Political Strategery

[straight from kos himself at GOS]

Political pop quiz: You are the Connecticut Republican Party, the nation's richest state and a solid Democratic stronghold. Your Democratic opponent has been busted (fairly or not) for lying or exaggerating his military service during the Vietnam War. Do you:

1. Nominate a decorated Vietnam War vet, retired Colonel, and winner of two Bronze Stars, with a proven track record of winning elections in tough political terrain

2. Nominate the teabagger co-founder of the WWE

If you were smart, you'd pick option number one. But the rules said you had to be a Republican...

I think this is goods news for someone, and it's NOT John McCain. Richard Blumenthal should weather this fake-ass controversy and when reality comes into play for voters, he will stomp Linda McMahon. This is another case of the Teabag Wing pulling the GOP too far to the right.

I know voters in Connecticut have proven themselves to be as fucking stupid as any other state last time they chose a Senator, but at the end of the day, I have to think a popular and effective public servant that had astronomical approval numbers should prevail.

Note to Rand Paul...

The choice to carry a gun is in no way equivalent to a condition beyond an individual’s control such as being born with brown skin or legs that don’t work. Therefore, your diversion about protecting “the right” of a paranoid asshole to wear his sidearm into McDonald’s doesn’t belong in a conversation on the societal benefits of the Civil Rights Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Nice try, asshole.

Dog Whistle or Tuning Fork?

Or simply ideological blindness?

As you may have heard, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul made a complete ass of himself last night on The Rachel Maddow Show.

I enjoy Rachel Maddow and think she is brilliant. But I often find Maddow's show annoying in the sense that she is too deferential to her guests in the moment—even when she's being aggressive—and too often relies on follow-up after the fact. As in the next show. Correcting the record or declaring "Gotcha!" too late is usually exactly that: Too late. No matter how thorough or clever.

But this segment does such a good job cutting past the “he said” or race card bullshit and dealing directly with the real world ramifications of actual policy vs. hypothetical ideology and tying it all together that I think it's worth everyone's time.

(You could watch the entire Paul appearance if you like, but it's twenty stomach-churning minutes of Paul running from giving a straight answer on whether he supports the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The key moments are excerpted in this brilliant follow-up:)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It's over.

Gotta give props to Lee Dewyze and Simon Cowell for last night's American Idol. Cowell chose “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen (Jeff Buckley-style) for Dewyze to sing in the biggest moment of the competition. It's not a song I would have thought suited his more gruff / less pretty vocals—shows what I know. His performance was awesome. I wish the arrangement was kept simpler (ditch the horns, tone down the backing vocals in favor of Lee and his guitar along with the strings), but I think this just won him the competition. Check it out:



Not too shabby. I think a better arrangement would come as close as anyone to could to Buckley’s rendition—which I think is one of the finest vocal performances ever recorded.

UPDATE: k.d. lang's got some pipes too...

Quote of the Day

“The main difference between the far right and far left
is that the left locates the golden age in the future.”
--John Judis

Self-Proclaimed “City of Tomorrow”

My current place of (temporary) residence is Troy, Michigan. While our permanent housing arrangements in Ann Arbor shake out, I am staying with Mrs. F's family in one of Detroit's upscale suburbs...

One of the reasons we are so excited to be relocating from North Carolina back to Michigan is the emphasis placed on education and services such as public libraries. This is true not only in our city of choice, Ann Arbor, but throughout much of Southeast Michigan (this is absolutely NOT the case in Asheville).

Here is some trivia on Troy:

• $108,033 - median income for a family according to a 2008 estimate. Median income for a household in the city was $88,766.
  
  
• #22 - Ranking in 2008 CNN/Money Best Places to Live: “With some of the highest-ranked schools in Michigan, moderately priced homes, safe streets and low property taxes, Troy is a great place for families.”
  
  
• $8,443 - Amount spent on vacations (domestic and foreign, household avg. per year)
  
  
• 10th - The Troy Public Library's ranking among Best Library in the United States for 2009.

Sounds pretty good, right? Who wouldn't want to move here? Open a business here?

Anybody with a fucking brain it turns out.

Earlier this year voters in Troy rejected a five-year 1.9 millage proposal that would have continued funding for quality-of-life services such as the public library. Starting this July the hours and services at the library will be slashed to minimum certification standards, and next July (2011) the library will close its doors permanently.

