was the closest TV in the 50s came to simulating female orgasm, but you better be sure the adults picked it up) that Desi Arnez played a huge role in breaking the color barrier in this country.
Add to that West Side Story and Elvis, the mop tops weren't going to turn it back no matter how white and fresh-faced and Aryan.
Of course there were important marginal players — I owe my soul to race music from Detroit radio summers on the Lake Erie beach outside Cleveland.
But my gut tells me I've got it right here.

Wait A Minute

It's about dominating the news cycle (smacks head, spits).
How could I have forgotten?
White House secretly gives the go-ahead on a public discussion of a state opt-in on the public option and AHIP is caught unawares. Or maybe the White House had nothing to do with it, maybe it's Shumer's game after all.
Then, on top of it all, Obama gets a Nobel.
Two-three-four days in a row with no one badmouthing health reform in the news. The ship is sinking, the ship is sinking. And Baucus' committee is about to vote.
Quick, pull out the rabbit.
Here, see, this is a bad, bad, bad bill.
Get President McCain back up there to say so.
Anybody?
Crickets.
News at 11.

Kabuki, I Tells Ya

Pull back the curtain on the AHIP (insurance industry) report, which blasts the Baucus bill just a day before his Senate Finance Committee is due to vote on it, and you get all kinds of speculation.
TPM is closely tracking, but in the meantime, consider this comment:

Nate Silver has an interesting observation that may play a role in this "report". Insurance company shares are down an average of more than 11% since Labor Day. In dollars and cents, that's $10B in lost value. In a month and a half.

Over the same time period the S&P500 is up almost 7%, so the insurance companies underperformed the stock market as a whole by some 18%.

Nate Silver runs 538, highly respected liberal polling blog.

Followed Me Home, Honest

Elinor Ostrom: Honorary Contrarienne

And the others, too.
I know it's a hackneyed phrase, but we've come a long way, baby.

Ostrom was the first woman to win Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences since it was founded in 1968, and the fifth woman to win a Nobel award this year — a record for the prestigious honors.

Random Thoughts Dept.
Elinor Ostrom looks like my Gramma Bertha.

I, on the other hand, am often mistaken for Angelina Jolie's sister.

Wanda On Viagra

"I think if you're over 75 and you want those pills, you should have to bring a note from three women who want to fuck you."

Random Thoughts

Liz Cheney, Mary Cheney. I get the two mixed up. Which one is pregnant? Which one is the — gasp! heterosexual?
It doesn't matter. They both defend a war criminal parent.

Linkins Talking Heads

Jason Linkins' take each Sunday morning on the talk show blathering is an acquired taste. I have acquired it.
I would call this Sunday Friviality but somehow that sounds lame.
WARNING: Afghanistan is discussed at times.

Meanwhile, Panel Time! Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize, for albatrosses! Liz Cheney says that it's premature, but that maybe he can send the mother of a fallen American soldier to Oslo to participate in what she calls a "farce." She is concerned somehow, that Obama does not believe in "American dominance," whatever the hell that is. Juan Williams offers that it is a repudiation of Bush-Cheney foreign policy of pointless bellicosity which then leads to failed military strategies. Bill Kristol calls it an "anti-American" award, that should have been refused, but that the second-best thing to do is to go to Oslo and give a "pro-American" speech on American exceptionalism. Exceptional fast-food and exceptional dance moves. And Nina Easton thinks it will hurt him, political, because pundits say it will hurt him, like Nina Easton, who just did so.

...While we're FLOWING, maybe someone on this panel would be so good as to FLOW ME UP an explanation of how the 40,000 additional troops will be used. Because right now, it seems like an article of faith that this magic number of troops will somehow win positive-sum outcomes through...I don't know....SHIT THEY LEARNED AT HOGWARTS? See. This is where you'd prefer a general to say, "Hey, we just had an election go south, we're having trouble outcompeting the Taliban on governance, we probably need additional resources, but what we really need is a new approach with a significant magnitude of change." OH WAIT. WE ACTUALLY DO HAVE A GENERAL SAYING THAT.

