The Revolution Will Be Middle-Aged

The Cuban Revolution reaches a milestone. What keeps this creaky relic of the Communist era going?

The revolution still has plenty of advocates, in Cuba and abroad. They still point to achievements in health and education.

The revolution's biggest achievement, however, has been its ability to stay in power. There are many reasons why, including Fidel Castro's magnetism, the government's ruthless repression and gains in social services molded a loyal following among hard core fidelista types.

For it to be a true success, though, the revolution would have needed to produce democratic governance and a sustainable economy as well. It hasn't.

Now, at 50, the revolution is more an entrenched bureaucracy than an agent for change.

The ideology has become as geriatric as its leadership. Yes, Fidel outlasted all of the Presidents who wanted him gone. But he had to run his own country into the ground in order to do it.

Gaza Gangland

What does Israel do about Gaza, once the latest round of fighting is over?

The ideal situation, of course, is that the people of Gaza, realizing that Hamas has delivered them hardship, overthrow their government. But Hamas also alleviates the hardship it creates. The group has thoroughly penetrated the social fabric of Gaza. Its schools, orphanages, hospitals and soup kitchens serve the entire population. Hamas is not al-Qaeda. It delivers services, and because it delivers services, the population of Gaza depends on Hamas.

Well, many bad neighborhoods depend on the gangs that control them. Al Capone ran a soup kitchen. Like any popular political party, Hamas knows how to create good PR to keep its followers from figuring out that they're being used.

Bloggin' In The Years: 1879

It could literally be the light of a new age:

The lamp which Mr. Edison regards as a crowning triumph is a model of simplicity and economy. In the lamp the light is emitted by a horsechoe of carbonized paper about two and a half inches long and the width of a thread. This horsehoe is in a glass globe, from which the air has been as thoroughly exhausted as science is able to do.

...

"As there is no oxygen to burn," said Mr. Edison, "You can readily see that this piece of carbon will last an ordinary lifetime. It has the property of resisting the heat of the current of electricity, while at the same time it becomes incandescent, and it gives out one of the most brilliant lights which the world has ever seen. The cost of preparing one of these little horse-shoes of carbon is about one cent, and the entire lamp will not cost more than 25 cents."

Cheap and efficient, Mr. Edison? Bravo. Whatever you do, don't let the government get involved in it.

Bloggin' In The Years: 1999

Russia's favorite (or not so favorite) party boy is calling it quits.

President Boris Yeltsin announced on national television Friday that he had resigned and that presidential elections would be held within 90 days to replace him.

The announcement caught Russia by surprise and is likely to throw the country into yet another political crisis as parties scramble to prepare for unexpected presidential elections.

Looking pale and grim in a speech on national television, Yeltsin said he had turned over his powers to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, his preference to succeed him as president.

'Today, on the last day of the outgoing century, I resign,' Yeltsin said.

So meet the new boss, who's definitely not the same as the old boss. How will a former KGB guy run the former Soviet Union?

"No Filthy Luchre Near Me"

They do it every year, but in this particular economy Congress's self-induced pay raise is getting more criticism than usual.

Despite the country's economic meltdown, Congress is about to receive an automatic $4,700 pay raise on Thursday — a 2.8 percent increase over the current $169,300 salary for most members.

Rep. Jim Matheson says that is unconscionable, and he's vowing to renew his annual fight to stop such automatic raises. He says the bad economy might just help him win this year, and a government watchdog group is joining his battle to say the raise is a bad idea in such times.

'In a situation where there aren't many people in this country who are seeing their salaries go up, and in fact a lot of people are losing their jobs, the notion that Congress should be having an automatic pay raise without even a vote just doesn't pass the smell test,' Matheson said earlier this month.

Agreeing is Tom Schantz, president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste — which also issued a call for Congress to stop its automatic pay raise.

'While thousands of Americans are facing layoffs and downsizing, Congress should be mortified to accept a raise,' Schantz said.

Something tells me that they're not that mortified...

Crime And Sensible Punishment

Jim Webb takes up the cause of prison reform.

This spring, Webb (D-Va.) plans to introduce legislation on a long-standing passion of his: reforming the U.S. prison system. Jails teem with young black men who later struggle to rejoin society, he says. Drug addicts and the mentally ill take up cells that would be better used for violent criminals. And politicians have failed to address this costly problem for fear of being labeled 'soft on crime.'

It is a gamble for Webb, a fiery and cerebral Democrat from a staunchly law-and-order state. Virginia abolished parole in 1995, and it trails only Texas in the number of people it has executed. Moreover, as the country struggles with two wars overseas and an ailing economy, overflowing prisons are the last thing on many lawmakers' minds.

[...]

Webb aims much of his criticism at enforcement efforts that he says too often target low-level drug offenders and parole violators, rather than those who perpetrate violence, such as gang members. He also blames policies that strip felons of citizenship rights and can hinder their chances of finding a job after release. He says he believes society can be made safer while making the system more humane and cost-effective.

There is something to be said about reforming a system that seems designed to make politicians look better rather than to actually fight crime. Say what you will about his politics, on this issue Webb makes far more sense than most.

We Are All Peasants Now

It's kind of hard to disagree with John Cole here:

I really can not take another story about the rough lifestyle changes facing the rich and stupid. I don’t care that they are having to sell their summer homes in the Hamptons. I don’t care that they now are opting to fly first class instead of using their private jets. Do the folks at CNN and elsewhere not realize how deeply offensive this is to the other 99.5% of the country? You know, the folks who, during the current economic disaster are losing their house, their life savings, and their medical care, not their lunchtime reservations at a Manhattan eatery?

This only furthers my suspicion that many in the MSM wish they were the rich and stupid instead of just covering them.

Some Union Members Are More Equal Than Others

The automobile industry is hurting. So how are union leaders able to afford stuff like this?

Even as the industry struggles with massive losses, the UAW brass continue to own and operate a $33 million lakeside retreat in Michigan, complete with a $6.4 million designer golf course. And it's costing them millions each year.

• Click here to see photos of the UAW's $33 million retreat.

The UAW, known more for its strikes than its slices, hosts seminars and junkets at the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center in Onaway, Mich., which is nestled on '1,000 heavily forested acres' on Michigan's Black Lake, according to its Web site.

But the Black Lake club and retreat, which are among the union's biggest fixed assets, have lost $23 million in the past five years alone, a heavy albatross around the union's neck as it tries to manage a multibillion-dollar pension plan crisis.

Critics call it a resort for union leaders that wastes money from union dues.

'It's their members' money that they're spending on this thing,' said Justin Wilson, managing director of the Center for Union Facts, a union watchdog group. 'The union has bigger issues at hand than managing a golf course.'

Well, like the government, they have to waste the money on something, don't they?

Everyday Low Bailouts

And now the retailers want their share of the never-ending bailout:

The National Retail Federation called for three periods of sales tax-free shopping that would last 10 days each in March, July and October 2009. The trade group estimates that it would save consumers about $20 billion, or $175 per family.

Under the industry group's proposal, which would exclude alcohol and tobacco sales, the federal government would reimburse states for the lost tax revenue. State sales tax rates range from 2.9% to 7.25%, the group said. The five states without a sales tax -- Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon -- would also receive monies.

In a letter signed by the chief executives of retail chains, including J.C. Penney Co., Saks Inc. and Petsmart Inc., the NRF warned the situation was 'critical,' with consumer confidence in October falling to the lowest level in the 41 years data has been collected.

'Without swift, additional Congressional measures, the current economic weakness could worsen, creating a more rapid downward spiral -- beyond what economists are predicting for 2009 -- in the years ahead,' the NRF said.

I'm all for getting rid of taxes, but not at the cost of...other taxes. Something doesn't add up, here.

The Most Dangerous Woman In The World?

Via Ann Althouse, a look at the world of Oprah-ism as reported by Skeptoid:

To her estimated total audience of 100 million, many of whom uncritically accept every word the world's wealthiest woman says, she promotes the paranormal, psychic powers, new age spiritualism, conspiracy theories, quack celebrity diets, past life regression, angels, ghosts, alternative therapies like acupuncture and homeopathy, anti-vaccination, detoxification, vitamin megadosing, and virtually everything that will distract a human being from making useful progress and informed decisions in life. Although much of what she promotes is not directly harmful, she offers no distinction between the two, leaving the gullible public increasingly and incrementally injured with virtually every episode.

Oddly enough, Sean Hannity does much the same thing on Hannity's America.

Enter Rahmbo

I guess it's official:

Congressman Rahm Emanuel will resign his congressional seat on Friday in anticipation of joining President-elect Barack Obama's administration.
Emanuel delivered the news in an automated call to constituents on Monday.

'This is Congressman Rahm Emanuel. As you may have heard, President-elect Obama has asked me to be his new chief of staff and I have accepted this offer. Therefore, in the near future, I will be resigning from Congress. ... I also want you to know, it has been a privilege and an honor to serve as your representative for the last six years,' he says in the taped call.

Shortly after the election, Emanuel was the first person named to join Obama's team.
A special election now must be scheduled to fill Emanuel's seat in the 5th District, and several Chicago politicians have already expressed interest in the seat.

Let the bidding commence!

To Pledge Or Not To Pledge

You will be shocked-shocked, I say-to learn that teenagers still lie about sex in spite of abstinence-only programs.

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a 'virginity pledge,' but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

'Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior,' said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. 'But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking.'

We'll see how the backers of these programs try and explain this one.

From Over There To Over Here

Everybody hates America, right? Tell that to this guy.

When Staff Sgt. Rene Reale deploys to Iraq for the second time early next year, he'll risk his life fighting alongside his fellow members of the North Carolina National Guard.

But when it comes to choosing a commander-in-chief, Reale has no say. As a British citizen, Reale was unable to vote in the November election. And that's something he'd like to change.

As a combat veteran, the 40-year-old Reale is eligible for citizenship under rules signed by President George W. Bush in 2004 that streamlined the process for service members fighting in the U.S. military. More than 5,000 soldiers have become U.S. citizens since then, and several thousand more, including Reale, are in the pipeline.

'It is important for my family and me,' Reale said in an English accent. 'My kids are all Americans.'

I can hear the complaints from the anti-immigration crowd now: "They durk ur recruits!"

Did She Or Didn't She?

Condi Rice answers the question, sort of:

"There is a widely held belief in Washington, anyway, that you voted for Barack Obama," Braver said.

"And as secretary of state, I'm going to keep my partisan or non-partisan views to myself on that," Rice said. "But I think all Americans were taken with the fact that we were able, after the long history that we've been through, that initial birth defect of slavery that we elected an African American."

Let clarification reign!

It's The Corruption, Stupid

News flash! Americans think most politicians are crooks. In other news, the Sun sets in the West.

In Congress, prominent members such as House Ways and Means chair Charles Rangel, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens and Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson are either accused of malfeasance, officially charged with corruption or already convicted. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been accused of multiple acts of corruption, including extorting cash or jobs for filling President-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat. All of this is creating a growing sense of mistrust. But then Americans have always been suspicious of big institutions that can exert a lot of power.

Well, reasonable Americans, anyway. The unreasonable types on both sides keep sending their chosen crooks back into office.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Heh. Good question:

Given that we were told we had to immediately cut back on carbon emissions (even before sustainable alternative energies are in place), largely by curbing our lavish energy-dependent lifestyles, why then all the concern about stimuli and global depression? Surely, the world right now is sort of what the radical Gorists wanted to see, since the current cutback in gasoline usage, and general economic slowdown are radically restricting the burning of fossil fuels in a manner that even the most optimistic green utopian could hardly have envisioned just few years ago?

So, what about it? Do liberals want to save the carbon-using economy, or just those parts of it that are fashionable?

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Coalition

Obama's efforts at compromise may have earned him permanent distrust from, well, people who don't really matter:

For about a generation, many on the left have believed that active and unapologetic intolerance of the right was justified because its views on matters such as abortion and gay rights were simply unacceptable. This moral somersault may work for them, but to the average American voter, a full-throated assault on the likes of Rick Warren for being 'wrong' on two of many issues looks like simple intolerance.

The person in this drama for whom the leftwing Democratic habit of moralized intolerance could be a problem is Barack Obama. The left loaded up heavily in its support of candidate Obama, first against the Clinton machine -- always thought to be too willing to compromise with the center -- and then in the general campaign. These elements in the Democratic Party know what they want Barack Obama to deliver on judges, the environment, global warming and lifestyle rights litigation.

Mr. Obama's choice of Rick Warren for the Inaugural's invocation suggests that he is intent on using the momentum of his remarkable victory to build a governing coalition for the long haul. The silver lining for Republicans may be that the left won't let him do that.

The good news for Obama is that he really doesn't need them the way the Republicans needed the far right. Hmm. Maybe they could learn something from this.

Knickers Make The Rock Star

Some singers age better than others.

“People pick on Madonna unfairly,” [said Joe Levy, the editor of Blender], speaking of the star’s fanatical self-transformations.

It is certainly true that, in her role as seeker and radical self-improver, Madonna has provided a shiny alternative to a pop landscape that, without her, would doom audiences of the world to the likes of Sarah McLachlan, Shakira or, shiver, Angus Young.

Mr. Young, in case you’d forgotten, or never knew, is a guitarist and founder of the Australian metal band AC/DC. And he has been performing in the same stage garb for almost his entire career.

That is to say he has been wearing knickers and a schoolboy cap for twice as long as Miley Cyrus, the tween moppet, has been alive and honing a hapless sex-kitten routine.