Some more trivia:

• $37.81 - Average increase in City of Troy portion of property taxes per residential home.
  
  
• $392.78 (or 9.4%) - Average DECREASE in all other areas of the average Troy homeowner's property tax bill for 2010 due to decrease in assessed values.
  
  
• 29% - The phony-ass “tax increase” thrown out to scare people by the local Republican Party, local Teabaggers, talk radio asshats and other bullshit-filled opposition groups.
  
  
• 5 - Number of years before the millage sunsets. Yes, it was fucking temporary.
  
  
• 30 - Ranking among the 30 full-service cities in Oakland County of Troy’s tax rate. That’s right: Troy residents pay the lowest city taxes in the area. Passing the millage would have moved them up two spots to 28.
  

Congratulations. It worked. Wealthy Republicans in this town decided “they got theirs, so fuck you” and whipped the sheeple in this town into a lather about receiving a slightly smaller tax reduction, and now there will be no public library system.

Good luck resuscitating Troy's legacy as “Innovation Alley” and here’s to a bright future as a destination for new business and residents.

Quote of the Day

“Some of the people pushing this idea are also pushing the idea of banning handguns,” said Graham, darkly. “I don’t think banning handguns makes me safer.

[link] Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) trying desperately to rationalize why terror suspects should be put on No-Fly lists and denied Miranda rights, but still be able to purchase whatever fucking guns they like.

With the exception of part of the 2nd Amendment, the U.S. Constitution is officially null and void to these fucking GOP assholes.

Obama's Mistake

I have to agree pretty wholeheartedly with this email sent to Digby:

The NY Times thinks that President Obama has not responded aggressively enough to this spill. Let's be clear:

No way is this oil spill Barack Obama's fault.

The fault lies with the ideology and mores of the Republican party and its theory of government. Their solution to this country's energy's future is to drill anywhere and everywhere. In their theory of government, government has no right to control who, what, where and how the natural resources of this country or this planet are exploited or not exploited, resources that are needed by us all and are needed to protect us all. Like my friend Jim Gilliam said in a private email, government is supposed regulate corporate behavior not just be their willing partner/follower. This is a lesson that we all need to keep in mind and that includes the president.

In the Republican theory of government, government regulation is inherently evil or at least counterproductive. So under George Bush et al, the only regulation in the Gulf has been self regulation. This oil spill is the fault of Republican ideology.

And the Times is wrong again in saying that if BP lied to Barack Obama and misled him that is not his fault. The spill itself and even, at the moment, the seemingly futile attempts to stop the spill is the result of Republicans, down to using Halliburton's technology over another technology that is more successfully employed in Europe.

However, I think this is Barack Obama's burden and ultimately the Democratic party's burden. A month ago, Barack Obama embraced (or he thought he cleverly "co-opted") Republican ideas for how to solve our energy future. Most progressives bemoaned this, especially because he had seemed to learn the lesson of health care. He is wrong on the merits. And on the merits I think there is little disagreement. It was supposed to be another clever way to disarm right wing arguments. But it has boomeranged back into the President's face and the face of the Democratic party.

This is now the recurring riff of this presidency. And I hate to say it, but it is political malpractice.

Once again the president embraced Republican ideas to be/look bipartisan and open minded. But being Republican ideas, they have all the weaknesses of Republican ideas - just like with the health care bill being a system built on Republican ideas of the health care system - a LOOSELY REGULATED PRIVATE SYSTEM. Now the president has endorsed offshore drilling, which he still had the opportunity to repudiate clearly yesterday...but he merely temporized with an appeal to a temporary moratorium until "safe" ways are found.

Are there any safe ways? If this takes even 90 days to cap, that is 18 million gallons of oil filling the Gulf of Mexico. (I can't do the math but does that fill the Gulf ---what is the visual of that from space???)

Barack Obama is not just the President of the US, he is also the head of the Democratic Party. I hesitate to be political, especially since this is potentially an ecological disaster of vast proportions, but a Gulf full of oil through the summer, a Gulf that voters would have seen endlessly on their TV screens, would have been enough to beat the Republicans back (as well as over the head) in the midterm elections. They would have been crucified on their oil rigs.

But now is that possible? I don't think so. The Democrats running in the midterms are now hobbled in their ability to trash the Republicans, because they have to tiptoe around their own President's position. He has handcuffed them, he has almost forced them to zip their mouths shut on the issue. Indeed the inchoate anger will wrongly accrue to him, and the only thing the Democrats running may be able to do is either defend him or run away from him.

