Look at Al Franken Go

Wow.

The indoctrination of our kids

In about 1937 or so Hitler spoke to my mother's elementary school. (My mother is a German native) She was chosen to present him with a bunch of flowers and he patted her on the head. She was thrilled.

In his speech he encouraged the kids to be good students and good Germans. In fact he equated the two, he told them that the way for them to be Good Germans was to be good students and to mind their parents. That was about it.

I hope we don't hear anything like that from Obama.

Why somebody needs to be prosecuted

In 2001 John Yoo wrote an internal DOJ memo reaching the legal conclusion that torture is a good thing.

In subsequent years the administration lost Supreme Court decisions related to the right to do whatever they wanted to prisoners three times plus Congress passed some laws saying that torture was bad.

Then in 2007 the DOJ prepares an updated memo using the same Yoo arguments and concluding that torture is good.

The Bush Administration had no respect for law. They had no respect for the Supreme Court, no respect for the Constitution, no respect for Congress, no respect for Rational Thought.

I don't know why they aren't all in prison.

UPDATE: All I can say to this is Wow.

Dumb and dumber

I don't know who's dumber, Chris Matthews or Congressman John Campbell (R-CA).

Matthews interviews Campbell about a bill he's sponsering to require future candidates for President to show a birth certificate. It's an appeasement to the nutcase birthers who are forming the base of the Republican party these days.

Of course, such a bill is just insanity, but Matthews is just as stupid. Throughout the interview he kept using the words "native born" and "natural born" as if they're synonyms.

They aren't.

The nutcase birthers are claiming that Obama isn't Natural born because they don't accept his birth certificate as legitimate. But the birth certificate just determines whether or not he's native born, they aren't claiming he's not born to a US citizen, just that he wasn't born in the US.

But if he was born to a US citizen, which he was, then he fulfills the constitutional requirement of being natural born -- of being a citizen by nature of his birth, not the location of his birth.

The Drug Problem

The liberal approach to the drug problem is that "You have a problem with drugs and the government will help you fix it." They call this reducing demand.

The conservative approach to the drug problem is that "You have a problem with drugs and if you don't fix it the government will come down on your head". They call this going after supply.

The rational approach to the drug problem is that the only drug problem is that government thinks there's a drug problem. There is no actual drug problem.

Government supports a criminal market system which supplies drugs. If we allowed a free market system (or a regulated market might be better) they would be cheaper, safer, and the only problem would be finding productive employment for all thosw drug warriors who'd be freed up to do stuff like make cars.

Parking tickets

The parking ticket twits in Corpus Christi, TX drive around the downtown streets in unregistered electric golf carts.

If you lived in Corpus and tried to use one of those to save gas money on your grocery store trips you'd end up in jail eventually (after the 4th or 5th ticket).

But cops are special, laws don't apply to government agents raising revenue for the state.

Starvation on $1.10 per day.

It seems there's a sheriff in Alabama that's making money from providing frugal (very frugal) diets for jail residents.

When I first read about it my reaction was that the sheriff is a bad guy. That's pretty much my initial reaction to any cop – that he's a bad guy.

It seems the State of Alabama gives $1.75 per inmate per day to sheriffs to feed inmates and they allow the Sheriff to keep any money left over after the inmate meals are paid for.. That's a pretty good deal for the sheriff, not so good for the county prisoner under the care of the Sheriff.

The meals he provided were typically things like

... a few spoonfuls of grits, part of an egg and a piece of toast at breakfast, and bits of undercooked, bloody chicken at supper. … a typical inmate lunch here: “Two peanut butter sandwiches, with small amounts of peanut butter, chips, and flavored water.”

Doesn't sound very appetizing but does that sound like a starvation diet? It doesn't to me. As much as I'd like to think there's some slimy Sheriff in Alabama, the actual diets don't look all that terrible to me.

The idea of feeding inmates on $1.10 just seems on its face to be a starvation diet to most people. But, it's not.