Mr. Levy put it this way: “It’s a little creepy to see this ancient bald man in knickers.”

I have to admit, I never thought of it that way. But then again, when was the last time you saw other rockers from the same era still wearing Spandex?

"Leave The Fighting To Someone Else"

Calling all Muslims: Iran needs cannon fodder!

Iran's Supreme Leader issued a religious decree to Muslims around the world on Sunday, ordering them to defend Palestinians in Gaza against Israeli attacks 'in any way possible', state television reported.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also declared Monday a day of public mourning in Iran after Israel killed more than 280 Palestinians in two days of air strikes on Gaza.

'All Palestinian combatants and all the Islamic world's pious people are obliged to defend the defenceless women, children and people in Gaza in any way possible,' Khamenei said.

'Whoever is killed in this legitimate defence, is considered a martyr,' he said in a statement.

Considering that the whole martyrdom thing isn't as popular as it used to be, I have to wonder how many will actually take Iran up on its offer.

Girls With Guns

Oh, how the mighty have fallen:

Laura Zuniga, the Mexican beauty queen jailed after she was picked up with an alleged drug cartel leader and heavily armed men, has been stripped of one of her titles, Bolivian organizers said Saturday.

Zuniga lost her title as Queen of Hispanic America, said Promociones Gloria, the Bolivian group that organizes the event.

Vivian Noronha Cia of Brazil now takes the tiara 'as consequence of the events known to the public in which Miss Laura Zuniga... was involved,' Promociones Gloria said in a brief statement.

Zuniga 'failed to follow the rules of the contest, which state that the winner must display correct behavior, stay away from scandals and bad habits, and be a good example to society,' Tatiana Limpias de Tarabillo, who heads Promociones Gloria, told the Bolivian daily El Deber.

I wouldn't feel too bad. In America, this would qualify her as an American Idol contestant.

Selling The Brand

The MSM is discovering that it's not as easy to sell a Kennedy as they thought.

The media is shocked, shocked to learn she’s a political dilettante and a bit foolish. We learn that she was cheap, or rather disinterested I think, when it came to financially supporting New York Democrats. Then, she channels a bit of Queen Victoria and Bob Dole in explaining her infrequent voting record: “I was dismayed by my voting record.” (Will she be dismayed by her voting record if she gets to the Senate? It boggles the mind, really.)

Her list of errors is growing — from ducking the press to refusing to reveal her finances (hint: she’s really, really rich) to seeming unawareness that it is poor form to sound iffy on support for the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City. (Her handlers have since told her as much and she’s now reversed course, making clear her devotion to all things and people Democratic.)

But these individual missteps stem from a central problem: she is an unserious candidate running at a serious time for a real office. New York, perhaps more acutely and immediately than the rest of the country, is feeling the impact of the financial meltdown. Upstate New York, as it had throughout Hillary Clinton’s tenure, has more than its share of economic problems. And the country as a whole has some fairly daunting challenges. Given all this do the media elites expect Princess Caroline to be welcomed by the little people — and real pols — with open arms? Not so much, it seems.

Well, inexperience and foolish behavior never stopped anyone from trying to get to national office before. Just ask Sarah Palin.

The Other Ponzi Scheme

Paul Mulshine says the real crooks are still out there:

From what I can gather, Madoff at least made an attempt to invest the money he got from early investors to give them the returns he promised. Those investments failed to bring in enough money and the scheme was doomed to fail sooner or later. But if Madoff had been a more brilliant investor, it might have worked.

The federal government, on the other hand, never tried to make the Social Security system work. The feds didn’t invest the money in the market. They took the money that we gave them and lent it to themselves, promising themselves interest. To be paid by themselves.

This scheme is even more crooked than Madoff’s.

Well, one man's scam is another man's government benefit...

Welcome To Oz

Are the Aussies going to take Guantanamo detainees off our hands?

KEVIN Rudd has left open the possibility of Australia taking former inmates from the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

But he warned that any US request for an inmate to come would be subject to legal criteria and assessed on a case-by-case basis, The Australian reports.

As the Greens warned the Prime Minister he faced a political backlash if he accepted detainees held in the US military jail at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, a spokesman for Mr Rudd confirmed US authorities had approached Australia and other countries about resettling the detainees.

'Australia, along with a number of other countries, has been approached to consider resettling detainees from Guantanamo Bay,' the Prime Minister's spokesman said.

'Any determination for an individual to come to Australia would be made on a case-by-case basis.

"All persons accepted to come to Australia would have to meet Australia's strict legal requirements and go through the normal and extremely rigorous assessment processes."

Hey, if they want 'em, they can have 'em. I just worry that being exposed to Olivia Newton John might be considered torture...

No Euros for You

At least one country in Europe seems to have learned from its past mistakes:

With battle lines sharpening, the German government appears determined to resist calls to spend an additional €40 billion to fight its way out of the recession, according to officials attending a meeting in the Chancellery in the past week.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is being pulled in all directions as she plans a Jan. 5 follow-up to a meeting of German government officials, business executives and union leaders she called two weeks ago to discuss ways to counter the recession.

The business community, leaders of German states and other European Union nations are calling for the additional spending, which would amount to $56 billion. Industry chiefs, meanwhile, are calling for tax cuts.
Merkel, facing federal elections in September, has said the focus of any spending measures must be preserving jobs. At the meeting two weeks ago, industry lobbyists promised to go along on that point, but now they have backed away even as they exert more pressure on her.
....

Merkel and Peer Steinbrück, the finance minister, seem to have concluded that they will face criticism no matter what action they take.

If they increase spending, they risk violating the Stability and Growth Pact. Less than four years ago, Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, disregarded those rules and was accused of undermining Europe's attempts to keep budget deficits under control.

But if they do not increase spending, they face further complaints from other EU countries, notably Britain and France, and from industry here for not doing enough to bring Europe out of the economic crisis.

Here's hoping Merkel holds the line. Somebody has to teach the Europeans what fiscal responsiblity is. It certainly hasn't been us.

An Asian Storm

There's growing trouble between India and Pakistan.

The United States has urged India and Pakistan to avoid unnecessarily raising tension amid reports of troop movements to the border.
Pakistan has redeployed some troops from the north-west and some leave has been cancelled, army officials said.

India earlier advised its citizens against travelling to Pakistan amid the continuing tension in the wake of last month's deadly attacks in Mumbai.

The attacks on several targets in the city left more than 170 people dead.

'Close contact'

A Pakistani military spokesman called its movements a minimum defensive measure.

And a senior security official said a limited number of soldiers had been pulled out from non-essential positions on the Afghan border and areas where there were no military operations.

Pakistani media reported that troops were strengthening some positions on the border with India.

India certainly has a right to defend itself. The problem here is that both countries have nukes, and one is on the verge of becoming a basketcase. And basketcases have a tendency to be dangerous when cornered.

Secretary Of Pork?

If Obama's pick for Secretary of Transportation is any indication of what Obama's domestic policies are going to be like, be prepared for even more pork than usual.

As a long-time and stalwart Member of the House Appropriations Committee, Mr. LaHood facilitated the incontinent spending that helped Republicans lose their majority in 2006. And he did so unapologetically, once telling a reporter for the Peoria Journal Star, 'The reason I went on the Appropriations Committee, the reason other people go on the Appropriations Committee, is they know that it puts them in a position to know where the money is at, to know the people who are doling the money out and to be in the room when the money is being doled out.'

Mr. LaHood was also among those who most resisted backbench GOP efforts to curb earmarks. 'If people like Ray LaHood and others aren't able to earmark dollars, that money will be spent by some bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.,' he said earlier this year. 'And who knows better how to spend money on worthwhile projects than a community and an individual Congressman?' We'll be fascinated to see how he interprets that governing dictum now that he's on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, in fiscal 2008 the Congressman secured $62.7 million in earmarks for his district -- either alone or working with other Members. That put him in the top 10% of House pork-barrelers. Mr. Obama repeatedly said during the Presidential campaign that the earmarking system should be overhauled, yet he's elevated to his cabinet a Machiavelli of this system.

Is there any way we could ever get these people off their addiction to dead pig meat? After eight years of one big-spending administration, can we really afford another?

Happy Saturnalia!

Another year has come and gone. Hard to believe a decade is almost over. We have a new President, and many challenges ahead, but this is, for all its faults, still one of the greatest countries on Earth, where we can criticize our leaders, live in relative safety and comfort through our own efforts, and celebrate the fact that we made it through anoher year. So merry Christmas (or happy Festivus!) and may your own holiday be filled with good cheer and good company.

Dude, Where's My Diversity?

Roland Martin points out the overall stupidity of how diverse an administration is supposed to be:

This is the most utterly useless conversations that exists every four years, because folks always do this, Republicans and Democrats.

I actually got an e-mail from somebody who complained that there were not enough dark-skinned African-Americans. Obama was only choosing light-skinned African-Americans. That’s how crazy this conversation is. How many women should he choose? Should it be 10 out of the 20? Should it be 50 percent, as opposed to 25 percent?

It is a ridiculous conversation. The focus of any of these groups, whether you’re women, African-American, Hispanic, whether you’re progressive, should be, what are the policies that are going to be initiated?

The whole debate reminds me of this classic skit from Saturday Night Live. Once we get over who's more diverse and start focusing on the actual quality of the people we put in positions of responsibility, we really will have moved on from the past.

Rent Control

Blago's case may be high profile, but as anyone who knows anything about politics knows, it's hardly unique.

It's easy to look at the Blagojevich case and see a failure of personal ethics. It is about character. But it's also about how government itself creates the very conditions for corruption. Think of all the special privileges governors can bestow: subsidies for stadiums, public-works contracts, special taxes and fees, not to mention myriad regulations with myriad loopholes. Chief executives – mayors, governors, and presidents – are supposed to be the chief enforcers of the law. Today, though, they are also chief bestowers of privileges.....

......Blagojevich's shenanigans – though probably illegal in ways that grants of other special privileges aren't – are nevertheless appropriately seen as a product of the rent-seeking culture that today's increasingly unconstrained government engenders.

When politicians get "Rent" for their services, shouldn't that make the voters the landlords? And shouldn't the voters then have the right to evict them?

"You're A Business Because We Say So"

What happens when you try to do the right thing for the government? The government lets the bureaucrats bring charges against you.

A Titusville man was just trying to do the right thing when he paid sales tax a store had failed to collect for a small purchase. But after paying the $1.50 tax, the state threatened the man with major fines and criminal charges.

Scott Anderson tackles repairs around the house himself. So he frequents ACE Hardware in Titusville ---but one trip in September still haunts him. Scott, a federal park employee, spent just 23 dollars for a few items----and later discovered the store failed to charge sales tax.

Scott thinks the store used a tax exempt account linked to his job. The former navy man who does things by the book---- was going to make it right.

"So I wrote out a check and mailed it to the department of revenue," said Scott.

He sent a check to the state for a dollar and 50 cents---with a full explanation. But the very next month---the agency demanded Scott pay a 50 dollar fine ---because it thought he was a business---that failed to file tax returns.

Scott sent another letter to Tallahasse clearly stating that he was paying sales tax as a customer after a minor mistake. He thought that was the end of it. But far from it---the next month the revenue department insisted Scott was a business that had to pay a 650 dollar fine---or face collections ---AND criminal charges.

'And possibly prosecute me under a third degree felony for stealing money from the state,' said Scott.

The same week Scott called Action 9, a regional state tax office promised to clear things up.

(Todd) 'You've the heard the expression no good deed goes unpunished. Is that you?' (Scott) 'This is it a perfect example.'

But if he could declare himself a business, couldn't he then claim whatever he bought as being tax-deductable? Or at the very least, qualify for a bailout...

Don't Show Them The Money

Want to know where all that bailout money went? You won't get the answer from the banks.

After receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending it. Some won't even talk about it.

'We're choosing not to disclose that,' said Kevin Heine, spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon, which received about $3 billion.

Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money, said that while some of the money was lent, some was not, and the bank has not given any accounting of exactly how the money is being used.

'We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to,' Kelly said.

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what's the plan for the rest?

None of the banks provided specific answers.

[....]

Pressured by the Bush administration to approve the money quickly, Congress attached nearly no strings to the $700 billion bailout in October. And the Treasury Department, which doles out the money, never asked banks how it would be spent.

"Those are legitimate questions that should have been asked on Day One," said Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., a House Financial Services Committee member who opposed the bailout as it was rushed through Congress. "Where is the money going to go to? How is it going to be spent? When are we going to get a record on it?"

Nearly every bank AP questioned - including Citibank and Bank of America, two of the largest recipients of bailout money - responded with generic public relations statements explaining that the money was being used to strengthen balance sheets and continue making loans to ease the credit crisis.

A few banks described company-specific programs, such as JPMorgan Chase's plan to lend $5 billion to nonprofit and health care companies next year. Richard Becker, senior vice president of Wisconsin-based Marshall & Ilsley Corp., said the $1.75 billion in bailout money allowed the bank to temporarily stop foreclosing on homes.

But no bank provided even the most basic accounting for the federal money.

They seem to have learned a great deal from the government that bailed them out...

They Fought The Law And The Law Won

Sorry, Lefties, you lose.

Police officers did nothing wrong during mass arrests on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, an independent police monitor said Monday.

In a letter to ACLU attorney Taylor Pendergrass, monitor Richard Rosenthal said there is no evidence to support a complaint alleging officers lied about whether they gave an order to disperse before arresting more than 100 people during the Aug. 25 gathering.