He is redefining the positions of the Democratic party in ways that many of us progressives are unhappy with on the merits. But in this case he is also losing the political benefits of being on the right side for all of us.

The comments quickly devolve into a "Obama is the same/no better/worse than Bush, which is horseshit, but the point in this essay that he is too quick to embrace or validate GOP positions is well-taken. He does. It is brutal irony that he went out on a limb only a month ago and endorsed a drilling plan that in the current light might as well be something George W Bush left in the Oval Office desk drawer.

Environmental Catastrophuck

EXCELLENT POINT
TIME Magazine:

It may be time to stop referring to the Deepwater Horizon rig accident in the Gulf of Mexico as an oil spill. A spill sounds like something temporary, a glass of milk overturned, which empties and then can be cleaned up. But what is unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, not far from the sensitive shorelines of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, isn't a spill. It's an unchecked gush of crude oil from beneath the bottom of the ocean into the water — and no one can say for sure when it will finally stop.

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WE’RE STILL IN THE FRYING PAN
As bad as this situation in the Gulf is, it has the potential to become exponentially worse...

The worst-case scenario for the broken and leaking well gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico would be the loss of the wellhead currently restricting the flow to 5,000 barrels -- or 210,000 gallons per day.

If the wellhead is lost, oil could leave the well at a much greater rate, perhaps up to 150,000 barrels -- or more than 6 million gallons per day -- based on government data showing daily production at another deepwater Gulf well.

By comparison, the Exxon Valdez spill was 11 million gallons total. The Gulf spill could end up dumping the equivalent of 4 Exxon Valdez spills per week.

Um, Holy shit?
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IS THERE ANYTHING HALLIBURTON CAN'T FUCK UP?
WSJ via HuffPo:

Regulators have previously identified problems in the cementing process as a leading cause of well blowouts, in which oil and natural gas surge out of a well with explosive force. When cement develops cracks or doesn't set properly, oil and gas can escape, ultimately flowing out of control. The gas is highly combustible and prone to ignite, as it appears to have done aboard the Deepwater Horizon, which was leased by BP PLC, the British oil giant.

Concerns about the cementing process—and about whether rigs have enough safeguards to prevent blowouts—raise questions about whether the industry can safely drill in deep water and whether regulators are up to the task of monitoring them.

The scrutiny on cementing will focus attention on Halliburton Co., the oilfield-services firm that was handling the cementing process on the rig, which burned and sank last week.

How can one company have its fingers in so many shit pies? At this point, I wouldn't be shocked if the volcano in Iceland is probably somehow their fault.
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OBAMA’S KATRINA
Such comparisons are ridiculous—this is an industrial accident of never-before-seen proportions, not a natural event with days of warning for preparation that were ignored, and then responded to by incompetent lackies. Nevertheless, this will become the right-wing meme, and soon enough the conventional wisdom with the supine media. It's a raw deal.

But I will say this: Obama attending the White House Correspondents Dinner tonight has all the makings of becoming his "George Bush with the birthday cake while New Orleans sinks" moment.

The event should be cancelled. Who's going to be upset by that? The media? Fuck them. If he attends, they will be the ones stabbing him in the back on Monday for yukking it up while oil inundates the Gulf shore.

Serious Question...

Is there a reason why we can't just construct a big-ass concrete dome to lower to the gulf floor and cover this broken rig?

Can You Do ANYTHING While Black?

Digby has the latest taser horror story. It starts out like this...police see a black man riding a bicycle without a headlight.

It ends with a DOA at the hospital.

Digby sums up perfectly:

I think tasers are unconstitutional, authoritarian torture weapons that have no place in a civilized society. No government should have the power to electrocute citizens and cause them great pain -- even briefly -- in order to make them comply on nothing more than a policeman's whim.

(I haven't had the chance to weigh in on the bullshit new law in Arizona, but this is very likely to be the type of unintended consequence that could result in unnecessary, aggressive policing of the populace there.)

Peak Wingnut, cont.

I think this piece by Andrew Sullivan on Sarah Palin's chance of running and her prospects should she do so, is worth reading. He accuses the media of being far too complacent on the topic of Palin and the de-evolution of politics—but in classic Sully style, he counters by being in my opinion, too alarmist. I think the truth lies somewhere in between: she's too dangerous to ignore, but too extreme to emerge victorious.