Headline O' Teh Day

The one every copy editor yearns for, but the opportunity never comes. Until today.
Hint: It's not Obama and not the Nobel. It's better.

Titled

The only thing holding me back from writing my autobiography was the title. In a moment of inspiration while driving to a meeting last night, I thought of it. Racing Short-Legged Dogs.
Just so metaphorical, don't you think?
Video at 11. Tomorrow. Or whatever.

Random Thought

What would the wingnuts be saying if Obama's favorite sports activity was bicycling and he had been a cheerleader in college. Oh wait...

Basketball Man Saturday

 Er, make that Nobel Man.

“At one point, I had to box the president in, which I kind of hesitated to do, you know, since he is the president,” Arcuri said. “It’s hard to call a foul on the president. If he touches you on the wrist, you just kind of let it go.”

Basketball Man

Reggie Love here standing in for Republican idiots everywhere.

No Comment

The Associated Press reports today that the South Florida-based Southeast Broward Republican Club held an event earlier this week at a gun range where targets included silhouettes of Muslim stereotypes and of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). Among those who attended the event was real estate CEO Robert Lowry, who is vying to replace Wasserman Schultz in 2010.

From Think Progress.

Nobel Awarded To ... Wait For It

Roman Polanski!

This is Andrew Sullivan's comment o' teh day and I'm not going to say anything about the topic here because Talking Points Memo and Andrew are doing a fine job pulling it all together (they have staff!)
But one thread referenced this essay on the Nobel site which is quite informative, which is why I just skimmed it, being a child of the Internet and all.

If I’m using Politico’s tortured logic, what the Nobel gang really did, basically, is give the prize to Polanski, right?

Random Thought

What will the Romulans and Klingons do when we bomb the moon?
And the Vulcans?

George Bush Rode Bicycles, Barack Obama Plays Basketball

And is reputed to have sharp elbows.

I sent the following memo to Talking Points Memo tonight in response to this story.

For this armchair progressive with a 30-plus year appreciation for the reality of politics (and therefore not enough energy to even respond to the backers of single payer when the frantic emails started arriving and all it took was a click to sign some online petition), I think this thing is a game changer. It certainly is for me.

The people in the reluctant states who will be yelling the loudest will be small business owners, their employees, and right-minded health care professionals, and they will impress the largely unaware ordinary citizens, especially if they get organized for it. And run some well-publicized polls as things develop.

 If I were in one of those states, I would sign up for any public activity to pressure the state powers and if I, on Medicare and with no dog in the fight except possibly a reduction in my Advantage plan benefits whose extras are definitely not worth the extra I pay for them — either/or $400 worth of optical or dental care, a health club membership — I bet I could talk a bunch of my friends into this, too. I love the prospects of that kind of “all politics is local” part of this the best.

Enough with the tea party tactics, suckers, we’re hitting the bricks and THE MEDIA — with this one. Local media don’t play in the same arena as The Villagers. Their editors and assignment editors respond to phone calls and requests for editorial boards. They have to, they’re really working close to the bone these days.

In fact, I’d go anywhere anyone was willing to pay my travel to volunteer as an unpaid outside agitator. I was in newspapers for 30 years, all at the local community daily level. I’d be valuable. (Well, maybe not in Arkansas, but I have friends and family in Texas.) If I would do that, there’s a lot of others who would, too.

Anyway, what I really wanted to observe is that I think I smell a good rope-a-dope theory. I want to believe they’re that smart, and know how to learn from their mistakes and the lessons of all past legislative efforts. Obama and his people are students of this stuff, plenty experienced in local-level politics and they’ve got an organization emailing me almost every day.

So, taking the rope-a-dope angle a little farther, if I were advising the White House and Congressional Democratic leadership, I would say, “Play it totally cool. Don’t even look in their direction. Pretend your eyes are pointed in an entirely different direction and that you’ve already spent so much time and effort on that other direction that you’re really incapable of seeing the possibilities here.