The American Civil Liberties Union complaint also contended a police officer pretending to be a protester created a tense atmosphere when he confronted another officer. Rosenthal said the undercover officer acted appropriately.

The ACLU did not immediately return a call for comment.

[....]

Police have said anarchists planned to wreak havoc at convention delegate hotels and downtown businesses and that officers were trying to control the crowd.

When you have the left protesting against the left, things can get ugly. Fortunately, in this case they didn't.

The Promise And The Peril

If Obama is looking for a President to emulate, history suggests that FDR might not be the best choice:

Mr. Obama's hero, Franklin D. Roosevelt, tried to spend America out of the Great Depression with infrastructure projects, and they were a costly disappointment; unemployment averaged 17 percent during the height of the New Deal, from 1933 to 1940. Consider the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of FDR's most ambitious projects: In the decades since TVA dams began operating, states with TVA-subsidized electricity like Tennessee have lagged behind non-subsidized Southern states like Georgia in economic growth and average incomes.

Grand schemes designed to "Stimulate" a troubled economy or fix society's problems usually wind up doing the opposite. Just ask Lyndon B. Johnson, or George W. Bush.

Better Looking Through Drinking

I knew alcohol had a purpose:

Researchers found that women who drink even moderately develop a reduced ability to rate attractiveness in male faces, even when they are sober.

Those who drank were less able to detect male facial symmetry, a marker of attractiveness and good genes which is thought to play an important role in the choice of a partner.

I'd like to try this experiment on a regular basis. Will volunteers please belly up to the bar?

It's Pat

Leave it to morons like Pat Boone to avoid any rational discussion over gay rights:

Oh, I know the homosexual “rights” demonstrations haven’t reached the same level of violence, but I’m referring to the anger, the vehemence, the total disregard for law and order and the supposed rights of their fellow citizens. I’m referring to the intolerance, the hate seething in the words, faces and actions of those who didn’t get their way in a democratic election, and who proclaim loudly that they will get their way, no matter what the electorate wants!

Hate is hate, no matter where it erupts. And hate, unbridled, will eventually and inevitably boil into violence.
[...]
What troubles me so deeply, and should trouble all thinking Americans, is that there is a real, unbroken line between the jihadist savagery in Mumbai and the hedonistic, irresponsible, blindly selfish goals and tactics of our homegrown sexual jihadists. Hate is hate, no matter where it erupts. And by its very nature, if it’s not held in check, it will escalate into acts vile, violent and destructive.

Yeah, I expect those who are upset over Rick Warren and Prop 8 to start beheading people any day now. Sheesh.

The Road To Over-Regulation

Once again, something that's "For the children"-in this case, the Consumer Product And Safety Act-might do more harm than good:

Among other little details, this law may require toy manufacturers and importers to perform costly outside testing, at a cost of over $4000, on each lot of toys shipped. If the law is so interpreted by the people who draft its enabling regulations, that will simply put small manufacturers out of business, leaving the American toy market to giants such as Mattel or driving more of the business to overseas competitors who produce on a larger scale and can absorb the cost. The result, probably not intended at all by lawmakers, may be monopoly or oligopoly in the American toy market, accomplished through regulation rather than market forces.

Tell me again, which party is suppoed to be against socialism, again?

Charity Doesn't Begin At Home

Who are the real Scrooges out there?

This holiday season is a time to examine who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but I’m unhappy with my findings. The problem is this: We liberals are personally stingy. Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.

Well, it's always easy to talk about "Giving until it hurts" when it's not your money that's being spent.

Heirs To The Throne

Why do voters insist on having dynasties in a democracy? After all, it's not as if the families actually deserve it.

These people have every right to work the family name and connections, but as voters, I think we’re generally foolish to support the dynastic system. We would be much wiser to examine the lingering feelings that draw us to the idea of Noble Families and Great Houses–the whole idea of nobility that our coutry tried to break from 200-plus years ago. . . . How sad that even Hollywood rejects the brand-name/family-mystique idea, but the voters can’t. Lots of movie star children get an easy break into films, but the vast majority of them fail pretty quickly. The success rate is low. In politics it is extremely high. That’s pathetic.

As the saying goes, politics is show business for ugly people. It's also a stepping stone for those who want the closest thing to heraldy that we have in this country. We may have dethroned nobility in 1776, but it seems we still want it after all.

Corruption As Usual

Is Blago really all that different from his Washington peers?

Some suspect that the only difference between the traditional deal-making that lubricates Washington and the effort to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat was that the Governor got caught. Mr Blagojevich’s lawyer, Ed Genson, said yesterday that the case was “much ado about nothing” as he declared that his client would fight the charges and delay a decision on filling the seat. Others are asking if Congressman Charlie Rangel will be subjected to a FBI inquiry for allegedly backing a tax break to Nabors Industries in return for contributions from the company’s chief executive to an education programme bearing the Democrat’s name.

So, will the scandal make future office-holders behave? If history is any indication, unfortunately probably not.

Manhattan Transfer

I guess this guy's not getting any bailout:

The president of a foundation that co-owns a Manhattan building allegedly linked to a bank accused of supporting Iran's nuclear program was arrested Friday.

Farshid Jahedi, 54, the president of the Alavi Foundation, was charged with obstruction of justice after he tried on Thursday to throw away documents responsive to a subpoena he received one day earlier, federal prosecutors said.

An FBI complaint against Jahedi said he was warned not to destroy documents requested by a grand jury. It said he disobeyed the order when he went home to Ardsley, N.Y., where he dumped papers in a public trash can.

The documents referred to Assa Limited, Assa Co. and 650 Fifth Ave. Co., subjects responsive to the subpoena, authorities said. Jahedi's Alavi Foundation owns 60 percent of the building on Fifth Avenue.

The U.S. government said Assa Co. Ltd. was a front set up by Iran's Bank Melli to funnel money from the U.S. to Iran. Bank Melli has been accused of providing support for Iran's nuclear program. Earlier this week, the Treasury Department sought forfeiture of the 40 percent interest that Assa held in the building and the money in its bank accounts.

Money laundering and "Legitimate" fronts? I think somebody in Iran has been watching too many Robert DeNiro movies.

When In Doubt, Quit

Why can't our own politicians would be more like this?

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme offered the resignation of his entire government Friday over allegations it sought to interfere with a court case on the Fortis bank bailout.

Justice Minister Jo Vandeurzen resigned earlier Friday after Belgium's highest court said the government had tried last week to influence the case on the bailout and sale of the troubled bank.

Belgian King Albert II was to decide late Friday whether to refuse or accept the resignation.

The separation of powers is a cornerstone of Belgian parliamentary democracy and the alleged attempts by the government to influence the course of judicial process have infuriated partners in a coalition government that was already shaky.

'Shocking. This does not belong in the rule of law,' said Bart Somers, the chairman of the ruling Dutch-Speaking Liberal party. 'A cornerstone of democracy has been put in danger.'

There's something to be said for accepting responsibility. Are you listening, Blago?

Too Bold To Fail

New Deal II keeps rolling along:

Vice President-elect Joe Biden says lawmakers from both parties have urged the incoming administration to be big and bold with its economic aid plan next year despite the huge deficits being created.

'There is going to be real significant investment, whether it's $600 billion or more, or $700 billion, the clear notion is it's a number no one would have thought about a year ago,' Biden told ABC's 'This Week' for an interview to air Sunday.

Biden said the spending was necessary to stop the loss of jobs and that the economy would be the administration's top priority.

I'd be more upset about this, except that Bush got the ball rolling first.

Fight Club

Hot Rod isn't going anywhere:

Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois, who has been accused of scheming to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat, said on Friday that he would not resign and insisted that he had done nothing wrong, saying defiantly, “I will fight, I will fight, I will fight.”

In his first statement since he was arrested on federal charges of conspiracy and soliciting bribes, Mr. Blagojevich was alternately emotional and combative, his voice breaking as he told reporters that he would be vindicated, and asked Illinois residents to withhold their judgment.

“I intend to stay on the job and I will fight this thing every step of the way,” he said in an appearance at the James R. Thompson Center in downtown Chicago. “I will fight, I will fight, I will fight, till I take my very last breath. I have done nothing wrong.”

In case you didn't hear, he's gonna fight! That is, at least until his own people throw him out.

Stuck In The Middle With You

There's more evidence that the Right may be happier with Obama than the Left will:

“Barack Obama has never made any bones about it: He is a moderate,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way, a moderate public policy think tank. “People who ignored that did so at their peril.”

Obama’s Cabinet, which will be rounded out Friday with formal announcements for labor and transportation, is politically moderate and ethnically diverse. There are Ivy Leaguers and hoopsters, loyalists to Hillary Rodham Clinton and longtime allies of Obama, and Midwesterners, Westerners and New Yorkers. Texans filled 43’s White House, but not 44’s, with just one in Kirk.

And for a guy who complained plenty about broken politics, roughly half his picks are current or former officeholders.

Whatever critics think of it, he did it fast — the fastest in modern times, according to the nonpartisan White House Transition Project, an organization of academics who study presidential transitions. Obama has said he wants to hit the ground running, with the country in recession. He’s getting on a plane Saturday for Christmas in Hawaii, which has a way of focusing the mind, too.

The Cabinet includes 15 executive departments, including homeland security, health and human services and defense. Other appointees, such as director of the Environmental Protection Agency, White House chief of staff and ambassador to the United Nations, will be given Cabinet-level rank.

The more liberals are disappointed in Obama, the better he actually sounds. Stay in the middle? Yes we can!

Ancestral Intervention

Who says human beings can't be good for the planet?

The common wisdom is that the invention of the steam engine and the advent of the coal-fueled industrial age marked the beginning of human influence on global climate.

But gathering physical evidence, backed by powerful simulations on the world's most advanced computer climate models, is reshaping that view and lending strong support to the radical idea that human-induced climate change began not 200 years ago, but thousands of years ago with the onset of large-scale agriculture in Asia and extensive deforestation in Europe.

What's more, according to the same computer simulations, the cumulative effect of thousands of years of human influence on climate is preventing the world from entering a new glacial age, altering a clockwork rhythm of periodic cooling of the planet that extends back more than a million years.

'This challenges the paradigm that things began changing with the Industrial Revolution,' says Stephen Vavrus, a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Climatic Research and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. 'If you think about even a small rate of increase over a long period of time, it becomes important.'

So, take heart. The fact that we aren't freezing can be attributed to our farming forbears.

California Cash Dreamin'

The Golden State is losing quite a bit of its luster.

California may soon have more bankrupt towns on its hands.

The city of Vallejo, Calif., gained national attention earlier this year by filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. Now, two neighbors are fighting to avoid the same fate, as the state's economic crisis spreads.

Isleton and Rio Vista, small towns roughly 50 miles northeast of San Francisco, say they have begun consulting with bankruptcy lawyers as they draw up plans to deal with their mounting budget crises. The towns' leaders say they hope to avoid bankruptcy, but concede the move may eventually be their only option.

'We're strapped for cash and by the end of March or early April we may not have enough money to pay for payroll,' says Hector De La Rosa, Rio Vista's city manager.

California's troubled towns can't expect much help from the state. A state board voted Wednesday to shut off $3.8 billion in financing to hundreds of infrastructure projects to preserve cash, as the nation's most populous state struggles under a budget deficit that officials say could balloon to more than $40 billion over the next two years.

'California's fiscal house is burning down,' State Treasurer Bill Lockyer said in a statement.

Does this qualify California for a bailout? Everyone else seems to be getting one.

The Culture War, International Style

We're not the only ones grappling with the issue:

The U.N. General Assembly split over the issue of gay rights on Thursday after a European-drafted statement calling for decriminalization of homosexuality prompted an Arab-backed one opposing it.

Diplomats said a joint statement initiated by France and the Netherlands gathered 66 signatures in the 192-nation assembly after it was read out by Argentina at a plenary session. A rival statement, read out by Syria, gathered some 60.

The two statements remained open for further signatures, the diplomats said. No resolution was drafted on the issue and there was no voting, they added.

The division in the General Assembly reflected conflicting laws in the world at large. According to sponsors of the Franco-Dutch text, homosexuality is illegal in 77 countries, seven of which punish it by death.

So does this make those countries the "Red States" of the world?

Middle Man

While we're on the subject of Obama's "Heresy", there's more to ponder:

Consider this - on issues such as FISA surveillance or the Bush tax cuts for the rich Obama has already back-pedaled. He is likely further to outrage a contingent of his supporters by declining to declare defeat in Iraq, blame Bush, and leave. There even seems to be a movement towards creating a bit of wiggle room on enhanced interrogation.

I don't agreeentirely with this, either-but again, it shows that the right won't have nearly as much to fear from Obama as the left will. Nuance!

Not Your Father's Liberalism

By choosing Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration, Obama apparently upset some folks. But that might be a good thing.

By giving Warren a platform, Obama is not endorsing his views–but he is saying that those views are a legitimate part of the national conversation.

That’s not a snub of liberals. But it is a swipe at one type of liberalism–the type that has been working to get people fired for making donations to the campaign for the initiative, that has attacked the Mormon Church for its support of it, and so forth.

Not many liberals have spoken up against these tactics. Liberals should not be surprised that Obama has refused to join an effort that implicitly brands a majority of the voters of California, of all places, as at best the dupes of bigots. But those liberals who are engaged in that effort should indeed feel snubbed–as they deserve to be.

I have mixed feelings about this myself, but it does seem a sincere attempt to reach out to socially conscious evangelicals, which Warren certainly is. If nothing else, it shows Obama's centrist creds. He's not beholden to the traditional liberal groups. That's what they're really upset about.