For now.

Reading Assignments

REVISIONIST HISTORY: PART 1
I picked up the new issue of GQ during lunch today (having a newsstand in the office is a nice perk), and read several well-written pieces on a variety of subjects. But the Editor's Letter by Jim Nelson is one of the best things I've read about the destruction of education and history unfolding in Texas. It cuts right to the bone, and cops just the right attitude. Read the whole thing.

HEADS UP, HE NEVER HAD ANY...
Daniel Larison rips the Band-Aid off the tire-swinging media types lamenting the departure of John McCain's Integrity. It breaks down perfectly how McCain thrived so many years by fooling some of the people, some of the time. And now when his transparent policy shifts should be fooling NO ONE, the morons in the media are waxing nostalgic.

REVISIONIST HISTORY: PART 2
Today's big, bad, brave bullying Teabaggers would shit their pants and die on the spot if they actually encountered real communism, facism or tyranny. An interesting post by a historian on the fallacies spread by these ignorant jackasses, and why it's a mistake not to confront it.

Peak Wingnut

Get ready. It's coming...

1. This person might be the next Senator from Nevada...



Via Yglesias. This comment in the thread nails it.

Sure, barter can work. It worked well before industrialization. But the idea that you go to your GP, and pay him a sack of potatoes, but you need x rays, and the x ray guy wants the GI Joe with the kung fu grip for his kid, so you find someone who has that and trade him potatoes, but then the blood test guy wants neither, so you give him literally the shirt off your back, and then you promise the specialist that you’ll mow his lawn for two years…

2. The new Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, will be a tax cheat/imbezzler under investigation by the IRS for ripping his own party off. In Arizona, McCain has to fight off one of Abramoff's cronies, J.D. Hayworth—an acknowledged windbag who guest hosts for Laura Ingraham.

That's three certifiable teabagging maniacs with a good chance of joining the already crazy ranks of the GOP caucus. They aren't going to be pulling them in the proper direction.

And if those candidates, and others like them, win races, it will only embolden the rest of the freakshow.

UPDATE: Booman does a nice breakdown of two of these races...

Who Ya Got: SNL Alum Political Throwdown

Tina Fey tries to maintain a certain degree of neutrality, but it's pretty obvious which side of the ballot she wakes up on. Plus, she bolstered a career on lampooning Athena of the Right Wing. So I count her for the liberals.

On the Teabagger side, who was one of the featured “celebrities” onstage at today's big Tax DayTea Party in D.C.? None other than completely forgotten, one-dimensional, no-range-beyond-bimbo ex-SNLer Victoria Jackson.

This ridiculous appearence completely obliterates her only worthwhile contribution to life on earth, when she played Eydie Gormé on “The Sinatra Group.”

R.I.P. NPR

When I left Michigan for North Carolina nearly two years ago, I also said goodbye to NPR. The lack of decent public radio in Asheville, as well as having only a five-minute commute meant my daily briefings in the car to and from work were a thing of the past.

Since moving back to Michigan, and having an hour commute as well, I've had a chance to get reacquainted with NPR and Michigan Radio.

I wasn't missing much.

The bullshit I heard on the radio today was infuriating. The show was “Here & Now” (from Boston's WBUR), and since today is April 15, they had a segment on taxes...and I quote, “When the money magically disappears from our checks, what happens to it?” I was immediately wary of what was to come, but the host introduced some guest from a “non-partisan tax research group” to break it down.

This host was already beginning to channel her inner-Sarah Palin, and the assclown she brought in as an expert guest might as well have been Glenn Beck or Grover Norquist. She asked him "how does the government spend that tax dollar?" And the first thing out of his mouth ass, is:

“Most of the money is transferred to...uh...other people.”

Now first of all, everyone knows the number one expenditure is defense. To reach his conclusion, this guy rounds defense spending down from the actual 23% to 20%, and then he lists social security (note: 20%) and medicare & medicaid (note: 19%) together, and somehow comes up with 56¢ (!) of that tax dollar going to “what the federal government calls entitlements.” And why explain that the spending on SS is mandatory and covered by its own dedicated stream, and goes to people that have already paid for it.

Even if there is somehow a case to be made for his math, his framing is pretty damn obvious—hard-working Americans are paying for lazy (and probably brown) people.

He also manages to get a dig in on how much government employees are paid. Nice.

Over the next few minutes, as he addresses other minutiae, he repeatedly beats on the welfare horse.