Fake them out. Let the reliable second stringers (Shumer, whoever)  take the lead. They’ll love the glory. And the Republicans won’t know which way to turn. They weren’t prepared for this either. Because we sat on it, because we’re smart and we learn fast. They’ll believe that act because they have to believe you’re no smarter than them, otherwise they couldn’t do what they do. They have to believe they can get what they want, which is failure. But they’ve got no message machine working on this and starting one up today won’t give them time to dent this, although time would be the first thing I’d advise them to ask for. It sounds so reasonable. It might startle the Democrats into letting that happen. Yeah, that would be bad advice but I don’t think there is any good advice in this situation. They’re screwed. (Who called Dole? I want to know who called Dole.)

Guess who else wasn’t ready for this eleventh hour Hail Mary? About 1,300 health insurers, that’s who.

Slowly, slowly, the will of the Congress will turn like the big ship it is. Well, still before Christmas. And the White House, after many meetings, will endorse the idea they’ve been cooking up. It may be a fairly new idea. I’m not saying they had this in mind back in July, for instance. (But I’m not saying they didn’t. I don’t know anything about game theory, but I do know there have to be lots of contingency plans and creative, innovative brains behind it.)

I’m also not saying this or any similar rope-a-dope theory is flawless or even realistic. But somebody’s got a helluva novel here. And besides, I want to believe. Nope, never grew out of it.

Cheers,
Julie McCormick
Port Townsend

Told Ya, They're All A Buncha Chicago Thugs

I saw this today in a slideshow honoring Ben Ali, owner of landmark Ben's Chili Bowl in D.C., who died today.
My first thought was, this is what they're all afraid of, a bunch of big black guys, some in big scary boots and wearing guns, hangin' out on the street.
FYI, Mayor Adrian Fenty is to Obama's right, the rest are police officers. Or Black Panthers or corrupt ACORN community organizers or something.

Quote O' Teh Day

In 1917 I went to Russia. I was sent to prevent the Bolshevik Revolution and to keep Russia in the war. The reader will know that my efforts did not meet with success”.)

W. Somerset Maugham, in the introduction to his collection of spy stories.

Tough TV Choices

Local news leading with "dart attacks on ducks along the Burke Gilman Trail" vs. What About Afghanistan on Charlie Rose.
Hmmm, so hard to decide.

Commercial TV

is not my thing. HBO has spoiled me.
But Modern Family is the season's best new show.
And speaking of recessions, since when does kMart advertise its layaway program?

The Olbermann Health Care Hour

I'm watching this as we speak, are you?

Oops, here.
You can watch it any time.

Oops again. I guess they don't stream real time, but should be up later. Same above link.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Health Reform Compromise

This one sounds like it might work and get the needed votes.
"Robust" public option that states can opt out of.
The only ones that will are in the South, and it will be interesting to see if any move to do so succeeds as their citizens — and small businesses — see what it means.
In other news, Bob Dole told Republicans today they'd better get on board with health care reform, and there have been other signs the GOP's resistance is blowing up in its face. I like politics, I really do.

Quote O' Teh Day

What I'm looking forward to is the battle between Huckabee and Palin.

Andrew Sullivan, Oct. 7, 2009

Here's the thing  though.  I don't think Palin will  seriously try to  become president or vice president, although she may attempt to make it look like she's doing that in 2012. For Sarah, it's all about the money, always has been and always will be.
BTW, there's a web site devoted to her alleged last pregnancy and other things Palin.

I See Crazy People

Everywhere I look. I don't even have to look, they just come.

Iannucci said he regrets what happen and that the incident was just an unfortunate accident that’s now disrupting his life and family.
“I bought fireworks in Pennsylvania last June for the 4th of July when I was there for a Christian show. I sing in a Baptist church in West Haven, solos and with the choir,” he said. “It was not a bomb. It was a hand-throwable firework.”
Iannucci admitted he altered the fireworks to make them launchable, but felt he was not doing anything illegal. He said the fireworks were in his car because he was transporting them to dispose of them.
“I threw a cigarette out the window and it came back in and somehow set one of the fireworks off,” Iannicci said.
East Haven, CT Courier, 3/5

Addendum. SWAT costumes. Costumes? Now I get it. Halloween is coming.

Erm, About That First Amendment

I never really got into South Park. But that's not the point, is it?
And here is the close-up, which you hopefully will be able to read...
I'm considering using this as a patriotic Christmas card this year.

