No Lieberman. No Robert Gates.

Change please.

No fool like an old fool

Delusional and/or demented McCain may be obsessed with fantasies of romancing Sarah.

Could be this old womanizer got carried away and his vp selection process was driven by dreams of romancing Sarah on Air Force One.

"mistake prone Biden"

For many journalists, including those at the New York Times, "mistake prone" has become part of Biden's name.

So, to be fair, why not "frequent liar" McCain? Or "truth" challenged" McCain?

Biden vs Palin

or an episode of Reba?

The Big Picture

From the Big Picture:

Want to get a sense of exactly how expensive the Paulson Plan is?

1 million seconds is 11 days

1 billion seconds is 32 years

1 trillion seconds is 3 centuries

The Big Picture

"Terrorist" Attack on Financials?

Not necessarily a wingnut attack of paranoia. One very smart guy thinks enough of the possibility to write about it. Link

Sarah Palin's greatest hits

Here's the list: LINK

McCain? Simply confused by all of it

Lumpy goes senile over Spain. link

How swift boating works

Exactly right explanation of how swift boating works from Josh Marshall

Free apes

Compassion.

Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans. Link

Dukakis moments

We need more images of McCain in those studly, very dark glasses, "Navy" baseball cap, and golf shirt, especially those where average height people tower over him.

Hearing aids can be repaired.

I'm not telling my wife, or anyone else for that matter, but today I broke my $2000(plus) hearing aid. I was getting into the car, leaving the gym, and not wearing my eyeglasses. I noticed a large cashew in the cup holder that must have fallen out of the bag of mixed nuts I had for lunch. I forgot that before going into the gym I had carefully put the hearing aid safely into the cup holder, a little fortress. (Is this a senior moment?) I popped the nut into my mouth and bit down hard. It crunched and I knew. A little wad of tiny electronics spilled out, between the two hearing aid pieces in my hand. They must be damaged. Who could possibly fix these little wires and teeny lumps of important appearing items?

I will have to spring (secretly) for another hearing aid and cover my loss with, maybe, canceling a few years of gym membership. Or sell a dog.

I was sick. Thanks to Bush and company I have some serious income reductions and have money worries. The hearing aid helps keep the peace between my wife and me. I don't need max volume on the TV. I don't automatically say "what?" in response to anything she says. The hearing aid is an important item in our house.

After picking up my boy Rowdy from the vet where he was recovering from $300 (plus. I can't bear to reveal the actual amount.) surgery to remove what likely will turn out to be a wart and not the melanoma I feared, I went to the hearing aid supplier.

"I didn't have my glasses on and I stepped on it in locker room," I lied.

"This is a good break" the receptionist said. "There's an odd little dent here though. No problem. I'll take it upstairs and glue it," she said cheerfully.

....and glue it?

That's it? Glue it like a broken cup. That's it?

It is. Right now the glued hearing aid is safely enclosed in a little plastic bag, in the car in the cup holder so I can't get my hands on it until the glue dries completely, no matter how urgent the need for me to test it and make sure it still works.

The only bad thing that could happen now would be for me to spill the beans to my wife, or one of her siblings. The hearing aid story would become a defining moment. A tale told again and again and again, and summoned forever with subtle references.

Would you like another nut dear?

Please let me keep my mouth shut.

our tax dollars at work.

The Bush regime has pulled us all into the sewer. Is it too much to hope that someday they will called to account for these atrocities?

The Reprieve study includes the account of a prisoner released from Guantánamo Bay, who described a fellow inmate's story of detention on an amphibious assault ship. "One of my fellow prisoners in Guantánamo was at sea on an American ship with about 50 others before coming to Guantánamo ... he was in the cage next to me. He told me that there were about 50 other people on the ship. They were all closed off in the bottom of the ship. The prisoner commented to me that it was like something you see on TV. The people held on the ship were beaten even more severely than in Guantánamo."

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: "They choose ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the prying eyes of the media and lawyers. We will eventually reunite these ghost prisoners with their legal rights.

"By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been 'through the system' since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what has been done to them."

Link

Via majikthise

Too easy for us to overlook and forget. Let bygones be bygones.

authorities don't know the motive....

The U.S. military confirmed Wednesday that a former Guantanamo detainee from Kuwait carried out a recent suicide attack in northern Iraq.

A spokesman for U.S. military's Central Command told The Associated Press that Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi took part in an attack in Mosul.

U.S. Navy Cmdr. Scott Rye said authorities don't know the motive for the attack, which was reported last week by Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television. Iraqi security forces were apparently targeted.

a little more here.

gas

We think they should buy it for us.

It's the gas prices

If Obama wants to connect to the working class he needs to talk seriously about gas prices. It is their central concern.

Hillary's base

No matter how hard you try you will find it impossible to under estimate the intelligence and knowledge of the average Pennsylvania voter.

More here.

Experience, Clinton style

I used to be a tugboat captain. With that experience my wife is now entitled to be a tugboat captain.

Poll (2 parts)

Pick one:

Extraterrestrial beings visit Earth because

1. They think us interesting and want to be our friends.

2. They want to eat us.

3. Watching us destroy ourselves amuses them.

Pick one:

1. There are more than one type of extraterrestrial beings, from more than one place. Some want to be our friends. Some want to eat us. Some want to eat some of us.

