Just thought you all might enjoy knowing that the guy who registered, for $20 in 1994 no less, the domain name pizza.com just sold it for $2.6 million. Just stop and think of the stuff you could have registered for nuthin' back in 1994.
On this, the anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination, I can't think of better done tribute than this one.
If you ever doubted that the media is biased, give this a read. The media has two standards .... one for Republicans and one for Democrats. And yet, newspapers and teevee news outlets wonder why their readership/viewership is disappearing?
Charlie Pierce on John Yoo, the infamous author of the legal justifications for Bush to do whatever he wanted:
He should be kept away from the law for the same reason we keep Charlie Manson out of the cutlery drawer. He should have been the story [in themedia this week] but, of course, Barack Obama went bowling.Go read the whole thing.
Unless you've been in a cave, you know that home foreclosures have been going through the roof (no pun intended). But in reality, it's worse than reported:
Some banks are letting people stay in their houses ... through foreclosure and beyond. One distressed mortgage buyer said people have been staying in their home "Until someone comes to kick them out . . . Sometimes no one comes to kick them out.''There's a real incentive to work to keep a house.
The monthly jobs report came out today. No one was expecting a good one, but it positively stunk up the place. But Bonddad makes a very good, glass half full type point. The Bush boom produced the fewest new jobs of any recovery since WWII (I've written about this over and over again). So on the downside, job losses will be less because there are fewer employed people to be removed!!!
For the last three days many newspapers have been trying to sort out just exactly how many Iraq soldiers and policeman deserted during the Basra battle. The numbers are all over the place. It's apparent that no one really knows, including the Iraqi government.
It seems to me that the fact they don't know is just about as telling as the number that deserted. The Iraq government appears to be as incompetent as the U.S. government and has no idea of it's strength force or has any real command and control of the military.
In the meantime, Maliki seems to be continuing a covert war against al Sadr, and al Sadr is getting tired of it.
If you've been watching the news, you've likely heard of the FAA's recent failures at insuring the safety of commercial airplanes. I particularly found this appalling:
USAT highlights what was probably the most startling testimony at the congressional hearing. One of the two whistle-blowers who initially raised concerns about Southwest choked up as he told the story of how a manager came into his office and all but threatened him while he was working on a document detailing the problems with the inspection of Southwest planes. "You have a good job here, and your wife has a good job [at the FAA]," the manager told him while holding a picture of the inspector's family. "I'd hate to see you jeopardize your and her careers." The inspectors also talked about orders to shred documents so they wouldn't get to Congress, and they emphasized that the lax attitude toward Southwest stemmed from the close relationship their supervisor in Dallas had with the airline's managers. The manager still works for the FAA, although the agency insists he doesn't have responsibility for safety decisions. "What do you have to do to get fired there?" Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson asked.I can answer Rep. Johnson's question about how to get fired. Do a good job.
Digby posts today offering her view of why McCain is trotting out his military ancestors so prominently of late. She excerpts this piece by Michael Lind explaining the genesis of American politics:In the aftermath of the US election, the pattern of Democratic blue and Republican red on the electoral map is baffling, unless you know how to read it. Ideology does not help much. "Left" and "right" are irrelevant terms from 19th and 20th-century Europe. Geographic dichotomies--big states versus small states, interior versus coasts--merely supply questions, not answers.
The "Cavaliers" worry that McCain isn't one of them. And he isn't any more than Reagan or either Bush was. So McCain's prepping his image to fit into the tribal norm that he needs to win by doing his best Cavalier imitation.
The clue to the US electoral map lies in ethnography. As the historian David Hackett Fischer and the commentator Kevin Phillips (among others) have demonstrated, ideology and region are surrogates for race and ethnicity in the US. American politics is, and always has been, a struggle for power between two coalitions of tribes. Two coalitions, instead of three or four, because the US inherited the "plurality" or first-past-the-post voting system from early modern Britain. Plurality systems ensure that third-party votes are wasted and so give countries relatively stable two-party democracy.
In most periods from 1789 to the present, the US has had two dominant national parties competing to control government: Federalists vs Republicans (1790s-1810s), National Republicans vs Democratic Republicans (1810s-1830s), Whigs vs Democrats (1830s-1850s), Republicans vs Democrats (1850s-present). Despite the changing names, the underlying coalitions have been remarkably stable. In effect, there have been only two main parties in American history: the northern party and the southern party.
The core of the northern party (originally Federalists, Whigs and Republicans, and now Democrats) has been citizens of New England and the "greater New England" region settled by the descendants of colonial-era New Englanders, an enormous area which includes the great lakes, the upper prairie and the Pacific north-west. The culture of these "Yankees" originated in 17th-century English Puritanism. Its legacy remains in a distinct New England Yankee culture which values moral rectitude and social reform.