While You Were Busy With Your Life

 For what it's worth dept. (And it may not be worth much, but, hey, this is a blog, not a book.)

Ever heard of Yekaterinburg? Me neither. It's somewhere in Russia and the last thing I read about Russia is that they really ended up with a fucked up economy with average life span of 62.3 or something younger than me and their reproduction rate is about half what it would take to replace the population and there's a lot of alcoholism.

Something has been going on with something called the dollar as the world's reserve currency that barely causes a blip in the media sphere. I have no idea how bad it is. Taplin seems to think it's pretty important, meanwhile Krugman is answering questions from readers that don't appear to recognize this topic.

Then there's the big scary:

The architects of this new global exchange realize that if they break the dollar they also break America’s military domination. Our military spending cannot be sustained without this cycle of heavy borrowing. The official U.S. defense budget for fiscal year 2008 is $623 billion, before we add on things like nuclear research. The next closest national military budget is China’s, at $65 billion, according to the Central Intelligence Agency.

...The cost of daily living, from buying food to getting medical care, will become difficult for all but a few as the dollar plunges. States and cities will see their pension funds drained and finally shut down. The government will be forced to sell off infrastructure, including roads and transport, to private corporations. We will be increasingly charged by privatized utilities—think Enron—for what was once regulated and subsidized. Commercial and private real estate will be worth less than half its current value. The negative equity that already plagues 25 percent of American homes will expand to include nearly all property owners. It will be difficult to borrow and impossible to sell real estate unless we accept massive losses. There will be block after block of empty stores and boarded-up houses. Foreclosures will be epidemic. There will be long lines at soup kitchens and many, many homeless. Our corporate-controlled media, already banal and trivial, will work overtime to anesthetize us with useless gossip, spectacles, sex, gratuitous violence, fear and tawdry junk politics. America will be composed of a large dispossessed underclass and a tiny empowered oligarchy that will run a ruthless and brutal system of neo-feudalism from secure compounds. Those who resist will be silenced, many by force. We will pay a terrible price, and we will pay this price soon, for the gross malfeasance of our power elite. 

I don't know who this author is, how much of an alarmist he is, but one of Taplin's commenters linked to it and I usually respect people having that conversation.

Caption Contest

If I could legally import this NYT picture, I would. But I can't. Anyway, what would your caption be?
Off the top of my head, how about "Take that, pig!"

I Want To Go To There

Andrew Sullivan linked to Fortune's marijuana cover story today.

New Mexico hopes to have the nation's first state-licensed medical marijuana farm and distributorship up and running by the time this article is published. New Mexico's law was enacted two years ago, but state officials hadn't dared implement it until Attorney General Holder blew the all clear in February.

It's All About You, Isn't It?

They asked a bunch of psychologists "What's the one nagging thing you still don't understand about yourself, " and, surprisingly, many of them answered.
Tidbit:

Our other disagreement was about forgiveness. I believe there are unforgivable actions – child abuse, rape, holocausts, torture are examples. The Dalai Lama says he forgives but does not forget. In my view, since he believes such people will be reincarnated in an undesirable form, he doesn’t need to forgive them.

Apocryphal?

We think not.

Castro provided another bizarre memory from that year's assembly by keeping live chickens in his hotel room.

Oh, that crazy U.N.

Comment O' Teh Day

Also, "Spider Milker" sounds like just about the worst job ever. Like, a representative from the Spider Milker Union is going to be the main attraction at the career fair of my nightmares.
From Ilana at MetaFilter. She was commenting about this.

Hey, Big Spender

It wasn't your grandaddy's Depression after all.
All that talk about how Americans learned to be frugal during the Depression, with Grandma saving string and whatnot? And how the great-grandkids are just a bunch of spoiled brats with too much stuff and too much debt?
Hooey. That's right. Hooey.
Consumption Junction started in the 1950s, and based on what we actually spend on stuff vs. necessities (health care anyone?) we've been getting the short end of the stick ever since, in case you haven't noticed.
Yeah, yeah, plasma TV, iPod City. I hear ya.
But don't take my word for it.
Read this. It's short. And based on, sigh, actual data.