2. There are extraterrestrial beings but they do not visit us and do not care about us.

3. There are no extraterrestrial beings.

Tell your friends.

Obama

I liked his speech a lot, though I think it went whistling right by the wad of chuckleheads that make up this country's core. The more I see of Obama the more I like him. Yesterday, in the speech, he seemed to put it right out there as he saw it, not contrived to meet what experts advised would reach the wad.

The more I see of Hillary's campaign the more I'm reminded of Karl Rove. The Clintons are beginning to feel like a virus.

Clinton and Obama

When one seems to surge ahead I begin to like the other one.

Mortgage problems? You're not alone

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- GMAC LLC, the lending company that General Motors Corp. sold to a hedge fund manager, lost $724 million in the fourth quarter because home buyers didn't keep up with their mortgage payments.

Link

Behind on your mortgage payments? Maybe you can just walk away.

Lessers

Edwards is out. That leaves us with a choice between lessers.

Tips for the rich

Save yourself and your upper class friends and shoot everyone else.

Biggs's Tips for Rich: Expect War, Study Blitz, Mind Markets

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Barton Biggs has some offbeat advice for the rich: Insure yourself against war and disaster by buying a remote farm or ranch and stocking it with ``seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc.''

The ``etc.'' must mean guns.

``A few rounds over the approaching brigands' heads would probably be a compelling persuader that there are easier farms to pillage,'' he writes in his new book, ``Wealth, War and Wisdom.''

Biggs is no paranoid survivalist. He was chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley before leaving in 2003 to form hedge fund Traxis Partners. He doesn't lock and load until the last page of this smart look at how World War II warped share prices, gutted wealth and remains a warning to investors. His message: Listen to markets, learn from history and prepare for the worst.....

The rich get complacent, assuming they will have time ``to extricate themselves and their wealth'' when trouble comes, Biggs says. The rich are mistaken, as the Holocaust proves.

...``Events move much faster than anyone expects,'' he says, ``and the barbarians are on top of you before you can escape.''...

From Bloomberg.com


I guess the barbarians he refers to are you and me.

Jim Culleny now Poetry Editor of 3QD

Sometimes you can have your day made by a whisper of good news about a good friend getting recognition for living generously and not compromising good sense and sound values

Jim Culleny is now poetry editor of 3 Quarks Daily, a site that deserves a visit. For a great picture of Jim, hit the “About” and scroll down being impressed, of course, by the rest of the fine 3QD team.

Maybe

flying saucers will save us.

Tighten your belt

Plenty if you can afford it, less for the rest.

The price of copper has tripled in five years. Zinc has doubled. Wheat and soybeans rose 70 percent in 2007. Futures prices of crude oil, gold, silver, lead, uranium, cattle, cocoa and corn are all at or near records.

A global boom in the cost of commodities, the staple ingredients of a modern economy, is entering its sixth year with no end in sight. Commodities have always been subject to boom-and-bust cycles, but many economists see a fundamental shift driving the markets these days.

As development rolls across once-destitute countries at a breakneck pace, lifting billions out of poverty, demand for food, metals and fuel is red-hot, and suppliers are struggling to meet it. Prices are spiraling, and Americans find themselves in what amounts to a bidding war with overseas buyers for products as diverse as milk and gasoline.

“It is absolutely a fundamental change in the global economic structure,” said Bart Melek, global commodities strategist for BMO Capital Markets, an investment firm based in Toronto. “Global commodities ranging from oil to base metals to grains are moving higher as billions of people in China and around the world get wealthier and are consuming more as they produce products for us, and increasingly for themselves.”...

Link to more at NYT

Might as well face it, things are going to get worse even if we continue to ignore the facts.

Obama tilted to the right

From today's Krugman column in the NYT:

...The Obama campaign’s initial response to the latest wave of bad economic news was, I’m sorry to say, disreputable: Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser claimed that the long-term tax-cut plan the candidate announced months ago is just what we need to keep the slump from “morphing into a drastic decline in consumer spending.” Hmm: claiming that the candidate is all-seeing, and that a tax cut originally proposed for other reasons is also a recession-fighting measure — doesn’t that sound familiar?

Anyway, on Sunday Mr. Obama came out with a real stimulus plan. As was the case with his health care plan, which fell short of universal coverage, his stimulus proposal is similar to those of the other Democratic candidates, but tilted to the right. ...

Link

Which brings us to Edwards who remains my first and best choice and is treated quite nicely in the same column cited above.

Not ready for a Clinton rerun

It has nothing to do with Hillary being a woman. It has everything to do with some of us being sick of the entire Clinton package and not at all being pleased by the prospect of a rerun.

Change please.

Don't forget

It is not possible to claim intelligence or sanity if you voted for Bush in either or both presidential elections.

Business ethics 2.

Do not sell products or services you know you can’t deliver or promise deadlines you know you can not meet. Do not demand your employees deliver what can not be done because you convinced someone to purchase a fantasy.

Also, when faced with failure do not try to convince your client/customer that you have delivered what you have not. It is never ethical to employ illusions, unnecessarily complex data, magical graphs, high speed speaking, diversions and delusion fostering flatteries to make it appear you have upheld your part of a bargain.