Using 1989 price data, one recent (2001) study used a linear programming model to determine a nutritional diet that would feed an adult mail for $1.13 per day. If our Alabama Sheriff can get USDA surplus peanut butter and powdered eggs and can make bread from USDA surplus flour then he can certainly do a few cents better than the market price minimum cost diet.

Althouse thinks it was the judge who was abusive by sending the Sheriff to jail. She might be right.

Indefensible just thinks the whole thing is amazing.

Throw all the bums out

The US Senate is corrupt. All of them are corrupt, completely corrupt. All you have to do is look at the current nonsense about the Governor of Illinois appointing a replacement Senator and compare that to the current nonsense about the Governor of New York appointing a replacement Senator.

The difference in the two processes has nothing to do with high minded ethical considerations but does have everything to do with money. It's about money, it's always about money, and it's always corrupt.

Reid is afraid that Burris won't be able to raise enough money to support an election. But he's confident that Caroline will.

It's really that simple. It has nothing to do with race or corruption.

Who needs to make cars?

GM, Ford, and Chrysler can't seem to make any money by making and selling cars. So they've found a new way to make a living.

Chrysler said it needed $7 billion by year's end just to keep running. And GM asked for an immediate $4 billion as the first installment of a $12 billion loan, plus a $6 billion line of credit it might need if economic conditions worsen. The two painted the direst portraits to date — including the prospects of shuttered factories and massive job losses — of what could happen if Congress doesn't quickly step in.

What are they going to do with the money? Who knows? It's not important. What's important is that we must give them the money NOW or else something bad will happen. If we give them the money now then next year they'll make some changes in the way they spend money.

GM, which along with Ford and Chrysler was criticized for using corporate jets to get to Washington last month, said in a statement it will halt travel on such aircraft starting Jan. 1 and is pursuing the sale of four planes.

Ford plans to sell five jets and would pay Chief Executive Alan Mulally a $1 annual salary if the loan is used. GM’s Wagoner and Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli also would be paid $1 a year under their companies’ requests.

Of course such changes will come later. They can't make those kind of changes now because they're busy trying to con the US Congress into giving them money this year, so they can collect those end of year bonuses before their pay gets cut.

We're probably going to give these clowns money. There's no hope for us. We're doomed.

Poll watching

I'm a little late catching up with some back issues of Houston Chronicle.

Here's an example of a poll watcher kind of taking her oversight responsibility a little farther than might be considered reasonable.

The 40-year-old Houston Realtor was wearing one of her souvenir T-shirts when she went to cast her ballot at a Cypress polling place Oct. 26. A poll worker told her she would have to change the shirt if she wanted to vote.

Hurley, who votes in every election, is familiar with poll site etiquette. She knows not to wear campaign paraphernalia. She's never run into trouble before.

What, she asked, was wrong with her light blue cotton T-shirt, emblazoned with a moose head, fishing poles, and the words "Seward, Alaska"?

The word "Alaska," a poll worker answered.

"She said it could be misconstrued as support for a candidate," Hurley said.

Picking Palin

This is an interestisting essay comparing McCain's choice of running mate to George Wallace's choice of Curtis LeMay in 1968.

Small Government Conservatives

I was listening to some random radio right wing wacko in the car this evening. He was making some comment about people not understanding the proper role of government.

We don't realize that government is just a necessary evil and too many of think government is a sugar daddy.

While it might be nice to think about a small government it's futile to refuse to recognize that government is a sugar daddy and nothing he or anybody else says or does is going to change that. The only question is Whose sugar daddy is it?

Government has become huge and self-perpetuating. It takes money (or freedom) away from one group of people and gives it to another group. The only thing left for us to worry about is whether or not the group(s) we are in is a group that gives or a group that get. It's going to be one or the other -- government is not neutral and it isn't going to become neutral anytime in our lifetimes.

Drug Warriors are fighting for job security

There's a proposition on the ballot in Michigan to allow for medical marijuana. And the federal drug warriors are afraid.