“[defense] is the next biggest chunk after that big 56% entitlement chunk...”

“...the vast fiscal flows out in entitlements...”

Then he proceeds to lament the deficit and points his finger Obama as the source of all of those problems.

He also references the Bush tax cuts a couple times (in a good way) and neglects to mention Obama has lowered taxes, and trots out the bogeyman of rates returning to Clinton-era rates if Obama lets the Bush cuts expire.

When the discussion turns to state taxes, it's more of the same, as he laments the progressive policies of some states who tax households above $200K more.

All the way through this the host nods along, occasionally parroting a point or two, and that's it.

Fuck that shit. That’s the kind of garbage I’d expect to see on Lou Dobbs.

And when I went to the npr.org site to find the link to this piece, I saw on the front page a bogus “he said/she said” regurgitation about whether the word “bailout” is fair to describe the Democrats finance reform. (Its not.) No analysis, no facts, no actual reference to the substance of the legislation. Just five or six quotes—the first batch all seem to be right from Frank Luntz's clubhouse.

Anyway. That's just a snip from today. I did hear an interesting discussion on the Supreme Court with Nina Totenberg later, but on balance, I am finding myself outraged at NPR far more than feeling informed.

Back From the Grave...

...and not quite ready to party.

Bringing everybody up to speed...I am now relocated to Michigan sans the rest of the Family Furious. Mrs F and the Kids are remaining in N.C. to finish out the school year and hopefully sell the house in a timely manner. While one might have expected my "free" evenings to allow for massive quantities of blogging, it hasn't quite worked out the way.

My arrival here was hectic: for the first two weeks I was adjusting to a new job in the day, while helping my old job complete projects in progress in the evening. Then, last week Mrs F and the girls came to visit, and I wasn't going to waste any of their limited time here on the computer.

Oh, and my new job (and seating location) eliminates any blogging and surfing during the day.

Next thing you know it’s been nearly a month and I've barely blogged at all. The surprise, to me, has been how little I miss it. I've amped up the Facebook a bit, but that's not really a substitute for reading, writing or commenting on a normal blog. I just haven’t felt compelled to post about much of late.

So here’s what I expect going forward...

Things will probably be more sporadic, and when I DO post, it’ll be more stuff about the cars I’m driving and photographing...I’ll probably pull an Atrios and rely on posting links and quotes a bit more...embed video if we’re lucky. And if something really pisses me off, maybe it’ll result in a long-format tirade like the good ole days.

Sticking with the automotive theme...

PHOTOSHOP FAIL
“Who were the ad wizards that came up with THIS one?”

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BATTERIES INCLUDED
Ass-kicking Canadian Nissan Sentra ad. (NOTE: Blogger is cropping like a third of the picture off, so you might want to click through to YouTube.)

[h/t Jalopnik. Also, making-of video here]

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RECENT SHOOT:

More here.

He's Coming!

It's the day after Easter, and you know what that means...

Old School

Normally I only read newspapers on vacation: when they are dropped outside my hotel door, or left lying in an airport terminal. And I always relish the opportunity.

These days, between my new digs at Mrs F's grandmother, and my new job, there are multiple papers at my disposal...New York Times, WSJ, USA Today and the Detroit paper. In fact, I'm getting more of my news and information the old-fashioned way than I am online.

There's still something satisfying about reading an actual paper. And I definitely read more stories than I do online...they're sitting right there ready to be read, not off to the side requiring some incentive to click a link.

As usual, the Sunday New York Times has the most meat on its bones...

There was a good Frank Rich column on the fomenting of rage from the right... A very good Magazine article on what Obama's Wall Street regulatory plan should look like...(Krugman briefly weighs in on this today).

Even the generally annoying Mustache of Wisdom had a decent column—someone I would NEVER click a link to without being directed to—particularly one with a title as opaque as “Hobby or Necessity?”

And some stories just wouldn't work onscreen as well as it does in print. Like this frightening illustration-based story hypothesizing about an Israeli attack on Iran and what might ensue in today's version of The Six-Day War.

Friedman’s column was certainly bolstered by having read the big graphic story first, and the combination reaffirmed my stance on U.S.-Israeli relations, which boils down to this: I generally fall on the side opposing whatever Israel is up to at any particular moment. I think the United States pays far too much deference to Israeli interests, and that the relationship is extremely one-sided in who benefits from it.