Are You A Liberal?

Open adoption available from Jerry Falwell's (I thought he was dead, but no-o-o-!) Liberty Council.
Read more here without driving up their batshit crazy traffic.

Run, Sarah, Run!

News To Use

Your dog is vomiting the box of chocolates he ate while you were at the movies. It's midnight. What to do.

Keep Away From Your Children

Myparetswereawesome

Like The Spanish Inquisition

says Nobel winner.

Greider, 48, said she was telephoned just before 5 a.m. her time with the news that she had won.

"It's really very thrilling, it's something you can't expect," she told The Associated Press by telephone.

People might make predictions of who might win, but one never expects it, she said, adding that "It's like the Monty Python sketch, 'Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!'"

Wait a sec. Greider is 48 and the work that won was done during the 70s and 80s. Do the math. First female near-child to win Nobel?
And now for something completely different.

Linkins O' Teh Day

Congress is like "like a den of amphetaminized scorpion demons."
Sounds right to me. I love Jason Linkins, the only way to watch the Sunday talking heads is not to watch.

Quote O' Teh Day

"Why people who have not committed a punishable offense listen to country and western music is beyond me."
John Cleese, Monty Python interview



Oh, just one more then.


And a reunion and documentary.

I Didn't Know That

Monty Python has its own YouTube site.

Stacations

A friend recommended CheepSleeps and it looks like a good place to get some inside tips for local travel.

The Pope Scope

Andrew Sullivan at The Dish has ongoing conversations about religion. I enjoy reading what he and his readers have to say even though I don't expect any answers, just maybe some clarification of my own thinking. Today there's a link to some Jesuit scientists that seems to help. It's a really good read just for the novelty, not to mention the Jebbi (they let Catholics call them that) intellect.
Good pull quote, too.

Consolmagno has little patience for intelligent design. “Science cannot prove God, or disprove Him. He has to be assumed. If people have no other reason to believe in God than that they can’t imagine how the human eye could have evolved by itself, then their faith is very weak.” Rather than seeking affirmation of his own faith in the heavens, he explains that religion is what gives him the courage and desire to be a scientist. “Seeing the universe as God’s creation means that getting to play in the universe - which is really what a scientist does — is a way of playing with the Creator,” he says. “It’s a religious act. And it’s a very joyous act.”

Sesame Street In Palestine

From the NYT, kinda long.

Since the inception of “Sesame Street” in the United States 40 years ago, the nonprofit New York City-based organization that produces the show, which is now called Sesame Workshop, has created 25 international co-productions. Each country’s show has its own identity: a distinctive streetscape, live-action segments featuring local kids and a unique crew of Muppets. Bangladesh’s “Sisimpur” uses some traditional Bangladeshi puppets, and South Africa’s “Takalani Sesame” features Kami, an orphaned H.I.V.-positive Muppet.

Friviality Friday

Obama rumored to be taking new, more normal family.
The Onion comes through, as usual.

Poll: Happy, Healthy Obamas Out Of Touch With Miserable Americans

Fuck America

The right-wing screaming heads are triumphant that Obama, all by his foreign, Muslim self, lost the Olympics for Chicago.
In that vein, a commenter on Kos says

I hear wingnuts are agitating against America hosting the next Super Bowl.

The Worst of the Worst

Dick Cheney's description of all Gitmo detainees.
Here's one of Andrew Sullivan's commenters, a DOJ litigator, noting the most important paragraph from the judge in the al-Rabiah case:
Interrogator to prisoner:

“There is nothing against you. But there is no innocent person here. So, you should confess to something so you can be charged and sentenced and serve your sentence and then go back to your family and country, because you will not leave this place innocent.”

Whole thing is worth a read, it's not that long.

Comment O' Teh Day

From Josh Marshall:

We're now living in the post-Chicago Olympics rejection era.

Later, he said this:

Just Shoot Me Now Update: That Dr. Nancy goof on MSNBC just called this a "profound loss" for Chicago and a "stunning blow" for the USA. Look, I'm sure there are a lot of really disappointed people in Chicago who worked really hard. But c'mon, the rest of us can muddle through, right?