The Bailout Quagmire

Obama may soon find himself at odds with the rest of the country if he pursues an auto industry bailout.

While it looks like the Bush administration may yet offer a 'bridge loan' to the industry, this is a policy area that will confront the Obama administration early. At the moment, the pro-bailout position is a minority view. Either the new president will have to persuade those Independents to change their minds, or he will find he faces an early challenge to his ability to govern from a majority position. Little will erode his strong current public support faster than pushing for policies that face majority opposition. In this case, his tepid support for the auto-industry now may have missed the opportunity to convert Independents before their opposition has hardened. Or perhaps GM and Chrysler will file for Chapter 11 and spare him the task.

If his support evaporates, Obama may not even have the chance for the traditional Presidential honeymoon. Obama's best option is not to follow in the footsteps of our outgoing big-spender-in-chief.

Silence Of The Rahm

Heh. This could explain why we haven't heard from Rahmbo as of late:

The Politico's John Bresnahan has written a great story about how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put the screws to her former House colleague, Rahm Emanuel, informing him that she did not need his advice about leadership elections and, most dramatically, demanding that the White House account for every conversation it has with Pelosi's members.

The story makes Pelosi look formidable and Rahm look like a creampuff.

Say what you will about Nancy's politics; nobody can accuse her of not being able to play with the big boys.

Cheney's Choice

What's he up to, here?

Vice President Dick Cheney is calling President-elect Barack Obama's national security lineup 'a pretty good team.'

In a wide-ranging interview with ABC News with 35 days left in the Bush administration, Cheney also again vehemently defended going to war in Iraq, said waterboarding of suspects in the war on terror was justified in some instances and opposed closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

'I must say, I think it's a pretty good team,' Cheney said of Obama's national security choices, in a segment of the interview broadcast Tuesday on 'Good Morning America.'

'I'm not close to Barack Obama, obviously, nor do I identify with him politically. He's a liberal. I'm a conservative,' he said.

But the vice president also said he thinks 'the idea of keeping (Bob) Gates at defense is excellent. I think (retired Gen.) Jim Jones will be very, very effective as the national security adviser.'

And Cheney said that while 'I would not have hired' Hillary Rodham Clinton to be secretary of state, 'I think she's tough. She's smart, she works very hard and she may turn out to be just what President Obama needs.'

I've never been fond of Cheney, but he's no dummy. Is he crazy-or crazy like a fox?

Up In Smoke

Who's getting hurt by the Madoff scandal? Those who actually do some good with the money.

Around the country, the nonprofit community is reeling from the Madoff scandal. At least two other foundations have been forced to close their doors, having lost virtually all their assets to what authorities describe as a Ponzi scheme that depended on new investment money to pay off on earlier investments.

Charities that depended on those foundations for financing, like the Innocence Project and the UJA Federation, and wealthy donors like Norman Braman, Mort Zuckerman and J. Ezra Merkin have now added the Madoff scandal to the list of reasons that fund-raising has been crimped this fall. In some cases, the foundations had placed their money with Mr. Madoff directly; others had invested with funds that turned assets over to him. And some nonprofits relied on a steady stream of money from donors, like Ms. Levy-Church, with now vanishing fortunes.

“It’s not catastrophic, but it does hurt us,” said Madeline deLone, executive director of the Innocence Project, which was supported by JEHT in its work to use DNA evidence to exonerate improperly convicted criminals and to reform criminal justice.
The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, the Ramaz School and Yeshiva University are among the charities that invested in the Madoff funds, often on the advice of wealthy donors on their boards, and are now grappling with the fallout.

Meanwhile, what of those who rode the Madoff bandwagon on Wall Street?

Analyst Henry Blodget wrote on his blog Friday that some savvy investors figured Madoff was up to something because his returns were so high. “Many Wall Streeters suspected the wrong rigged game, though: they thought it was insider trading, not a Ponzi scheme,” Blodget wrote. “And here’s the best part: That’s why they invested with him.”

And yet, these people stand a good chance of getting paid anyway. Whoever said crime doesn't pay never worked on Wall Street.

Walk On The Mild Side

Sobriety has become the in thing on New Year's Eve these days:

The New York apartments and lofts which were once the scenes of old-fashioned drunken carnage — slurred speech, broken crockery, broken legs and arms, broken marriages and broken dreams — are now the scene of parties where both friendships and glassware survive intact. Everyone comes on time, behaves well, drinks a little wine, eats a few tiny canapés, and leaves on time. They all still drink, but no one gets drunk anymore. Neither do they smoke. What on earth has happened?

Yesteryear's drunks have become today's genteel sippers. It's called getting older.

The Wit & Wisdom Of Jeff Probst

This could also apply to politicians who lose primaries, or Presidential elections:

To future Survivor contestants. If you make it to the jury, try to just let the anger and envy go and see the big picture. You got your ass kicked – no way around it – now quit being a baby and reward the person who kicked your ass by giving them your vote.

Survivor, for all its contrived situations, is one of the few institutions out there where you still have to earn your way to the top (one of the other being the U.S. military). In this age where self esteem is valued above actual learning experiences, that has to be worth something.

They Want Their Two Dollars

On why a gas tax is, at best, a short-term answer that does nothing in the long term:

A $2 per gallon a gas tax sustained for decades would surely reduce U.S. petroleum consumption somewhat, but logically by a small fraction of the difference between the U.S. and Germany. It might even be a good idea as compared to other ways to raise revenue, which is one thing it would certainly do effectively – mostly because burning a gallon of gas is so valuable to people that they’ll keep doing just about the same amount of it, even if you double the price.

In other words, the petrostates will still get their money, it won't encourage people to drive more efficiently, and it will just end up costing more. Why do all of these great plans seem to involve the rest of us having to pay more to make them work?

Daughter Of Camelot

Oh God, no:

She genuinely, cornily, wants to advance the ideas the family cares about, and she knows better than most that only so much can be accomplished through symbolism. An actual seat at the bargaining table is still more valuable. This is also the way in which her choice makes the most sense for New York, and elevates her candidacy beyond her thin résumé and mere sentiment: Kennedy’s Democratic patrician values and her power-elite connections are not negligible assets. And of course, there are all the sword-in-the-stone connotations, the political magic (fantasy?) that a new Kennedy in the Senate conjures.

The Clintons and the Bushes modeled their "Legacies" on this sort of nepotism. We are NOT a monarchy. Can we stop this now, please?

Banned In Boston

Saletan worries about the new prohibitionist movement:

...If there's no secondhand smoke and no secondhand driving effects, what are the grounds for telling a 20-year-old college student—let alone a 25-year-old professional school student—that tobacco is off limits? And if that kind of paternalism can be extended so easily from minors to 25-year-olds, who's next?

Well, pretty much everybody. It's what "Tolerant" liberals do.

Too Big To Reduce

Nationalization we can believe in!

Barack Obama has launched the era of the political economy, where, to an unprecedented degree, the White House will determine the course, structure and function of the American economy; where, if reports of $2 trillion worth of stimuli are to be believed, the size and scope of the federal government has the potential to nearly double over the course of eight years.

Of course it's already done that under Bush. Still, you know the Democrats have been waiting for this, big time.

The Age Of Automata

Some may worry about the Cylon threat, but Isaac Asimov would be proud:

There are now 1 million industrial robots toiling around the world, and Japan is where they're the thickest on the ground. It has 295 of these electromechanical marvels for every 10000 manufacturing workers -- a robot density almost 10 times the world average and nearly twice that of Singapore (169), South Korea (164), and Germany (163).

I guess we'll find out soon enough if they're going to be Terminators, or Transformers...

Don't Gimme Shelter

Question: Why should homeowners who make bad or ignorant decisions be saved? Answer: They shouldn't.

Shelter is something you consume; it’s not an investment. Bailing out homeowners is rewarding the people who treated housing as an investment and not a consumption good, a fulfillment of personal need. Preventing foreclosures is often a matter of rescuing people from their failure to properly assess risk, not from some unforeseen natural disaster. Let’s not pretend this is any different from bailing out imprudent or inept investment bankers.

A roof over your head is something you earn, and should be required to prove that you're responsible enough to own it. Unfortunately, the concept of responsiblity seems to be lost on many people these days.

There Are Crooks, And Then There's Blago

How bad was Blago? Bad, even by Chicago standards:

Reaping reward for appointing someone to the senate is not unprecedented, or even unethical. I am confident that if Gov. Blagojevich had appointed Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Obama's reported favorite, to the seat, the people in his administration would consider that they owed the governor some sort of favor, and would have resurfaced a highway, or invited him to a White House dinner with Angelina Jolie. But unsubtly putting a senate seat up for personal auction, as if it were a piece of family jewelry, is arrogance that makes even hardened pols shudder.

Yet that's not even the item that angers me most. Among U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's bill of particulars is the charge that Gov. Blagojevich sought to rescind a state payment of $8 million to Children's Memorial Hospital if their CEO failed to organize a $50,000 contribution to the governor.

Many shameless politicians would send free turkeys to a children's hospital. The publicity is good, and it might help them sleep at night. But this governor was willing to stint on their care if a hospital official didn't oblige him with cash.

There's corruption, and then there's evil. Blago had both in spades.

The Invisible Vice-President

Joe Biden is looking to be the anti-Dick Cheney.

It’s not just that Biden won’t sit in on Senate Democrats’ weekly caucus meetings – a privilege Republicans afforded outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney. He won’t have an office outside the House floor, as House Speaker Dennis Hastert gave Cheney early on.

Biden will not begin every day with his own intelligence briefing before sitting in on the president’s. He will not always be the last person Obama speaks to before making a decision.

He also will not, as a transition official calls it, operate a “shadow government” within an Obama administration.

One of the few ways he will resemble Cheney is in making clear his future ambitions, or lack thereof: Biden doesn’t expect to run for president after leaving the vice presidency, according to a transition source who was not authorized to speak on the record.

“What he has said previously is that Vice President Cheney had an overly expansive view of the vice president, almost created like a shadow government inside the White House,' said the transition official familiar with Biden's role. 'Vice President-elect Biden has a very strong view that the vice president’s role is to be an adviser to the president and to be a member of the president’s team, and that’s how he’s going to be in the job.”

After the last eight years, this may take some getting used to. After all, it's been awhile since we've had a Vice President who acts like, well, a Vice President.

If The Shoethrower Has A Fit...

Now this is grace under pressure:

An Iraqi reporter set off pandemonium Sunday by hurling two shoes at President Bush during a news conference that was the centerpiece of his secret goodbye visit.

Bush was cool under fire and prevented an even bigger incident by waving off his lead Secret Service agent, who was prepared to extract him from the room.

Video shows the president's lead agent rushing to the podium, but the president immediately and subtly motions to him that it's OK. The agent backs off.

The president successfully ducked both throws. Photos show him with his head down near the top of the podium. The embarrassing incident marred a visit meant to show off the improved conditions since the troop 'surge' dramatically reduced casualties to U.S. troops.

'This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog,' the journalist shouted (in Arabic), Steven Lee Myers of The New York Times reported in a pool report to the White House press corps.

I guess Bush Derangement Syndrome had to have one last moment in the sun...

Burnin' For You

There are nuts everywhere.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's home church was badly damaged by arson, leading the governor to apologize Saturday if the fire was connected to 'undeserved negative attention' from her campaign as the Republican vice presidential nominee.

Damage to the Wasilla Bible Church was estimated at $1 million, authorities said. No one was injured in the fire, which was set Friday night while a handful of people, including two children, were inside, according to James Steele, the Central Mat-Su fire chief.

He said the blaze was being investigated as an arson. Steele said he didn't know of any recent threats to the church, and authorities did not know whether Palin's connection to the church was relevant to the fire.

'It's hard to say at this point. Everything is just speculation,' he said.

Pastor Larry Kroon declined to say whether the church had received any recent threats.

I thought she was a bad choice as VP and that she brought out the kooks in the conservative movement. But this is just stupid. What was this moron (or morons) thinking?

The In-Laws

Call it a socialist family get-together:

Cuban leader Raul Castro strengthened his relationship with his 'nephew' and biggest benefactor, President Hugo Chavez, symbolically starting his first foreign trip as president in Venezuela on Saturday.

The two men share a rejection of capitalism and the Bush administration but are unlikely to become as close as Chavez is to Raul's older brother, Fidel Castro, who this year gave up the presidency of the communist-run island due to illness.

Raul Castro, 77, worked in the shadow of his iconic brother for decades and is now seeking to boost his credentials as a statesman, as well as his country's trade, on visits to Venezuela and Brazil.

With cheap oil aid exchanged for doctors working in Venezuelan slums, Chavez has helped Cuba to recover from the shock of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had propped up the island's statist economy in the face of a U.S. embargo.

But with Venezuela's oil income plunging and signs that Chavez's support may be gradually eroding after a decade in power, Cuba needs to diversify its foreign support.

Since taking office in February, Raul Castro has bolstered ties with Russia and China and is now seeking to take advantage of Brazil's stated goal of boosting Cuban trade, especially in its nascent oil industry.

So what happens if Baby Hugo loses power? Does he get disowned?

Prophet Of Doom

I've never heard of this guy, but apparently he has his own brand of Obama Derangement Syndrome going on:

After establishing his bona fides as an international talk radio guest and proprietor of a survivalist website that has 'passed more than 100,000 hits,' Freeborn wrote:

'I think that you should hear what my opinion about the Obama election is: that he will not be the next president. I said on my home page in August that if he lost to expect to see the 'riots' that 2 Peter 2:13 tells us about. He didn't lose. But the story is not finished yet. I still think they may begin the riots before Christmas 2008, as I said.'

