RIP Molly

Molly Ivins passed--a victim of breast cancer. I was a fervent reader of anything this woman wrote. Very sad news.



In Loving Memory of Molly Ivins.

I am So Super Bowled Out!!!

God Dammit!!

Yesterday I got two tickets. One for having parked at a meter spot for too long and another for speeding. Since I got this Cadillac I have averaged about one speeding ticket every six months or so. I have been able to beat them all by showing up to court, pleading "not guilty" and seeing my ticket being dismissed because either the Assistant AG didn't show up or the Officer failed to be in Court.

But, this one I got yesterday was in Wilmette, IL. I am worried that the Wilmette Police Department Deputy will make a point in showing up in Court since how busy Wilmette Police Department could be?

I am crossing my fingers on this one.

Watch this

Click here.

NBC too?

The press avert their eyes as Russert pancakes at the Libby trial

Tim Russert became the first press casualty of the Lewis "Scooter" Libby trial on Thursday, but his colleagues neglected to report it. The host of NBC's "Meet the Press" was identified in evidence submitted to bolster the testimony of Dick Cheney aide Cathie Martin as the vice president's platform of choice to push back against allegations that the administration knew that their claim of an Iraqi attempt to buy uranium from Niger was bogus. The overt implication is that the administration regarded Russert as a patsy, someone whose unaccountable credibility they could borrow to enhance their own, and someone through whom they could present their case with a minimum of interference.

Ah.... Good Music Days!!

I am proud to say that I am completely done with commercial radio. Nowhere in my life, can I be exposed to it. You ask how?

Well, I have XM Radio in my car. I have iTunes radio and AOL Radio at home. I have placed Airport Express in the workroom, the kitchen, the bedroom and the living room. With the use of this little gem called Airfoil, I can send AOL Radio through iTunes and so through Airport Express so I can hear it all over the house.

Actually, I have to praise Airfoil (available also for the Winblows crowd). This is one of the few sharewares that I have actually paid for and found that it was good enough of an idea that I would not hack the serial number.

I love it.

No more obnoxious DJs. No more obnoxious commercials. No more obnoxious comments. I am immune to idiocy on the airways! Now If I could do the same in my day to day interaction with the public...

Reality v. Propaganda

What's Really Going on in Baghdad

Mr Bush's speech is likely to deepen sectarianism in Iraq by identifying the Shia militias with Iran. In fact, the most powerful Shia militia, the Mehdi Army, is traditionally anti-Iranian. It is the Badr Organisation, now co-operating with US forces, which was formed and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In the Arab world as a whole, Mr Bush seems to be trying to rally the Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to support him in Iraq by exaggerating the Iranian threat.

test

this is a test--performancing

Know the Numbers

The Social Security WMD Story

First, know the numbers. The CBO report is readily available.

Second, listen carefully for the tricks. Even those who knew nothing about the Middle East could recognize that President Bush had no real evidence for his claims about Saddam's WMDs, because he was pushing stories that were obviously bogus. For example, he had British prime minister Tony Blair present a compilation of intelligence reports that was largely based on a grad student's research paper. People with real evidence don't put forward such nonsense.

One can find similar cues in the Social Security debate. All budget experts know that Medicare is projected to pose a huge problem because health care costs in the United States are projected to rise out of control. Those planning the attack on Social Security routinely talk about the costs of "Social Security and Medicare" and report huge numbers. Of course, the cost of mowing the White House lawn and Medicare will also be enormous. The problem is not the cost of Social Security or the cost of mowing the White House lawn. The problem is the cost of health care in the United States: let's fix it.

The other standard trick is to question the integrity of the Social Security trust fund, which is now approaching $2 trillion, more than $13,000 for every worker in the country. The trust fund is routinely derided as an accounting entry. Of course it is an accounting entry. Almost all claims to wealth in a modern economy are accounting entries - few people carry around gold these days. The Social Security trust fund is a legal obligation to our country's workers that is supposed to be paid out of the government's general budget. This money, in turn, comes primarily from progressive personal and corporate income taxes, which are paid primarily by the wealthy people who pay for political campaigns. In other words, the trust fund is an obligation to tax rich people to pay for workers' retirement benefits. Now you understand why so many people say it doesn't exist.

Social Security is a hugely successful and popular program. The people can save it if they refuse to buy another WMD story.

Another test

ok... I had some problems with the mobile. So here is another one.

Test

This is a blog entry sent from my Blackjack mobile thingy... I hope it works.

The Lobby's Hobby

The Israel Lobby Trips and Tilts

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

But if the lobby is fighting rearguard and increasingly futile actions to suppress all discussion here of what Israel is doing to Palestinians, it continues to exercise very serious clout in such enclaves of timidity as the U.S. Congress. Bush was not foolish in singling out Iran for threats in his January 10 address. The Democratic reaction to Bush’s escalation against Iraq and Iran has mostly been confined to nervous talk of “symbolic votes.” This temperate posture is surely not unconnected to the fact that the lobby’s prime foreign policy task, joined by Israeli hawks like Bibi Netanyahu, has been to rally support for an assault on Iran.

