Get Your War On

If you haven't seen the GYWO videos yet, they're all right here. Fantastically wonderful stuff.

Is Palin Funnier than Quayle?

Easily. "I'll try to find you some and I'll bring em to ya" ~4:40.

I can't be angry about this crazy woman anymore. She's way too funny!

George Will on McCain

In cased you missed it, this was good: McCain loses his head

The Rope-a-Dope of the Cowboy and the Great Cattle Conversion

A friend mentioned being happy to anger a McCain supporter in a public place. I thought, ought we not be more welcoming in the event some of those people have second thoughts? If we kick them while they're down, they're more apt to dig their heels in, regardless how absurd the gesture. A softer stance could open a door for conversion. I want to see a landslide. This election shouldn't even be close. We're talking about the party that Ruined Everything vs. Barack Obama, who's name is so fun to say it wins voters. He's the first potentially post-partisan candidate I think most Americans have ever seen. Bill Clinton was on the Daily Show last night, and he said one thing that really bothered me. When asked, he said, "I think my party is going to win the election." He's dead wrong about that. Obama is going to win in spite of the Democratic Party - not because of it. Let's not forget, the party establishment bigshots all wanted Hillary. It was mostly people like me, who only vote for Democrats most often because I despise the Republican Party's agenda, not because I support them, who went out in huge numbers to caucus for Obama, support him in primaries, and donate in small amounts to his campaign. If Clinton were man enough and not still bitter about his wife's loss, he'd have said, "I think America's going to win this election." McCain couldn't more clearly represent the past and its decay, while Obama stands in sharp relief, representing the America of the near future.

But we were talking about the McCain supporter. It helps me now to remind myself that there are many people who never learned how to think, and it's not necessarily their fault. They don't know how to weigh facts, or differentiate between facts and opinions, or make rational decisions. That works for lots of people most of the time: at church, at school, at work in a cubicle for a corporate master. But when there's a need to maintain a democratic government, that lack of cognitive capacity for independent inquiry is a severe liability. The red team knows how to exploit that deficiency in the voters who possess it, and the blue team doesn't. They're convinced that facts and reason should suffice. They're mistaken about this repeatedly, and fail to realize that a large portion of the voting public is more like stray cattle than civic peers, who need to be herded in another direction from time to time for their own safety. For lack of better guidance, they are herded by the self-serving red team's leadership, made up entirely of scoundrels and thieves. The red team supporters blame the blue team for the abuse dealt by their team managers. The cycle goes on.

There's an alternative to all of this, and I hope Obama seizes the opportunity tomorrow to reshape the race radically. What I want to see him do is pull a rope-a-dope on the "President". Appear reluctant to attend the WH meeting, then once there, cameras rolling, he tells Bush what the new deal is going to be. He accuses Bush of having been a whole handful of different kinds of drunk for the last eight years, and strongly suggests that Bush sign the bill he's given, with a hint of a threat for failing to comply, something the news media can go crazy speculating about. Obama needs to start acting like he IS the President--right now--because there are no responsible grown-ups who are officially part of the executive branch right now. Unofficial members will have to do. Bush and McCain are now deliberately trying to cause a collapse by predicting one, pulling out that fear card for one last try. But they've been caught at it one too many times now. Obama can swoop in and show that responsible grown-ups will take over now. And people will believe and internalize what appears to be true, as long as the narrative is properly crafted. Those thinking-impaired folk who need a strong father figure will have a sturdy hook on which to hang their non-thinking caps, and a whole great lot of the rest of us will be so damn fired up about the prospect of a little taste of justice that Obama would win in that landslide I was talking about. Huge.

That's my late night fantasizing about what the news might look like tomorrow. Is it over the top? It all seems possible though, no?

This Man has an MBA from Harvard

"My first instinct," said President George W. Bush, "was to let the market work, until I realized, being briefed by experts... It turns out that there's a lot of interlinks through the financial system."

That might've been a good briefing to get EIGHT YEARS AGO, YOU STUPID FUCKING MORON PIECE OF SHIT WORST "PRESIDENT" EVER!!