These riots, according to his prophecy, will encourage the 'old, hard-line Soviet guard' to seize the moment and rain down nukes on the United States, killing at least 100 million of us.


'Prepare now,' Freeborn's letter concluded. 'We are downwind from Las Vegas. I hope you can survive.'

Well, at least he's acknowledging that Obama is in fact legitimately President-elect. I guess that's an improvement over the earlier conspiracy lunacy.

"We Have Huge Senate Opportunity For You"

The Nigerians, who know a thing or two about scams, seem to be jealous that we actually hold our politicians accountable for their bad behavior:

“Look at the Governor of the state of Illinois in the United States, Rod Blagojevich. The man who wants to sell Obama’s Senatorial seat to the highest bidder. He is definitely going to jail. The FBI evidence against him is overwhelming”

“The man should have been a Governor in Nigeria. What he has done, trying to cut a deal, and arrange something for himself, is standard and familiar practice in Nigeria. In the 1999 elections, some Godfathers collected money openly from aspirants and supported the highest bidder. In every election, most Nigerian voters support only the highest bidder. In Oyo state, Adedibu practically sold the Governorship seat to Ladoja. When the man refused to pay, he got him kicked out. Ngige also lost his seat because he refused to pay.”

“But the Americans are telling us that you cannot sell elective positions. It is not a cash and carry affair. And that whoever does so, is under the big watchful eyes of Big Brother. Where is the Nigerian equivalent of the FBI?”

“They are busy eating pepper soup and acting as bodyguards and house boys to the same enemies of the state that they are supposed to be watching.”

Maybe they need to send out a few more letters to raise funding for a better system...

Jailbird Nation

We seem to be hooked on incarceration:

According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics report (PDF) released yesterday, 2.3 million Americans were behind bars in 2007, 1.5 percent more than in 2006 and a new record. The number includes about 780,000 people in local jails, 1.4 million in state prisons, and 200,000 in federal prison. Roughly one in five state prisoners and more than half of federal prisoners were serving time for drug offenses. Assuming the percentage of drug offenders in jails is similar to the percentage in state prisons, the total is more than half a million. 'That is ten times the total in 1980,' notes the Drug Policy Alliance, 'and more than all of western Europe (with a much larger population) incarcerates for all offenses.'

So we're aggressive in the War On Drugs. But is it really effective? Maybe not, especially when it comes to the propaganda war:

The Montana Meth Project (MMP) is an organization that launched a large-scale methamphetamine prevention program in Montana in 2005. The central component of the program is a graphic advertising campaign that portrays methamphetamine users as unhygienic, dangerous, untrustworthy, and exploitive. Montana teenagers are exposed to the advertisements three to five times a week. The MMP, media and politicians have portrayed the advertising campaign as a resounding success that has dramatically increased anti-methamphetamine attitudes and reduced drug use in Montana. The program is currently being rolled out across the nation, and is receiving considerable public funding.
....

Claims that the campaign is effective are not supported by data. The campaign has been associated with increases in the acceptability of using methamphetamine and decreases in the perceived danger of using drugs. These and other negative findings have been ignored and misrepresented by the MMP. There is no evidence that reductions in methamphetamine use in Montana are caused by the advertising campaign.

I think we all know that meth is bad. But how long can we afford to wage ineffective propaganda campaigns that serve mostly to give politicians something to brag about? As in all wars, the way to win is to fight smarter, not harder.

Double Trouble

How to deal with Afghanistan and Pakistan:

The Pakistanis will have to stop giving tacit support and protection to terrorists, especially the Afghan Taliban. The Karzai government will have to end its corruption and close down the drug trade. There are plenty of other reforms necessary — the international humanitarian effort is a shabby, self-righteous mess; some of our NATO allies aren't carrying their share of the military burden — but the war will remain a bloody stalemate at best as long as jihadis come across the border from Pakistan and the drug trade flourishes.

Easier said than done. The poppy business is a large part of Afghanistan's legitimate economy and Pakistan is a basket case on the edge. In other words-maybe if we'd paid more attention to these two in the first place, we might not be having the problems we are now. Now, what could have distracted our attention over these past few years for the situation to get to this point?

Don't Ask Me No Questions

I personally don't think Blagogate will hurt Obama. Which makes me wonder why Obama's fans are using the President-Elect's transistion site for some underhanded censorship:

It was suggested when it launched that the tool would bring uncomfortable questions to the fore, but the results so far are the opposite: Obama’s supporters appear to be using — and abusing — a tool allowing them to “flag” questions as “inappropriate” to remove all questions mentioning Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from the main pages of Obama’s website. . . . So far, Obama’s team does not seem to have stepped in to allow uncomfortable questions to rise to the top, and instead is allowing his supporters to sanitize the site.

So, if the scandal's not such a big deal for him, why are they so afraid to let people talk about it?

Phoning It In

Did Obama help take down Hot Rod?

In a sequence of events that neatly captures the contradictions of Barack Obama’s rise through Illinois politics, a phone call he made three months ago to urge passage of a state ethics bill indirectly contributed to the downfall of a fellow Democrat he twice supported, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich.

Mr. Obama placed the call to his political mentor, Emil Jones Jr., president of the Illinois Senate. Mr. Jones was a critic of the legislation, which sought to curb the influence of money in politics, as was Mr. Blagojevich, who had vetoed it. But after the call from Mr. Obama, the Senate overrode the veto, prompting the governor to press state contractors for campaign contributions before the law’s restrictions could take effect on Jan. 1, prosecutors say.

Tipped off to Mr. Blagojevich’s efforts, federal agents obtained wiretaps for his phones and eventually overheard what they say was scheming by the governor to profit from his appointment of a successor to the United States Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Obama.

Whatever the case, Hot Rod got caught. So much for friends in high places, eh, Rod?

The West's Secret Weapon

How oil could be our ally against totalitarian regimes:

The most pedestrian conclusion is to believe that struggling domestic spheres will lead to more reckless acts in the international sphere. That Iran and Russia, attempting to turn inner angst against an outer foe, will become all the more boisterous and rogue. But it's difficult to imagine these states taking more aggressive tacks then those that which they're already on. I wonder if we might, ironically, see the opposite: domestic aggression combined with a softening toward the international society.

If that happens, it could be increasingly difficult for them to sell the propaganda that thuggery is necessary. Is an "Oil shield" the answer to their behavior?

Hail To No King

Ross Douthat argues against political dynasties:

This sort of politics is entertaining to write about, which is one reason why fantasy sagas and Shakespeare are generally more interesting than Washington novels. But after twenty years with the same two families in the White House - which nearly became twenty-four (or twenty-eight) - for a political columnist to endorse a pointless escalation of dynastic politics because it fulfills the fairy-tale mythos her generation spun around a mediocre, tragically-murdered President and his good-looking family isn't 'girly'; it's an embarrassment.

But some people just can't seem to get away from the notion of America having its own royalty. Screw the peace of kings. For all its flaws, I prefer our messy little Republic.

Silent Buzz

Where have all the honeybees gone?

Beehives across North America continue to lose their workers for reasons not yet understood, a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder. But new tests suggest how a virus nicknamed IAPV might be to blame for one of the more puzzling aspects of the disorder—the impression that substantial numbers of bees vanish into thin air.

In tests on hives in a greenhouse, bees infected with IAPV (short for Israeli acute paralytic virus) rarely died in the hive. Sick bees expired throughout the greenhouse, including near the greenhouse wall, Diana Cox-Foster of Pennsylvania State University in University Park reported November 18 in Reno, Nev., at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America.

Whatever's going on, we may find the last bee on Earth armed with a machine gun, talking to a bust of General MacArthur, as he holds his own against mutant zombie bees...

Smokin' Scots

The evidence is in on the supposed effectiveness of smoking bans in the UK:

Hospital data from England and Wales has failed to show a significant reduction in incidence of acute coronary syndrome since going smoke-free in 2007. This new evidence from Scotland casts serious doubts on the theory that smoking bans have a measureable impact on incidence of acute coronary syndrome.

Gee, what a surprise. If anything, it could be argued that nannystating actually adds to the risk of heart attack.

Filmed On Location With The Men And Women Of Law Enforcement

Smile, you're on crooked cop camera!

KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana. When faced with a suspected marijuana grow, the police usually use illegal FLIR cameras and/or lie on the search warrant affidavit claiming they have probable cause to raid the house. Instead of conducting a proper investigation which usually leads to no probable cause, the Kops lie on the affidavit claiming a confidential informant saw the plants and/or the police could smell marijuana coming from the suspected house.

The trap was set and less than 24 hours later, the Odessa narcotics unit raided the house only to find KopBuster’s attorney waiting under a system of complex gadgetry and spy cameras that streamed online to the KopBuster’s secret mobile office nearby.

Let's see how the police department tries to spin this as lying to the police. To quote Leverage, sometimes the bad guys make the best good guys.

Blago Gets Busted

You don't have to be crazy to be the Governor of Illinois, but it helps.

I think everyone involved in politics or interested in political corruption in the country had to know that Blagojevich's phones were tapped and probably his offices were bugged, and that Pat Fitzgerald had him under the craziest level of scrutiny. And he tries to sell the senate seat with that hanging over his head? That's simply amazing. I guess you could say he's just a traditionalist, trying to keep up heritage of Chicago machine politics. But with some of these characters, it must just be pathological.

Or a combination of arrogance and denial, which is pretty much the same thing. And he thought he could get away with it:

Blagojevich also allegedly spent significant time weighing the option of appointing himself to the open Senate seat and expressed a variety of reasons for doing so, including: frustration at being “stuck” as governor; a belief that he will be able to obtain greater resources if he is indicted as a sitting Senator as opposed to a sitting governor; a desire to remake his image in consideration of a possible run for President in 2016; avoiding impeachment by the Illinois legislature; making corporate contacts that would be of value to him after leaving public office; facilitating his wife’s employment as a lobbyist; and generating speaking fees should he decide to leave public office.

By these standards, Bill Clinton was above reproach. Yeesh.

Doomsday: The Blockbuster

Scott Brown ponders the differences between man-versus-nature movies of the past and latter-day disaster flicks.

The dopiness of so-called ecotainment—environmentally virtuous entertainment—rises in direct proportion to its message-mongering. In this way, it's no different from the Christian inspirational flick. To be sure, many classics prey upon our ecological anxieties—The Birds, Jaws, and Jurassic Park come to mind. But these highlight the indomitable and inscrutable brutality of nature, not the need for better stewardship of a beleaguered planet. They're the children of Moby-Dick, not Silent Spring. Even in these jittery, post-Inconvenient Truth days of rising seas, killer storms, and T. Boone Pickens TV spots, blockbuster-scale ecotainment is still the poseur spawn of Towering Inferno-style disaster matinee and Silkwood-esque docudrama. The subject matter simply resists Hollywood idiocy: Environmental problems are complex and holistic, whereas mainstream movies thrive on conspicuous good/evil dichotomies that flatter our binary human minds. To oversimplify: Nature is Gore-ville; blockbusters are Bush country.

The thing about those Seventies flicks was that you could laugh at them and still not mind the overall message that it's not nice to mess with Mother Nature. Today's movies are in the Gore vein of thou shalt worship mother nature or face extinction-and by the way, thou probably deserves extinction. Environmental alarms in the movies may be at least as old as Soylent Green, but at least you weren't being made to feel too guilty about how you were living your life afterwards.

Volume, Volume, Volume

What happens to the stuff we're supposed to recycle during a recession?

“We’re warehousing it and warehousing it and warehousing it,” said Johnny Gold, senior vice president at the Newark Group, a company that has 13 recycling plants across the country. Mr. Gold said the industry had seen downturns before but not like this. “We never saw this coming.”...

The downturn offers some insight into the forces behind the recycling boom of recent years. Environmentally conscious consumers have been able to pat themselves on the back and feel good about sorting their recycling and putting it on the curb. But most recycling programs have been driven as much by raw economics as by activism.

Cities and their contractors made recycling easy in part because there was money to be made. Businesses, too — like grocery chains and other retailers — have profited by recycling thousands of tons of materials like cardboard each month.

But the drop in prices has made the profits shrink, or even disappear, undermining one rationale for recycling programs and their costly infrastructure.

Feel-good trash collecting versus the reality of hard times. There's always the old-fashioned landfill-or your back yard...

Centrist Like Me

Liberals don't like Obama's shift to the middle:

Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry – that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices.

Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left.

Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.

“He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it's all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.

OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?”
Even supporters make clear they’re on the lookout for backsliding. “There’s a concern that he keep his basic promises and people are going to watch him,” said Roger Hickey, a co-founder of Campaign for America’s Future.

Obama insists he hasn’t abandoned the goals that made him feel to some like a liberal savior. But the left’s bill of particulars against Obama is long, and growing.

The right has its share of hundred-per centers and the left has its. As Megan McArdle puts it:

While the progressives are shocked, shocked that Obama hasn't made Bill Ayers attorney general and Ingrid Newkirk Secretary of Agriculture, many of the conservatives who were mad about my supporting Obama continue to assure me that he is making card check and confiscatory taxation the centerpiece of his administration. Maybe the hard conservatives and the progressives should be consoling each other.

Meanwhile, the rest of us "Softies" will be watching the "Meh Era" with interest and occasional derision.