What an irony! Desperate for an end to the war, the voters hand Congress to the Democrats. Barely more than two months later Bush is kidnapping Iranian diplomats from in their consulate in Irbil, Iraq -- a calculated provocation arousing scant tumult here. Bush is also deploying a larger naval force to the Persian Gulf, as Israel plants stories about its possible recourse to nuclear weapons. Some provocation, maybe a seizure by the U.S. of an Iranian tanker, is easy to imagine in February. In the Congress, there’s barely a whimper out of the Democrats amid these terrifying prospects. It may have made a mess of its war against Carter’s book, but as a ferryman across the Styx toward Armageddon the lobby is doing a competent job.

January 27 2007 March on Washington

Assemble on the National Mall,

between 3rd and 7th Streets, at 11 am.


March will kick off at 1pm.


More details coming soon!

Here for more information

Now That's Debate!

... And whose shoe is that?

\

Taiwan Legislature Dissolves Into Chaos

Shoe, tossed by a legislator, is seen bouncing off the forehead of Parliament speaker Wang Jin-pyng, center. (AP)

Quotable ?

"Remember the Alamo! Shoot 'em! To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molestors dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want 'em dead. Get a gun, and when they attack you, shoot 'em."



--Ted Nugent during a National Rifle Association speech in Houston, Texas.

Quotable

Congress is against it, the military is against it, the American public is against it, and the Iraqis are against it; yet George Bush wants to drag America further into war. If one man can force a country to fight a war it no longer wants to fight, is that country a democracy in any true sense? And can Congress, taking meaningful, concrete steps, rescue our nation?



--The Nation

Huh???

Wait a minute. So they plan on reducing the interest rate and cut it nearly by half BUT it will take effect little by little and when it to take full effect the bill will expire?



The fuck kind of a bill is this?



These people keep insulting my intelligence.



House Votes to Reduce Rates on Student Loans

The House overwhelmingly approved a bill yesterday that is designed to cut interest rates on college loans, creating a plan that potentially could save students $2,300 over the course of a loan. But the reduction in rates would be phased in and would not take full effect until 2011, when the legislation would automatically expire unless renewed by Congress.

The Dream is Still Nothing but a Dream

Shove It!

Pick Up A Paper, Bozo

by digby

President Bush on Saturday challenged lawmakers skeptical of his new Iraq plan to propose their own strategy for stopping the violence in Baghdad.

"To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible," Bush said.

Oh George, shove it. Really.

There's the Murtha plan, the Biden plan, the Baker-Hamilton plan, the Levin-Reed plan --- and that's just off the top of my head.

There are plenty of plans, all of which Bush thinks are "flaming turds" because they don't allow him to pretend he is Winston Churchill now that he's completely screwed everything up --- as he always does.

Bush is only listening to Dick Cheney, nutball radio talk show hosts and neocon fantasists at this point because they continue to tell him that he is a glorious leader who is saving the world from the evil ones. He thinks he's Truman, which is really funny since Truman is known for his saying "the buck stops here" and Junior Codpiece has never taken responsibility for anything in his life.

There are plenty of plans, any of which are better than this completely absurd escalation that nobody in America or Iraq (except John McCain and the Last Honest Man) wants.

No Effect

The Minimum Wage: Which Economists Does the Post Talk to?

Beat the Press

The Washington Post has an interesting piece discussing the life of the low-wage workforce in small town Kansas. It also tells us of the problems that low-wage employers will face in paying the higher minimum. At one point it asserts that "most economists agree [that the proposed minimum wage hike] would cause a modest increase in national unemployment."



I'm not sure how they have determined the views of most economists. There is a large body of recent research that indicates that modest increases in the minimum wage, like that being considered, have no measurable effect on unemployment. The wage increase is absorbed in lower profits and higher prices.

Is This Guy an Idiot or Is This Guy and Idiot?

I listened to the speech. In sum here is what this man said:

"Stay the course but just add 20,000 troops."

Wow!!! Now here is novel idea. A complete overhaul of the strategy. So clever! So in depth! I am flabbergasted!

The Speech from the Guy in the White House

The Triumph of Capitalism

Study: 744,000 Are Homeless in U.S.

There were 744,000 homeless people in the United States in 2005, according to the first national estimate in a decade. A little more than half were living in shelters, and nearly a quarter were chronically homeless, according to the report Wednesday by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an advocacy group.

A majority of the homeless were single adults, but about 41 percent were in families, the report said.

Father Knows Best

Quotable

"The idea that the whole Eastern Mediterranean had to be polluted, that the Christian Lebanese economy had to be destroyed for the next decade or two, that 900,000 persons had to be rendered homeless, that a whole country had to be pounded into rubble because some Lebanese Shiites voted for Hizbullah in the last election, putting 12 in parliament, is obscene. Bush's glib ignorance is destroying our world. Our children will suffer for it, and perhaps our grandchildren after them."



— Juan Cole, Informed Comment

Thirty-Eighth President

Fairwell Oh Goofy One!