Your Mother is Planning to Kill You

Where's the Bush Doctrine when you need it? Our nation is being threatened by our planet! The time to act is now. The methane escaping from the Arctic sea bed is a WMD of staggering proportions -- greater than anything devised by man. These climate bombs are headed right for us, and we must destroy the Earth before it destroys America.

Another Election, Another Study that Explains Why You're Stupid

Seems like we get a scholarly review of why people can't make rational decisions every couple of years. This one is just the latest.

Another title might be, "how the two-party system destroyed American Democracy". Brand loyalty is fatal. Washington was right. Parties are for suckers.

Bernie tells it like it is (as usual)

For years, as a member of the House Banking Committee and now as a member of the Senate Budget Committee, I have heard the Bush Administration tell us how "robust" our economy was and how strong the "fundamentals" were. That was until a few days ago. Now, we are being told that if Congress does not act immediately and approve the $700 billion Wall Street bailout proposal these "free marketers" have just written up, there will be an unprecedented economic meltdown in the United States and an unraveling of the global economy.

This proposal as presented is an unacceptable attempt to force middle income families (and our children) to pick up the cost of fixing the horrendous economic mess that is the product of the Bush Administration's deregulatory fever and Wall Street's insatiable greed. If the potential danger to our economy was not so dire, this blatant effort to essentially transfer $700 billion up the income ladder to those at the top would be laughable.

Let us be clear. If the economy is on the edge of collapse we need to act. But rescuing the economy does not mean we have to just give away $700 billion of taxpayer money to the banks. (In truth, it could be much more than $700 billion. The bill only says the government is limited to having $700 billion outstanding at any time. By selling the mortgage backed assets it acquires -- even at staggering losses -- the government will be able to buy even more resulting is a virtually limitless financial exposure on the part of taxpayers.) Any proposal must protect middle income and working families from bearing the burden of this bailout.

I have proposed a three part plan to accomplish that goal which includes a five-year, 10% surtax on the income of individuals above $500,000 a year, and $1 million a year for couples; a requirement that the price the government pays for any mortgage assets are discounted appropriately so that government can recover the amount it paid for them; and, finally, the government should receive equity in the companies it bails out so that when the stock of these companies rises after the bailout, taxpayers also have the opportunity to share in the resulting windfall. Taken together, these measures would provide the best guarantee that at the end of five years, the government will have gotten back the money it put out.

Second, in addition to protecting the average American from being saddled with the cost, any serious proposal has to include reforms so that we end the type of behavior that led to this crisis in the first place. Much of this activity can be traced to specific legislation that broke down regulatory safety walls in the financial sector and allowed banks and others to engage in new types of risky transactions that are at the heart of this crisis. That deregulation needs to be repealed. Wall Street has shown it cannot be trusted to police itself. We need to reinstate a strong regulatory system that protects our economy.

Third, we need to address the needs of working families in this country who are today facing very difficult times. If we can bail out Wall Street, we need to respond with equal vigor to their plight. That means, for example, creating millions of jobs through major investments in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and creating a new renewable energy system. We must also make certain that the most vulnerable Americans don't freeze in the winter or die because they lack access to primary health care.

Finally, we need to protect ourselves from being at the mercy of giant companies that are "too big to fail," that is, companies who are so large that their failure would cause systemic harm to the economy. We need to assess which companies fall into this category and insist they are broken up. Otherwise, the American taxpayer will continue to be on the financial hook for the risky behavior, the mismanagement, and even the illegal conduct of these companies' executives.

These are the last days of the Bush Administration, the most dishonest and incompetent in modern American history. It is imperative that, at this important moment, Congress stand up for the middle class and for fiscal integrity. The future of our country is at stake.

Let no one say plan X had to be passed because there was no viable alternative. The rich will scream and holler about taking it in the shorts, but when they do, let's ask them: would you rather forfeit 10%, or would you prefer to be eaten? Considering the fact that the rich most likely benefited greatly while this crisis unfolded, 10% sounds far too generous to me.

Barack Rock

"Barack Rock" was recorded today and yesterday. Next weekend, we shoot the video. Bring your babies. Don't say maybe. Shoot the viddy -- unless the weather's shitty.