Another One Bites The Dust

William Jefferson can now join luminaries like Ted Stevens in the unemployment line (after he gets out of jail, that is).

Nine-term Democratic Rep. William Jefferson, who has been battling scandals and a federal indictment for the past three years, lost his bid for re-election on Saturday.

Louisiana Democratic Rep. William Jefferson has been embroiled in a bribery scandal.
Republican challenger Anh 'Joseph' Cao, an attorney and community organizer, defeated Jefferson in the 2nd Congressional district race. He will become the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Cao had almost 50 percent of the vote to Jefferson's 47 percent.

The 2nd Congressional district, in and around New Orleans, is mostly African-American and heavily Democratic, and Jefferson appeared to be favored to win re-election going into the election.

'The people of the second district were able to transcend party, transcend race,' Cao said after claiming victory Saturday night.

I guess all that frozen cash didn't help much in the end...

Great Depression Chic

It's now hip to be poor:

In New York City, twentysomethings are throwing Depression parties, where the clothes are ’30s vintage and the playlists favor Big Band numbers and Dust Bowl ballads. Evite, the online party-invitation service, says such bashes are on the rise nationwide (table). Depression fascination, says American Studies professor Bryant Simon of Temple University, makes sense at a time when people may be “looking for authenticity in a highly commercialized society.” Maybe so. But the fascination is also moving merchandise. Depression chic has already hit the fashion runways. Organic by John Patrick, a ready-to-wear label, is showing prairie-style cotton-check and hand-spun floral dresses in its spring 2009 collection. Newsboy caps and suspenders are core accessories in the Benjamin Bixby 1930’s menswear line designed by André Benjamin (aka rapper André 3000).

There’s also a spurt in demand for Depression-era art and literature. Netflix rentals of The Grapes of Wrath, the 1940 film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel, are up. John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1955 best-seller, The Great Crash 1929, recently climbed to No. 87 on BarnesandNoble.com’s sales rankings, up about 20,000 spots from a year ago. And in an otherwise disappointing auction of photo prints at Sotheby’s on Oct. 14, Dorothea Lange’s White Angel Breadline sold for $134,500, well above the presale estimate. While reluctant to ascribe the high bid to an emerging Depression art market, Christopher Mahoney, senior vicepresident of Sotheby’s photographs department, says there was immense interest in the piece, in part because its subject matter makes it “a key image in the 20th century.”

Who knew poverty could be so cool?

Grandpa's Gun

Consider it a stocking stuffer for Grandpa or Grandma:

A US company claims to have received federal approval to market a 9-mm handgun as a medical device and hopes the US government will reimburse seniors who buy the $300 firearm. But the US Food and Drug Administration says there are currently no formal designations of the gun as a medical device. Called the Palm Pistol, the weapon is designed for people who have trouble firing a normal handgun due to arthritis and other debilitating conditions.

A gun for the elderly actually sounds like a good idea-as long as they don't start shooting at invisible burglers.

Civil Liberties 1, Nanny State 0

It's a step in the right direction:

In one of their most strongly worded judgments in recent years, the unanimous ruling from the 17 judges, including a British judge, Nicolas Bratza, condemned the 'blanket and indiscriminate' nature of the powers given to the police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to retain the DNA samples and fingerprints of suspects who have been released or cleared. The judges were highly critical of the fact that the DNA samples could be retained without time limit and regardless of the seriousness of the offence, or the age of the suspect. ... The Home Office acknowledged yesterday that its plans to extend the retention of DNA to low level, so-called non-recordable offences, including littering and minor traffic offences were now dead in the water.

Let's hope the dead stay buried. Dare I hope that the tide is turning Over There?

The Unemployed Coalition

They can all relax. Jesse's in the house!

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky met Sunday with union workers as they were in the third day of a sit-in protest. CBS 2's Pamela Jones was there.

Jackson, the civil rights icon and head of Rainbow-PUSH Coalition, approached Republic Windows and Doors amid signs and supporters, hugs and handshakes. He pledged his support for more than 200 workers who say they'll stay at the factory all weekend to protest losing their jobs and benefits.

'These workers must be congratulated for having the courage in the great tradition of Dr. King ... and in the tradition of Cesar Chavez, in the tradition of Rosa Parks,' Jackson said. 'Your sitting down, in many ways, allows America to stand up. Workers all around the nation who are now facing massive layoffs. It's your job, it's your plant. Stay there and fight for it until justice comes and justice will come.'

Yeah, stay there and freeze your butts off waiting for your former employers to cave, er, do the right thing. Smart move, right?

How to Stop Worrying And Love The Impending Economic Collapse

Call it a cottage industry for catastrophe mongerers:

If anyone should fear a Depression, it should be journalists, who are already the equivalent of 1980s steelworkers. But instead, they seem positively giddy with anticipation at the prospect of a return to ’30s-style hardship–without, of course, the real hardship of the 1930s. . . . Oh the thrill of imagining a Great Depression. It’s an opportunity for Great Design and Really Cool Government.

During the Seventies there was a whole spate of doomsday books that never panned out but which made a ton of money for their authors. Journalists seem to be filling the role that literary doomsayers once did. But this shouldn't be too surprising. Warning of doom and gloom is much easier (and more profitable) than trying to come up with ways of avoiding it.

The Age Of The Geek

I knew there was a reason to be a nerd:

Scientific fact has usurped science fiction as TV's favorite inspiration for prime-time story lines. And to keep everything on the up and up, show writers and producers are hiring scores of researchers and technical consultants to get the science straight.

'We try to make sure that all the science is real, that it's researched and that everything in the show could actually happen,' says Cyrus Voris, an executive producer for CBS' crime-fighting biophysicist drama Eleventh Hour (pictured, right). 'In some ways, it's much easier to make stuff up. When you have to make it real, you're holding yourself to a much higher standard.'

It certainly makes for better viewing than made-up technobabble. Sometimes reality is cool, too.

The Incredible Shrinking Male

Men, it's happening all over.

The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.

The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.

Backed by some of the world's leading scientists, who say that it 'waves a red flag' for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers. On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have 'gender-bending' effects.

It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminised genitals.

'This research shows that the basic male tool kit is under threat,' says Gwynne Lyons, a former government adviser on the health effects of chemicals, who wrote the report.

So what happens? Do we get put on reservations? Treated as an endangered species? It's bad enough to be regarded as politically incorrect; do we have to face extinction, too?

Heil Four-Wheel Drive

Are cars by their very nature fascist?

Italian Futurists exalted “the beauty of speed” in the 1920s, hoping that it would usher in a new violent age, shorn of “emasculating tendencies” like democracy. Mussolini and Hitler followed through such ideas, the latter bequeathing the autobahns and the Volkswagen to subsequent road enthusiasts. [Brian] Ladd's explicitly anti-car study ['Autophobia'] questions why machines associated with individual freedom have appealed so greatly to fascists of all stripes (Russian and Chinese central planners were both great admirers of Henry Ford).

Opponents of cars have laboured the same points for more than a century: damage to the environment, social atomization and, of course, a high risk of accident and death. In opposition, the pro-car lobby requires abstract arguments which refuse to address the same set of “facts” and foreground ideology instead. From Hitler to Margaret Thatcher, car advocates have seen them as literal engines of change; vehicles by which to remake society, whether on the basis of individualism or collectivism.

I don't know if I buy into this. Cars are a mass-produced product like every other, and part of the car's appeal (at least in this country) has long been the "Freedom of the open road." It must be a European thing to view cars as collectivist.

In Plain Hearing

Wow. How to get not just lost, but stolen in a crowd:

Cops said it appeared that the man had randomly approached the teen as she walked into the lobby of the W. 180th St. building. The victim said her kidnapper dragged her outside by the arm, where he hailed a livery cab on Broadway. On the way, she said, she tried to 'catch people's eyes, but every person I walked by was listening to music.'

'I kept asking him, 'Why are you doing this? Where are you taking me?'' she said, sitting safely between her parents in their apartment.

As we become more and more integrated with our technology, we seem to risk becoming more and more isolated from each other. It's one thing to claim you weren't paying attention; it's quite another to willingly shut yourself off from the world.

The Dumbest Generation?

Is this really fair?

Early Xers are the least bookish CEOs and legislators the United States has seen in a long while. They prefer sound bites over seminars, video clips over articles, street smarts over lofty diplomas. They are impatient with syntax and punctuation and citations -- and all the other brainy stuff they were never taught.

But who was responsible for creating the educational system that us Xers were exposed to? In large part it was baby-boomer educators. You could say that we are their handiwork.

We Heart Violence

Suderman explores our societal bloodlust:

I’ll admit: I love onscreen gunfights and shootouts, the more over the top the better. I’ve waxed ecstatic over the bullet-ridden 45 minute finale of John Woo’s Hard Boiled, which includes one of the highest death tolls of any movie in the last few decades (the sequence is set at a hospital, and at one point, the film’s bad guy walks into a room full of hostages and mows them all down with an automatic weapon). Watching a sequence like that in a movie is exciting and fun; watching a similar scene in real life is deeply disturbing. Part of me thinks this is a problem; action movies train us not to react with horror to these sorts of events. But I also wonder if it isn’t natural, a release of some sort, a way to indulge violent urges without resorting to real violence, or a way for human beings to understand the daily, life-and-death struggle for existence — long before movies, human stories revolved around death and violence, and often involved heroes who slayed all those in their way. For whatever reason, we, as a species, seem to be drawn in by narratives of calamity, destruction, and bloodshed.

Part of it is the visceral thrill we get out of seeing the bad guys get theirs. Through our cinematic counterparts, we can fantasize about how we'd dispatch our enemies and live to kick butt another day. Of course, doing so in real life isn't quite so simple. But that's why we have this alternate fantasy world.

Humming Along

General Motors may be forced to do away with one of its iconic beasts:

It announces it may part with the Hummer line, and with Saab and Saturn. Supposition throughout the media is that 'review' of Hummer's status includes the option of simple elimination as well as sale. But take heart, Hummer fans -- sales are still booming in Russia. Perhaps a post-Soviet plutocrat will rescue the brand, and the Hummer will still be available -- as an import.

Will the Hummer go the way of the Dusenberg? What will Arnold Schwarzenegger drive, then?

The Only Thing We Have To Spend Is Money Itself

On the subject of spending, here comes the New New Deal.

President-elect Barack Obama added sweep and meat to his economic agenda on Saturday, pledging the largest new investment in roads and bridges since President Dwight D. Eisenhower built the Interstate system in the late 1950s, and tying his key initiatives – education, energy, health care –back to jobs in a package that has the makings of a smaller and modern version of FDR's New Deal marriage of job creation with infrastructure upgrades.

The president-elect also said for the first time that he will “launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen.”

“We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms,” he said in the address.

The president-elect is bringing new elements of his domestic agenda into his economic recovery plan, committing to a path toward giving every American access to an electronic medical record as part of an “economic recovery plan ... that won’t just save jobs, it will save lives.”

So, what do we call this? The war on potholes? I know our infrastructure is ageing and needs to be fixed. But expecting Supergovernment to save it will be a recipe for pork and boondoggles. Unfortunately it's probably what's coming.

You're Gonna Miss This

Are we ready for Bush nostalgia?

Now, with less than seven weeks to go out of Bush's 416 weeks in office, his popularity has jumped to 28%. Still not that great.

But it'll probably go higher before he stands in the cold in front of the Capitol late on the morning of Jan. 20 and watches someone else take over the burdens of office.

'It is common for presidents who are about to leave the White House to receive a bump in their job approval ratings between election day and Inauguration Day,'' Gallup's Jeffrey Jones writes.

'Of the eight post-World War II presidents who left office after serving two terms, declining to seek an additional term or being defeated for reelection, six saw increased job approval ratings in their final two-plus months in office.'

I never thought Bush was a bad guy, just a bad-to-mediocre President. As for nostalgia, with Obama moving further to the right on foreign policy, but staying to the left on spending, there may be the proverbial third term for Bush yet. So what's to miss?

Panic In Detroit

While we're on the subject, it seems some people are already panicking:

Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, said the economy would be devastated if an automaker were forced into bankruptcy or shut down.

'In the midst of the worst economic situation since the Great Depression it would be an unmitigated disaster,' he told a hearing with the CEOs.

Er, no, Barney, what it would be a disaster for are the unions who can now no longer squeeze money out of the carmakers. And then where would your Party's campaign contributions come from?

Waiting On Great Depression 2

So do we start panicking yet, or not?

It means a lot of people are losing their jobs. Beyond that, it's going to be hard to say what the significance is until we know what the next six months or so look like. If there are only a couple more months this bad, then it's a manageable if painful downturn. If the declines keep growing and growing, then it's something else entirely.

All the same, I think I'll hold off on honing my survivalist skills.

The Problem With Pakistan

Our erstwhile ally will continue to be a problem for all concerned.

The problem of Islamist militancy in Pakistan is very unlikely to be addressed satisfactorily in the near future. US efforts—at least in their current form—to force the issue are as likely to worsen the situation as to improve it. Perceived US interference in the region may seriously undermine the Pakistani government's will to tackle the problem. But even with the best intentions, a whole range of problems will hamper Pakistan's ability to improve the situation. For one, the government's efforts will depend on a military that has historically sought to undermine it, and that has already expressed reservations about Mr Zardari's handling of the current crisis. Also worrying is the increasing evidence that militant groups which initially fought for local causes (primarily the Kashmir issue) have now conflated their regional goals, training and tactics with the broader movement of global Islamist jihad.