Me:
Post-modern News Rule #1
Anything new in the last hour or two is stunning, followed by profound.
Look it up, it's in every dictionary.

Meet Cousin Ardi

Pretty good write-up on the new fossil evidence.

Just Because I Can

Obama and niece Savita, Pete Souza, White House photog.

Maria Cantwell Is Brilliant Today

Throw her a little love, eh?
From TPM's liveblog of the Finance Committee debate on the public option.
2:03 p.m. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) notes smartly that any public option tied to Medicare will be tied to a newer, better Medicare that will correct for rural disparities, and reward providers that provide cost-effective care, and move away from fee for service. That undermines Kent Conrad's objection to a pretty significant extent. More on this soon.
2:09 p.m.Cantwell also says she'll be offering an amendment that will allow private insurers to team with the government to negotiate lower rates. Your move, Kent!

Joanie!

Baez, whose voice has followed me for more than 40 years, will be featured on PBS' American Masters Oct. 14.

Stop Eating Fish?

It's written in tabloid, semi-hysterical style. And rightly so.

Today, governments provide nearly $30 billion in subsidies each year--about one-third of the value of the global catch--that keep fisheries going, even when they have overexploited their resource base. As a result, there are between two and four times as many boats as the annual catch requires, and yet, the funds to “build capacity” keep coming...

But eating a tuna roll at a sushi restaurant should be considered no more environmentally benign than driving a Hummer or harpooning a manatee.

There's hope, though, in the last paragraph. If governments start behaving responsibly. Yeah.

Read This Long, Long Story

Every word. You won't regret it.

In The Year 2000

Speaking Of Babies

A little give-and-take between Dem. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Rep. Sen. John Kyle, who inadvertently reveals the depth of his Republicanness during Finance Committee debate over an effort to scratch maternity coverage from insurance requirements.

Friviality Friday

Rover, Fluffy and MRSA

Now, don't panic or anything. On the other hand, are you really going to wash every time you pet your dog or cat? Puleeze.
From the NYT:

In a study this summer in The American Journal of Infection Control, Elizabeth A. Scott and her colleagues at the Center for Hygiene and Health in Home and Community at Simmons College in Boston swabbed household surfaces like kitchen and bathtub drains, faucet handles, toilets, high chairs, trash cans and kitchen sponges at 35 randomly selected addresses to see what germs they would find. They found MRSA in nearly half of the homes they sampled.
When they tried to figure out what might make it more likely to have the bacteria at home, they ruled out many supposed risk factors, including working out at a gym, having children who attended day care, having a recent infection or recent antibiotic use, and even working in a health care facility.
The one variable that overwhelmingly predicted the presence of the germ was the presence of a cat. Cat owners were eight times more likely than others to have MRSA at home.
“There are a number of papers coming out now showing that pets pick up MRSA from us,” Dr. Scott said, “and that they shed it back into the environment again.”

Here's the don't panic part.

“In the grand scheme of things with MRSA, pets are a pretty minor thing,” he said. “But when you consider how many MRSA infections are occurring in North America at the moment, if they’re a minor component of a major disease, that’s still something we need to be aware of.”

A Few Words About Glenn Beck

From Salon via The Daily Howler.
I'm not gonna read it because I've already heard it.
And I'm not really as disturbed about him as Somerby.
Somewhere today I read that Beck has an audience of 2.2 million people a day. They're the crazy ones, and their numbers aren't all that alarming.
And besides, didn't Father Coughlin have a relatively large audience in his day?
On the other hand, ya gotta wonder how many extra issues Time sold of the Beck cover, and how many subscriptions that might translate into. Oy.
Okay, I'll worry. But I won't read it.

Kabuki, Ch. 499 and counting...

Okay, here's what they're saying over at TPM.
The White House is reaching out to progressives to allow a health reform bill with a triggered public option to pass in the Senate. A non-triggered bill will pass the House.
Then when it goes to conference, the bill that emerges will not have a trigger and will not allow for a filibuster, according to the rules.
So, what about Kent Conrad, I ask. They'll have 60 votes in the Senate if Conrad goes along, but he's making all sorts of noise right now. He's the co-op guy from North Dakota.
Of course, nobody says reconciliation is off the table either.
One commenter notes that the White House is just preparing for a variety of contingencies, which makes sense.