Why does McCain get so much negative press?

Could stuff like this be one reason?

Not Petty at all

I think this is so funny.

This morning I heard two men talking about a large employer in my area who plans to scale back his business if Obama wins. He can afford to do this because he is wealthy and isn’t interested in putting in extra time to maintain or expand his business if it means he will pay more taxes as Obama has promised. People will lose their jobs if this happens.

If this occurs, it won’t be based on pettiness or pique. The business owner has reached a point in his life where he doesn’t want to work for less money or a marginal amount of additional money. Of course, I doubt his employees agree with this perspective but ultimately it’s the business owner’s decision when he reaches the point where the effort isn’t worth the return.

This kind of reaction to just the possibility of a change in the top marginal tax rate from 36% to 28% isn't petty at all. It's perfectly rational.

Fact Checking McCain's Speech

He said, "We believe in rewarding hard work and risk takers."

Well, okay, one way to reward hard work is with a minimum wage law.

But what does it mean to reward risk takers? If you can be assured that the government will reward you for taking risk then you aren't taking much of a risk.

Florida Fashion Police

Do we have some empty prisons somewhere with a critical need to be filled?

Parsing words

During that Saddleback Church interview (whenever I hear that I can't help but think Brokeback for some reason), McCain and Obama both pandered to a bunch of religious nutcases, so in my book they both lost the "debate".

But there's been some discussion about Obama's comment's about Clarence Thomas.

Some critical of his comments say that he was hypercritical in that Thomas was better experienced for the SC job than Obama is for the presidency.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars disputes that Obama said that by quoting from a written transcript.

I WOULD NOT HAVE NOMINATED CLARENCE THOMAS. I DON'T THINK THAT HE. I DON'T THINK THAT HE WAS A STRONG ENOUGH JURIST OR LEGAL THINKER AT THE TIME FOR THAT ELEVATION. SETTING ASIDE THE FACT THAT I PROFOUNDLY DISAGREE WITH HIS INTERPRETATION OF A LOT OF THE CONSTITUTION.

I'm pretty sure that Obama didn't actually yell. I'm not sure why Ed thought he needed to yell.

But if you listen to an actual recording of what Obama said (and I don't have a link to one) it's very clear that he started to say that Thomas didn't have the experience for the job. But he caught himself after getting out just the first syllable of the word experience.

It's an empty debate and both sides of it are full of it.

Meeting the Mayor

When I was about 4 years old my grandmother introduced me to the Mayor of Austin, Texas. I had a burr haircut and he couldn't resist giving me one of those knuckle rubs. It hurt. I was wearing cowboy boots and I kicked him in the shins. Hard. As hard as I could.

Counting votes

They're showing some democrat discussion of the current committee meeting to decide on seating delegates from Florida and Michigan. It's pathetic. It's nonsensical rhetoric.

Count all the votes. Blah blah blah. The constitution. Blah blah blah. Freedom. Blah blah blah. Baseball, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet. Blah blah blah.

This has nothing to do with the Constitution or with counting votes. Choosing delegates is not a constitutional process. There's nothing in the constitution to even support the idea of political parties, much less outlining how they should vote on candidates.

Political parties can choose candidates any damn way they want. The democrats gave each state party organization a wide range of options in how to pick their delegates who will then vote to select a candidate. That's about party rules, not the constitution.

The state had a choice. They could have statewide elections and apportion the delegates according the the outcome. They could have local caucuses. They could do like they did in California and have winner take all at a county level for election of delegates or like. They could have a mixture of votes and caucuses like they did in Texas. One thing they could not do was pick the delegates earlier than allowed by specified rules.

Florida and Michigan picked an option not available to them -- using a statewide vote for delegates but doing so earlier than the allowable date. That means they just choose to not actually pick any delegates.

It's not about counting votes. It's not about fairness. It's not about the Constitution. But it sure has become about nonsense.

Why does politics seem to always end up being basically about nonsense?