Pakistan stands a good risk of turning into a basket case-a basket case with nukes, no less. Solomons seem to be in short supply on this one.

Don't Worry, Be Networked

Happiness is a large network:

The happiness of an individual is associated with the happiness of people up to three degrees removed in the social network. Happiness, in other words, is not merely a function of individual experience or individual choice but is also a property of groups of people.

Critics have long talked about the isolation of the computer age, but the online age is a different thing. People are social animals and the Internet seems to be providing that balance.

Texted Book Surgery

You know that commercial where the doctor calls a patient, tells him how to perform an operation, and the guy asks, "Shouldn't you be doing this?" Well, life imitates art, except in this case the guy is an actual surgeon.

Prof Thomas texted me the instructions for the operation. Though the procedure was tricky, his instructions were crystal clear – it was like reading the ingredients for baking a cake. He signed off the text with a playful 'easy!' but I was concerned. Nobody in the hospital, including myself, had ever carried out an operation on this scale. They all thought I was a mad foreigner. And we barely had any blood. We probably needed five or six units but only had one. I told myself that it would better for J to die on the operating table under anaesthetic than conscious and in immense pain.

We did the operation on the afternoon of my third day. It took three hours and went smoothly; Professor Thomas' text was absolutely spot on. But the worry was whether or not J would recover. Would he have enough blood in him? Would it clot? Would he get further infections? We pumped him full of fluids and antibiotics and we waited and we hoped.

And he has survived. I was astonished when I saw a picture on the MSF website of him looking so well. He has been discharged now, and I do worry for him, because what hope does anyone have in DR Congo at the moment, let alone a teenage boy with only one arm and no social backup? But God works in mysterious ways, and I must have faith that Prof Thomas' text was God's will.

So it was a happy ending, or at least as happy as it can get in the Congo, thanks to technology. But it's probably not for everyone.

Le Secularism

In spite of what Bill O'Reilly says, secularism can be a good thing:

Europe's human rights court today threw out a complaint by two French Muslim girls who were expelled from their school for refusing to remove their headscarves during sports lessons.

France, which takes secularism in state schools very seriously, passed a law in 2004 banning pupils from wearing conspicuous signs of their religion at school after a decade of bitter debate about Muslim girls wearing headscarves in class.

'The court observed that the purpose of the restriction on the applicants' right to manifest their religious convictions was to adhere to the requirements of secularism in state schools,' the European Court of Human Rights said.

This is why I can't get all hot and bothered over creationism or prayer in school. If you allow it for one group, don't you have to allow it for everybody? The French seem to show more respect for the spirit of the American Constitution than our own bloviators do.

Spirit Of '74

One of the reasons the Seventies sucked is back with a vengeance.

With the economy deteriorating rapidly, the nation’s employers shed 533,000 jobs in November, the 11th consecutive monthly decline, the government reported Friday morning, and the unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent.
The decline, the largest since December 1974, was fresh evidence that the economic contraction accelerated in November, promising to make the current recession, already 12 months old, the longest since the Great Depression. The previous record was 16 months, in the severe recessions of the mid-1970s and early 1980s.

Great. Now all we need is for leisure suits and disco to come back.

Look, Up In The Sky, It's A Black Helicopter

Michelle Malkin taks on the tinfoil hat crowd.

Alas, Trutherism thrives on both the left and right. Which brings us to the spate of lawsuits challenging President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court considers one of those suits filed by New Jersey citizen Leo Donofrio, who maintains that Obama is not a “natural born citizen” because his father held British citizenship.

There may be a seed of a legitimate constitutional issue to explore here (how is the citizenship requirement enforced for presidential candidates, anyway?) And at least Donofrio concedes that Obama was born in Hawaii. But a dangerously large segment of the birth certificate hunters have lurched into rabid Truther territory. The most prominent crusader against Obama’s American citizenship claim, lawyer Philip Berg (who, not coincidentally, is also a prominent 9/11 Truther), disputes that Obama was born in Hawaii and claims that Obama’s paternal grandmother told him she saw Obama born in Kenya.

Berg and his supporters further assert that the “Certification of Live Birth” produced by Obama was altered or forged. They claim that the contemporaneous birth announcement in a Hawaii newspaper of Obama’s birth is insufficient evidence that he was born there. (Did a fortune-teller place it in the paper knowing he would run for president?). And they accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being part and parcel of the grand plan to install Emperor Obama and usurp the rule of law.

I believe Trig was born to Sarah Palin. I believe Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on U.S. soil. I believe fire can melt steel and that bin Laden’s jihadi crew – not Bush and Cheney – perpetrated mass murder on 9/11. What kind of kooky conspiracist does that make me?

Obviously, she's being conned by the Powers That Be. After all, what good is a conspiracy if you can't spread it beyond the lunatic fringe?

Think Small

Why the Big Three don't need a bailout:

Overall, U.S. industry has become among the most productive in the world – output has doubled over the past 25 years, and productivity has grown at a rate twice that of the rest of the economy. Far from dead, our manufacturing sector is the world's largest, with 5% of the world's population producing five times their share in industrial goods. [...]

Fortunately, the Big Three do not represent the entire picture of American manufacturing. Even within the Great Lakes region, Wisconsin, which ranks second in per capita employment in manufacturing, has held onto most of its industrial employment due to its large, highly diversified base of smaller-scale specialized manufacturers.

If Congress and President Obama want to figure out how to restart our industrial economy, they need to travel not to Detroit but to an alternative universe that includes the South and Appalachia, where most of the new foreign-owned auto manufacturers have clustered. States like Alabama, with the second-largest per capita concentration of auto-related jobs, as well as South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and Mississippi, have been growing these high-wage jobs for a new generation. In the process, they have brought unprecedented opportunity to some of the nation's historically poorest regions.

Corportations that are "Too big to fail" are invariably also often too big to tolerate competition. What you have then is socialist capitalism, which fights to protect its increasingly outdated turf. Meanwhile, the "Little guys" pave the way-and help save the economy. That's the true engine of American prosperity.

The Endless Prohibition

It bears repeating:

The war on drugs has led to gang violence, trampling of civil liberties, and military interventions abroad. Federalist principles are routinely ignored in medical marijuana raids, doctors face prosecution for prescribing painkillers, and ordinary adults must show their ID just to purchase effective cold medicine. The United States now has more than 300,000 people imprisoned for drug violations.

I think it's safe to say that the Great War on Drugs has become one of the costliest andmost socially dibilating conflicts in our country's history. At least now there finally seems to be some growing resistance in the ranks of those who originally supported it. When we have a governor, senator or Presidential candidate from either party who says they will do their part to end the war, that will be real progress.

I'll Fill That For A Dollar

More like this, please:

Gulf Oil CEO Joe Petrowski said on Wednesday that the price of oil could sink to $20 per barrel, and there is a chance gasoline prices could drop as low as $1 per gallon by early next year.

Speaking at a South Shore Chamber of Commerce breakfast at Lombardo’s in Randolph, the Brockton native said that after speculators drove oil prices up, there is a chance that the market will overshoot on the way back down, resulting in much lower prices at the pump.

Gas prices have already sunk fairly rapidly this fall, reaching a statewide average of $1.85 for a gallon of regular-grade gasoline this week, following a plunge in crude oil prices.

So much for all the profit those eeevil oil companies are supposed to be making. Strange thing, this free-market economy. Sometimes it solves things on its own.

They Durk Ur Border Security

Oh, the irony.

The regional director of Homeland Security, Customs, and Border Protection was charged today with repeatedly hiring illegal immigrants to clean her Salem home after one cleaner wore a wire during an undercover investigation.

Lorraine Henderson is the director of the Port of Boston, overseeing 190 armed federal officers who patrol major airports and shipping terminals in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

'She’s supposed to be deporting aliens, not hiring them,' said Assistant US Attorney Brian T. Kelly, chief of the public corruption unit.

Agents arrested Henderson at her Salem home at 8 a.m. Standing this afternoon in US District Court in Boston, she wore jeans and a gray sweatshirt and did not enter a plea to a charge of encouraging an illegal immigrant to remain in the country. If convicted, she faces as much as 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

But I'm sure if someone tried to enter the country legally, she'd have followed policy in making it as difficult as possible for them to do so.

They're Gonna Party Like It's 1929

The swells still know how to have a good time, even if they can't afford it:

Swilling martinis and vodkas, they filled Manhattan's white, tent-themed Nikki Beach to bursting. Waiters, trays of tapas held high in the air, became stranded, wedged into crowds swaying to music under pink lights.

About 650 guests attended the event late Wednesday, a third more than organizers expected.
Yet with hedge funds in freefall, this was more funeral wake than celebration.

'The industry is down 20 percent. It's by far the worst environment we've ever seen and we'll see a lot of funds going out of business,' said Evan Rapoport, co-founder of HedgeCo Networks, which services hedge funds and organized the party.

The evening was billed as a networking session. Sometimes that meant angling for a particularly special deal.

'A lot of people are looking for a job,' said Nicole Alexander from Ovation Group, a corporate travel company.

'There is no stigma now because so many people have lost jobs,' she said. 'The joke is that the new status symbol, instead of a Porsche or Ferrari, is having health insurance and a desk.'

Well, just because you're broke doesn't mean you still can't put on appearances.

Will Work For IOUs

Wasn't the Governator supposed to prevent stuff like this?

California, the world’s eighth-largest economy, may pay vendors with IOUs for only the second time since the Great Depression, State Finance Director Mike Genest said.

In a letter to legislative leaders Dec. 1, Genest said the state “will begin delaying payments or paying in registered warrants in March” unless an $11.2 billion deficit is closed or reduced. California, which approved its budget less than three months ago, may run out of cash by March, state officials say.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger warned that the state may issue the warrants, which are a promise to pay with interest, to suppliers and contractors as the seizure in credit markets may make it too costly to borrow.

“It’s getting worse very quickly,” Schwarzenegger, a 61- year-old Republican, told reporters Dec. 1 after declaring a fiscal emergency and ordering the Legislature into a special session to find ways to close the deficit. “It’s like an avalanche in that it gains momentum. And that’s what we’re in right now, so it’s a real crisis.”

To be fair to Arnold, I think he meant well. But his programs seemed to be based on the same borrow-and-spend methods that Gray Davis used. I give him credit for trying to cut spending and getting rid of things like car fees. But at some point you have to take real action, not just make good speeches.

Take Charge, Already

Obama's fellow Democrats are getting frustrated:

Democrats are growing impatient with President-elect Barack Obama's refusal to inject himself in the major economic crises confronting the country.

Obama has sidestepped some policy questions by saying there is only one president at a time. But the dodge is wearing thin.

'He's going to have to be more assertive than he's been,' House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., told consumer advocates Thursday.

Frank, who has been dealing with both the bailout of the financial industry and a proposed rescue of Detroit automakers, said Obama needs to play a more significant role on economic issues.

'At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he says we only have one president at a time,' Frank said. 'I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He's got to remedy that situation.'

Calm down, guys. You'll have the next four years to do even more damage soon enough.

Poor Little Rich Woman

The Economist notices something about a certain group of homeless women:

All the women have substantial credit card debt and are living in a homeless shelter, yet many have an asset they can't access for another thirty years. This struck me as rather perverse. Should the poor really have such illiquid assets when they're prone to these kinds of income shocks?

Well, what's the good of extending corporate welfare if it's not extended to everyone?

The Queen's Moves

It seems Democrats are becoming a tad nervous about what direction their boss on Capitol Hill is going.

Next year is regarded as the biggest legislative opportunity for Democrats since 1993, the last time they controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress.

But not all Democrats are celebrating. Liberals are worried about Pelosi’s vow to govern “from the middle” and centrists are concerned that the make-up of the House leadership team has shifted noticeably to the left.

Contrary to the jubilation of House Democrats after they regained control of the lower chamber after the 2006 elections, there is some unease among members heading into the 111th Congress.

“Everybody I talk to, everybody’s worried about something,” said a Democratic staffer.

Now that they seem to want to govern from the middle, they can't seem to figure out how yet. The question for the rest of us should be how much it will cost until they do.

Bloggin' In The Years: 1875

It seems you can't trust a crook after all:

Tweed has disappointed the people who believed at least in his pluck, and has deceived the politicians-of whom MR CONNER is a sample-who never wavered in their opinion that the promise of the dethroned "Boss" was as good as his bond. It was certainly a rather preposterous assumption that the man who had stolen and lied in official life to the extent that TWEED did, should be scrupulously honorable in his dealings with his friends.

As P.T. Barnum is said to have famously noted, there's a sucker born every minute. Tweed may find his "Friends" in short supply once he is apprehended again.

Obama's Kids

Obama's team has more in common with him than just his politics.

Obama has packed his staff with so-called “Third Culture Kids”—people who grew up outside the U.S. New research suggests this group shares common psychological traits that could shape his administration.

John Quincy Adams lived in France, and young Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited Europe often enough to master French and German, but Barack Obama is the first modern American president to have spent some of his formative years outside the United States. It is a trait he shares with several appointees to the new administration: White House advisor Valerie Jarrett was a child in Tehran and London, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was raised in east Africa, India, Thailand, China and Japan as the son of a Ford Foundation executive, and National Security Advisor James L. Jones was raised in Paris. (Also, Bill Richardson, tipped as Secretary of Commerce, grew up in Mexico City.)