Erm, About That ACORN Bill Ch. II

Apparently some others have noticed its big flaw, too, including Greenwald, who does get attention.
How long before the New York Times does a story?
...crickets

I Love Epigraphs

piquant little quotes at the beginning of someone's writing. I used to use them a lot.
Phil Graham has a whole bunch to choose from.
Here's one:

"People don't change their minds. They die, and are replaced by people with different opinions."

- Arturo Albergati

And The Sooner The Better

The optimal ways to make money from the written word probably require different words written by different people….

From somebody named Phil Graham. He is talking about newspapers and publishing and movies and music, but not journalism. I'd like to know what he thinks about that. In the pure sense, that is.
Basically, he says we've never paid for content because we don't pay for information we don't need.

Forks At Twilight

The two-stoplight town on the Olympic Peninsula is prospering from its placement as the "Twilight" book series and movies' locale. Even the NYT has noticed.

A small Seattle-based outfitter, En Route to Adventure, offers a five-day Forks Adventures tour that covers key “Twilight” locations (206-619-5006; www.forksadventures.com). The cost is $1,200 a person. This year’s touring season has ended; the 2010 tour schedule is to be posted next month.

From the sounds of it, it's not as much fun as Twin Peaks, though. No cherry pie.

Sullivan On Afghanistan

Concise and to the point.

But no one has to sustain a war that is now twice as long as the Second World War if the results of the summer campaign, the exposure of deep corruption in Kabul and the use of Pakistan as a refuge make it a largely impossible endeavor.

Erm, About That ACORN bill

Some Kossacks have been mulling it over and today it seems some Florida Democrat got the same idea.
Seems there's some broad language that could snatch up some pretty big players.
Blackwater was the first one I thought of and, sure enough, so did others.

So as per the bill's text, I'm going to put into the Congressional record a list of organizations who have committed fraud against the government or employs anyone who has.
Now, I'm just one person, and I can't possibly find and list all of the organizations that fit this bill.  So I need your help.  Please nominate organizations and show me that they need to be in the record.  To help, send me the name of the organization and proof in the form of a link to evidence that this organization should be in the Congressional record.  I will also need your email address so I can follow-up with you if necessary.  The proof you send needs to be easily verifiable, as in credible media reports, legal documents, government data, or otherwise.
An example might work as follows.  Let's say that you were nominating 'Blackwater,' the controversial mercenary outfit which showed fraud in its contracts for Iraq in 2005.  You could include a link like this one.

Where Are The Terrorists?

Same place you are. Right now. Hi.

When a group has a haven, it will use it for such purposes as basic training of recruits. But the operations most important to future terrorist attacks do not need such a home, and few recruits are required for even very deadly terrorism. Consider: The preparations most important to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks took place not in training camps in Afghanistan but, rather, in apartments in Germany, hotel rooms in Spain and flight schools in the United States.

In the past couple of decades, international terrorist groups have thrived by exploiting globalization and information technology, which has lessened their dependence on physical havens.

By utilizing networks such as the Internet, terrorists' organizations have become more network-like, not beholden to any one headquarters. A significant jihadist terrorist threat to the United States persists, but that does not mean it will consist of attacks instigated and commanded from a South Asian haven, or that it will require a haven at all. Al-Qaeda's role in that threat is now less one of commander than of ideological lodestar, and for that role a haven is almost meaningless.

I Miss Republicans, Too

although I'm now not sure that they ever existed.

They were the grown-ups. They were the realists. Sure they were a bummer, maaaaan, but on the way to La Revolution you need somebody to remember where you parked the car.

Anyway, Judge Richard Posner has apparently stirred up a hornet's nest in his eulogy to conservatism, and the above link was from one of his commenters.