The ascension of hard-liners in Israeli politics has made much of this more obvious (or less thinly-veiled), and there is a lot to be added into the equation from Freidman's column about the attitudes at play, too. But even The Mustache is giving Israel too much leeway by implying that Israeli interest in Middle East peace has diminished primarily because of economics and a lack of focus. Those certainly factor in the politics of everyday citizens (in Israel and elsewhere), and I think explains how Israeli politicians that behave like a Dick Cheney fantasy team could come to dominate the government, but it leaves aside what I believe is a very deliberate process of dismantling any movement towards Arab-Israeli peace agreements.

I finished reading that timeline of an attack on Iran, and wondered “what does the Israeli regime have to lose by doing something like this?”

Then I refreshed myself on the Six Day War, the events leading to it, and the fact that so many of the same players—then young military leaders, now high government officials—are involved, and I wonder, “When will Israel go ahead with this crazy shit, and is there anything Obama can do to stop it or react differently?”

P.S. This really started as a light-hearted post on the nostalgia of reading newspapers...

Crazytown

What is with Michigan and the fucking militias? Seriously.

Where would you think the higher concentration of whacked out gun zealots plotting against the government would be? The mountain wilderness of Appalachia (where I just moved from)? Or a high-brow city containing "The Harvard of the Midwest" (where I just moved to)?

These aren't even guys out in the fucking boonies. This is all right here.

"Wow."

Took the Nissan GT-R test car home Thursday night. Wow.

Really. Just..."Wow."

That's about all one can say about a 485 horsepower car that get to 60 mph in under 4 seconds.

I guess "Holy shit!" is appropriate as well.

[more photos]

My Cubist Period

Behold the Nissan Cube.

I joked to my former coworkers that the new guy doesn't get the BMW, and that "I'm sure I'll be driving the Nissan Cube..."

Lo and behold, those were the keys dropped on my desk. It might be the most ridiculous car since the VW Thing, but it's already grown on me.

Links

"DONT TALK ABOUT GRAYSON"
That's what will be written on Sarah Palin's palm after this.

GAME SHOW POLITICS
This has been around for a little while, but I haven't. It's excellent: Democrats are playing "Jeopardy," while Republicans play "Family Feud."

BEATING THE DRUM
Kevin Drum rants about Republican mendacity—in this case, from Lindsay Graham—and at the end wonders, "Who do these guys think they're kidding?"

That's easy, Kevin: The guy sitting across the desk. And it's working.

TOM TOLES IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

[h/t Ezra]

Dick of the Week: Dennis Kucinich

Leaning No: Will Kucinich Become
The Ralph Nader Of Health Care Reform?

[TPM link] But one of the House's leading progressives says he's unlikely to be swayed. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) voted against the House health care bill. And his office confirmed to me today that he remains opposed to the Senate bill.

Last week, there were some signs that Kucinich might be persuadable. At a White House meeting Thursday, President Obama apprised Kucinich of a measure in the Senate health care bill--authored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)--that allow individual states to create single payer systems several years down the line. Kucinich was said to be interested in the provision.

Apparently not interested enough.

[...] But there is some chance, however small, that Kucinich will cast the deciding vote. And for the time being, he's saying he'd rather be the Ralph Nader of reform, instead of its kingmaker.

Patron Saint of the Firebaggers. Assholes on the left insisting on purity from the party are as bad as the extreme wingers on the GOP side.

It's this or nothing, Dennis, you prick. Shut the fuck up, vote "Yes" and work to improve things. But then, I suppose Nadering the bill now will help burnish your creds with the idiots who support your next Quixotic Presidential run.

Update

As any of you who also follow Mrs Furious' blog already know, things are crazy and about to get crazier. I have accepted a job back in Ann Arbor, MI. I leave in 10 days while Mrs F and the kids stay behind to sell the house and finish school (whichever comes first).

So that has meant (and will mean) a flurry blizzard of activity around the house; finishing projects, cleaning, packing, repeatedly shitting our pants, and then cleaning our pants. At work I have a million loose ends to tie up, and once I leave I will be settling into a new job, trying to finish some ongoing work from my current job all while living with Mrs F's grandmother—which could be serious sitcom material in itself.

Needless to say, blogging is likely to fall by the wayside for a while. Even now I have several things flying around that I'd love to touch on, but don't really have time. Maybe I'll throw together a Link Bonanza or something.

That's all for now.