The historic rivals to the greater New England Yankees in US politics have been the coastal southerners of Virginia, South Carolina, and the Gulf coast region, which they settled from the Florida panhandle to east Texas. Royalist refugees from Cromwell's Puritan dictatorship--the so-called "Cavaliers"--created a hierarchical, traditional, aristocratic society based on a plantation economy. They have always dominated the southern party (originally Jeffersonian Republicans, then Jacksonian and Rooseveltian Democrats, and now Republicans).
On opposite sides in the English civil war, and then in the US civil war, the Yankees and Cavaliers have always been on opposite sides in US politics.
Here, also via Digby, is the classic orientation film for a brand new Cavalier. It's guaranteed to make Chris Matthew's little soldier stand at attention!
Ultimately, this is what will determine the Democratic nominee:
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama raised more than $40 million in campaign contributions in March, his staff said on Thursday.My guess is that Hillary's numbers will be anemic. The writing's on the wall. Wonder when HillBill will be able to read it?
That followed a record $55 million the Illinois senator hauled in during February.
Apparently the U.S. is perfectly content to return to it's delusion "it's fine" mindset in Iraq. Despite the recent paroxysm of violence in Iraq (effective nullifying any argument that the U.S. "surge" is doing anything of consequence), Maliki having his ass handed to him, Iran displaying it's regional muscle, and the U.S. sitting around saying "what the fu ....!", here's Ambassador Ryan Crockers conclusion:
Overall, though, Crocker, who is set to testify before Congress next week, insists the situation in Iraq has improved and says he expects the "political and economic progress" to continue.From my perspective there's been only one outcome from the beginning. It was baked into the cake during the colonial middle eastern period and has to play out.
Will John McCain receive the John Kerry treatment by the press?
The McCains' marriage has mixed business and politics from the beginning, according to an expansive review by The Associated Press of thousands of pages of campaign, personal finance, real estate and property records nationwide. The paperwork chronicles the McCains' ascent from Arizona newlyweds to political power couple on the national stage.Kudos to AP for doing a story on McCain's financial background and his wife's fortune. Go read the whole thing for a great backgrounder on McCain.
As heiress to her father's stake in Hensley & Co. of Phoenix, Cindy McCain is an executive whose worth may exceed $100 million. Her beer earnings have afforded the GOP presidential nominee a wealthy lifestyle with a private jet and vacation homes at his disposal, and her connections helped him launch his political career — even if the millions remain in her name alone. Yet the arm's-length distance between McCain and his wife's assets also has helped shield him from conflict-of-interest problems.
Nearly 30 years before John McCain became the Republican presidential nominee, he worked in public relations at his wife's family company.
John McCain held a barbecue recently for reporters at a two-story cabin near Sedona, Ariz., that sits on 15 acres owned by his wife's family trust and a real estate partnership in her name. The property includes four single-family homes and is worth nearly $1.8 million.
It's clear the rustic retreat is considered family property. The cabin features artwork by the McCain children and editorial cartoons depicting McCain. A doormat reads: "GEEZER (formerly known as `Stud Muffin') Lives Here." The amenities include a soda fountain and, of course, a Budweiser beer tap.
Without comment. The idiocy stands on it's own: (remember this oldie but goodie?)
"This year I was really a player," Feith said, thinking back on 2002 and relishing the memory. I asked him whether, in the end, he was at all concerned that the Geneva decision might have diminished America's moral authority. He was not. "The problem with moral authority," he said, was "people who should know better, like yourself, siding with the assholes, to put it crudely."
As Atrios says, "who could have predicted"?
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.
The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant.
State lawmakers said the myths are spreading because of Florida's abstinence-only sex education, Local 6 reported
Karl Rove discussing real patriotism:
In a recent interview with GQ, former Bush adviser Karl Rove criticized Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for “not wearing a flag lapel pin,” saying that “to a lot of ordinary people, putting that flag lapel pin on is true patriotism.”Real patriotism = wearing a lapel pin? Unfortunately Rove is correct. Judging by the polls, I'd guess that about 30% of the public thinks that true patriotism lies in wearing a flag lapel pin. They may be driving a car that gets 2 mpg, in debt up to their eyeballs, loyal Faux watchers, bigoted as all-get-out, but they've got that pin on!
Just for the record, the media (and John McCain) have it wrong .... again .... still.
In the recent Shiite dust-up in Iraq, it was Maliki subordinates who undermined Maliki and sued for peace, via Iran, with al Sadr. McCain and the media are incorrectly claiming that al Sadr sought the ceasefire.
It really is astounding that with hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars on the line, our intrepid media is clueless about the politics of the middle east. Simply using google would clear up a lot of errors. But then they might not get invited for those delicious cocktail weenie parties.
Atrios makes an excellent point today. He postulates that Americans don't support mass transit because most Americans really have no idea what quality rapid transit is like.