This is more than a trivial coincidence. So-called “Third Culture Kids”—and the adults they become”—share certain emotional and psychological traits that may exert great influence in the new administration. According to a body of sociological literature devoted to children who spend a portion of their developmental years outside their “passport country,” the classic profile of a “TCK” is someone with a global perspective who is socially adaptable and intellectually flexible. He or she is quick to think outside the box and can appreciate and reconcile different points of view. Beyond whatever diversity in background or appearance a TCK may bring to the party, there is a diversity of thought as well.

It seems Obama wants those who can see the world beyond our borders because they've actually lived there. That's not necessarily a bad thing compared to what we've had.

Stoned Jihad

It was apparently the drugs that kept them going.

The Mumbai terrorists may have pumped themselves full of drugs to keep going during their murderous three-day rampage.

Indian police sources say tests on the bodies of dead Islamic fanatics revealed traces of stimulant drugs.

One said: “We found injections containing traces of cocaine and LSD left behind by the terrorists and later found drugs in their blood.

“There was also evidence of steroids, which isn’t uncommon in terrorists. These men were all toned, suggesting they had been doing some heavy training for the attacks.

“This explains why they managed to battle the commandos for over 50 hours with no food or sleep.”

I'm very much against the way we have been fighting the Drug War. But this is different. It's bad enough when they're psychotic without the drugs.

"We Suck. No, Really."

This is from RedState, of all places:

No, Virginia, there isn’t a smoke filled room somewhere where a bunch of Ivy League, Wall Street, K Street elitists conspired to deprive the Republican Party of a victory in the last two elections. We lost because nobody in their right mind would trust us to run a government. That we did as well as we did is a tribute to the fact that they don’t trust the Democrats much either.

***

In seven years we demonstrated to the American people that we really didn’t mean what we’d said for all those years; we weren’t against spending, we were against Democrat spending. We weren’t against big government, we just wanted it big in the places we like. The people caught us in the lie and held us responsible for it.

But some people didn't get the message. There will always be a portion of True Believers who will be in denial. Just ask Al Gore's followers.

The Energizer Conspiracy

They just won't quit:

An anti-tax activist from upstate New York who is questioning whether President-elect Barack Obama is a “natural born citizen” eligible for the nation’s top job said Tuesday that his non-profit group spent “tens of thousands of dollars” to get his message across in ads in the Chicago Tribune this week.

Robert L. Schulz, 69, chairman of We The People Foundation, took out ads Monday and Wednesday to raise questions about whether Obama’s Hawaii certificate of live birth is authentic.

The ads echo accusations circulated online by some Obama opponents before the election. Cases challenging Obama’s citizenship have been tossed out of courts in several states, and Hawaiian officials have vouched for the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate, which is locked in a state vault. The Obama campaign likewise has always dismissed the accusations.

Nevertheless, some critics remain dubious.

Sooner or later this BS has to stop. The Supreme Court is not going to magically step in and say that he's not legitimate. Barack Obama won. These people need to get a life.

Der Fuher's Smiley Face

For those who want to channel their inner fascist:

The = sign makes a serviceable Hitler mustache - which is all you need to know to begin offending your friends over instant message. Here's a list of historically accurate options to get started with.

I have to say, the list is pretty accurate. Who says Nazi leaders can't be warm and fuzzy?

Rebuilding What Bridges?

Obama may be more of a realist than Bush, but that doesn't mean it'll be any easier for him to make friends with Europe:

It would be lovely to think that Obama can bring a new period of transatlantic harmony. But it just isn't the case that American interests are necessarily the same as European interests. The Security Card trumped everything during the Cold War but these are changed times. And there were, in any case, always more differences than seemed the case then too, these days they're much clearer to see.

Europe has always had its own agenda, which didn't always necessarily include us. That won't change just because there's a new Administration.

Rise Of The Machines

The military is looking for a few good robots:

Pentagon chiefs are concerned by studies of combat stress in Iraq that show high proportions of frontline troops supporting torture and retribution against enemy combatants.

Ronald Arkin, a computer scientist at Georgia Tech university, who is working on software for the US Army has written a report which concludes robots, while not 'perfectly ethical in the battlefield' can 'perform more ethically than human soldiers.'

He says that robots 'do not need to protect themselves' and 'they can be designed without emotions that cloud their judgment or result in anger and frustration with ongoing battlefield events.'

While this might have advantages, could an emotionless machine really be trusted to be "Ethical?" Remember, they have a plan...

Taking The Cut

Managers, budget thyselves:

If the government were a private company it would be too broke and uncreditworthy to continue operating. . . . Yet who among the political class – the very managers who remorselessly oversee the financial train wreck in their own institution – has called for a pay or benefit cut for the President or Congress, let alone actually taken one? Which officials have curtailed travel by private jet, forgone their annual salary, or cancelled scheduled retreats and vacations? . . . So in a show of good faith, I would like to see our federal leaders take the lead in fiscal accountability by refusing to accept a salary until, as they’ve demanded of the automakers seeking a bailout, they can demonstrate a plan to bring their enterprise into the black and repay their debt.

But if the Government were a business, wouldn't it just try and bail itself out?

"I Knew The Great Depression, And You, Sir, Are No Great Depression"

Ben Bernarke says it's not that bad:

"Well, you hear a lot of loose talk, but let me just ... say, as a scholar of the Great Depression -- and I've written books about the Depression and been very interested in this since I was in graduate school, there's no comparison," Bernanke said in a question period after an address in Austin, Texas.

Bernanke cited 'an order-of-magnitude difference' in the current situation compared to the 1930s.

'During the 1930s, there was a worldwide depression that lasted for about 12 years and was only ended by a world war,' he said.

'During that time, the unemployment rate went to 25 percent, at least, based on the data that we have. The real GDP (gross domestic product) fell by one-third. About a third of all of the banks failed. The stock market fell 90 percent.'

Bernanke said the situation at that time represented 'very difficult circumstances,' because 'we didn't have the social safety net that we have today. So let's put that out of our minds; there's no -- there's comparison in terms of severity.'

Well, he's right. This is not the 1930s and things are very different now than they were eighty years ago. But his own soon-to-be ex-boss was apparently told otherwise:

In a related matter, President George W. Bush said in an interview released Monday that Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warned him weeks ago that bold action was needed to avert a new Great Depression.

"I can remember sitting in the Roosevelt Room with Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke and others, and they said to me that if we don't act boldly, Mr. President, we could be in a depression greater than the Great Depression," Bush told ABC News.

Bush said the conversation came four to five weeks after the government began mulling rescue plans for insurance giant AIG and other companies.

"And that was right before we went to Congress for the 700 billion dollars" in rescue funds, Bush said.

"And my attitude is, is that if that's the case, this administration will do everything we can to safeguard the financial system. And that's what we've been doing."

So what is Bernake saying now? That those bailout billions weren't needed, after all? Will the real Ben Bernarke please stand up?

Gun Club Party

I honestly don't know who's worse: stupid athletes or those who help them.

The New York police said on Monday that a hospital failed to notify them when Giants receiver Plaxico Burress arrived there early Saturday morning with a gunshot wound to his thigh, despite a state law requiring a doctor or hospital to report such violence to the authorities “at once.”

As a result, it took police detectives more than 13 hours to learn that Burress had been taken to the hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, after he accidentally shot himself in the right leg in a Manhattan nightclub.

“We are investigating the hospital’s failure to notify us, as required by law,” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said Monday evening.

I'll bet a girl at the nightclub asked him if that was a gun in his pocket or if he was just happy to see her...

The Bailout Quagmire

Leave it to the Bush administration to act first and plan later.

The head of the FDIC said Tuesday the government needs to devise an 'exit strategy' for its massive financial rescue plan to avoid artificially propping up banks and other institutions over the long term.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair made the comments at a conference of corporate executives. Her agency has played a key role in the financial bailout, guaranteeing potentially as much as $1.4 trillion in debt issued by banks and raising the limits on deposit insurance for bank accounts.

But Bair has broken with the Bush administration by repeatedly saying more aggressive government action is needed to help millions of struggling home borrowers avoid foreclosure.

'I'm a capitalist. I believe in markets,' Bair said in response to questions at the conference sponsored by Fortune and Time magazines.

The far-reaching government guarantees extended under the rescue program -- now including $250 billion set aside for the Treasury to buy stock in U.S. banks, hundreds of billions in aid to giant financial institutions and hundreds more billions in special lending facilities to banks -- must be carefully assessed, Bair said.

'We really need to think through the exit strategy because (government guarantees) could become a crutch,' she said. Weaker financial institutions 'need to be allowed to fail,' Bair added.

But now everybody has their hand out. The bailout itself may have become "Too big to fail."

Case Dismissed

Well, I guess that settles that:

A judge dismissed indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday and told the south Texas prosecutor who brought the case to exercise caution as his term in office ends.

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra had accused Cheney and the other defendants of responsibility for prisoner abuse. The judge's order ended two weeks of sometimes-bizarre court proceedings.

Guerra is leaving office at the end of the month after being soundly defeated in the March primary election.

'I suggest on behalf of the law that you not present any cases to the grand jury involving these defendants,' Administrative Judge Manuel Banales said in court while ruling that eight indictments against Cheney, Gonzales and others were invalid.

I personally think Cheney and Gonzo are creeps. But this was a stunt that served no real purpose. Real accountability has to come with a credibility, which this guy with his last-minute antics didn't have.

More Pieces Of The Bailout Pie

Now that the bailout genie is out of the bottle, everbody wants some:

My child-care agency, supported largely by government contracts -- federal and state dollars partially matched by county funds -- went nine years without an increase in the rate of funding it receives. During those years, the cost of a child-care worker rose from $23,000 a year to $29,000 a year. Multiply that figure by our 100 child-care workers, and we are facing a $600,000 shortfall in just one job category. No industry in the public or private sector could have survived nine years of flat funding.

How will we make up that shortfall? Fundraising? Unlikely, in this economy. And investment losses have had a profoundly negative effect on endowed organizations. We need a bailout.

Well, how about it, Washington? You seem to have plenty to go around for everyone else. Remember, it's For The Children(tm)!

An Army Of 20,000

Is this really such a good idea?

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

I'm all for a rapid, effective response force, but there is such a thing as overkill, which this Administration has been known for. Constitutional issues aside, what will these troops do in the meantime? If history is any indication, probably for something other than what they were intended.

The Last Homecoming

Men are taking care of Mom and Dad in their old age more often these days.

The Alzheimer’s Association and the National Alliance for Caregiving estimate that men make up nearly 40 percent of family care providers now, up from 19 percent in a 1996 study by the Alzheimer’s Association. About 17 million men are caring for an adult.

“It used to be that when men said, ‘I’ll always take care of my mother,’ it meant, ‘My wife will always take care of my mother,’ ” said Carol Levine, director of the families and health care project at the United Hospital Fund. “But now, more and more men are doing it.”

Often they are overshadowed by their female counterparts and faced with employers, friends, support organizations and sometimes even parents who view caregiving as an essentially female role. Male caregivers are more likely to say they feel unprepared for the role and become socially isolated, and less likely to ask for help.

Women still provide the bulk of family care, especially intimate tasks like bathing and dressing. At support groups, which are predominantly made up of women, many women complain that their brothers are treated like heroes just for showing up.

But with smaller families and more women working full-time, many men have no choice but to take on roles that would have been alien to their fathers. Just as fatherhood became more hands-on in the baby boom generation, so has the role for many sons as their generation’s parents age.

With a rapidly growing elderly population, who becomes a caretaker during Mom and Dad's golden years will become less defined by gender and more by necessity. That's actually a good thing, IMO.

This Party's Paid For

When you're bought, show it.

High-ranking members of Congress were flown to a lush Caribbean resort this month for a three-day conference planned and paid for by several of the country's most powerful corporations - a violation of federal ethics rules, critics say.

Six members of the Congressional Black Caucus attended the 13th annual Caribbean Multi-National Business Conference in sun-drenched St. Maarten, including embattled Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel and New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne.

Three New York City officials attended, including Comptroller William Thompson and Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr., as well as Gov. Paterson, who was the keynote speaker at a luncheon on the second day of the gathering.

Silly critics. Rules are for little people!

"Where's Our Fonzie?"

Justin Higgins offers advice on how the Republicans can be cool again:

We need to emphasize the elements of conservatism that empower the individual, expand liberty, and defend freedom. We need to break down issues like earmarks into simple terms, and explain that it’s not about changing the rules in the Senate. It’s about fixing our government and building a future without debt, a future with strong American consumers making individual decisions. We need to talk about the elements of conservatism that create a strong culture, instead of talking about the “inside baseball” issues surrounding the Supreme Court. We need an ambassador to the idealists just as John McCain or Mitt Romney were ambassadors to the pragmatists who focused on policy solutions but not public relations solutions.

Better communicators would help. So would a more updated message that goes beyond simply invoking Reagan. I think the audience is out there, but it will need convincing. And the way the Republican Party is now, that's not happening.

Socialist Summer Camp

This sounds familiar:

As the world waits for Thailand to end a week-long occupation of Bangkok’s airports, the anti- government protesters who seized them say their efforts to transform the country are only just beginning.

If they win what they have dubbed their “final battle,” Bangkok-based People’s Alliance for Democracy members say they will start a campaign to tell “the truth” to the country’s rural majority, which has elected parties linked to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra four times since 2001.

“Rural people have good hearts but they don’t know the truth like we do in Bangkok,” said Noppakoon Lagum, 37, a surgeon helping to occupy the main international airport. “It is our duty to re-educate them.”

Urban elitism, Socialist style. And we've seen how well "Re-education" efforts worked in the past, haven't we?