This East Fuckistan Thingie

I can't help but recall how many times someone new to the presidency with a long list of laudable domestic plans is diverted instead by the problems of maintaining this empire we've established. Enough to make you cry.
So, just in case you thought health care reform and carbon offset credits and financial and other regulatory reform were about it for Obama, there's this:
(You knew there was a leak this week, right?)

What are the alternatives? An intense, low-level war of attrition between NATO forces and the Taliban forever? Or a concerted effort by the US, Russia, Iran and China to essentially force India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmiri dispute, combined with massive amounts of direct aid to Pakistan, combined with a massive influx of intelligence assets into the region, combined with the bribing of willing and bribable Taliban commanders? Basically, instead of focusing on Afghan civillians, this strategy would make it as expensive as possible for a Taliban leader to decide not to ally with the United States.  In other words -- counterterrorism as counterinsurgency, and not the other way around.

As Washington synthesizes the new report and tries to gauge its effect on the administration, speculation naturally redounds to the source of the leaker. Various theories have been put forth; let's put aside Occam's razor and assume that McChrystal and his staff didn't just give the document to Woodward. Theory one:  Woodward traveled with Gen. Jim Jones recently, so Jones gave him the report. Probably not: the trip was in July, before the review was finished. Admiral Mike Mullen's staff, anxious about White House dithering, leaked the report with Mullen's blessing. Probably not: Mullen shares Jones's concerns about mission drift and is counseling caution. The  more probable communities of suspects: senior Pentagon civilian holdovers, lifers, who've cooperated with Woodward before and who have a stake in McChrystal's counterinsurgency doctrine; war planners at Centcom, or the large cadre of defense consultants with clearance.

This leak not, in other words, a shot in an ongoing conflict between the military and civilians. It's between those who are invested in the success of McChrystal's endeavor and those who harbor growing concerns about over-investing in a strategy that might not work.

My money's on Biden because why else was he picked.

Health Care In Canada

We aren't going to get anything like the Canadian system any time soon, but a Canadian reader over at The Dish shares his experience and worries about moving to the U.S. for his job.
Bottom line"

There was a long, hard political fight for universal health care in Canada. Man, was it worth it.

Quote O' Teh Day

 "My family is and always will be a decrepit bowl of dog urine compared to Nityananda of Ganeshpuri. That is how great Nityananda is." The Indian yogi died in 1961. "Wor ship Nityananda, not the Phillips family. Nityananda can protect you," said Tamerlane.

Tamerland Phillips commenting on his sister McKenzie's plan to reveal family secrets on Oprah today to advance her book sales.
I know, I know,  you never heard of either one of the children of former  Mamas and Papas  singer  John Phillips. Good quote though.

Green Birth Control

Linked from The Dish

Last week, the Optimum Population Trust published a paper it had commissioned from the London School of Economics estimating the effect on carbon emissions of providing birth control to women who want to use it, but currently lack access. It found that spending on birth control is six times as effective, as a means of reducing carbon emissions, as spending on renewable energy....Hopefully, since America is politically incapable of addressing this issue, someone else will be able to pick it up. The Europeans, perhaps. Or maybe the Chinese.

But worth reading the whole short piece from The Economist.

Time On Beck

Apples and oranges, but it feeds my bias.

In 1987 comedian David Brenner bombed in syndication with about 2.5 million viewers at midnight — which is roughly what Fox, the leading network for political talk shows, averages in prime time.

This from The Dish, but the chart is better. But again, Research 2000 is Daily Kos' pollster. Kos says they're neutral and report good as well as bad news for progressives. Still.
As for the Republican Party being a permanently regional voice, many have said it's true. Why then the credibility they're given by the media?
Cuz The Village is stupidly stuck in the time-warp that is Washington, D.C., and they're lazy, and they need blood on a daily basis. If all we had were stories critiquing the administration from a rational, factual perspective, people might actually turn off the tube or switch to HBO or something.

Warning: Process Story

The budget reconciliation route for health care reform in the Senate is not so simple. And then, of course, there's always unintended consequences.
But TPM's commenters so far are full-bore in favor of something lawmakers aren't likely to do, which seems to satisfy their underlying need to blame their own party for inevitable defeat. I get tired of them, too.
Perfect, meet good.