Obligatory

May the Joy of this season fill you with need.
The need to do right by your fellow man.
The need to see your neighbor's child fare as well as your own.
And various, assorted needs to be named later.

In a Nutshell

Over at Yves' place, Marshall Auerback nails it.
To wit:

...If that trend persists, then we do end up being like Greece. Not because of growing national insolvency, but more because our citizenry begins to view the government as a piggy bank to be exploited, rather than an instrument which mobilizes national resources for broader public purpose. Absent this political authority, everything begins to break down.

11 Sept. +9

Roy was damn good when he was NY based.
He knows it.

I do not know how to reach Mr. Larsen directly, but if he's reading this (as millions do every day!), I would like to tell him: while it is always nice to be appreciated, our self-respect has never been dependent upon the goodwill of rubes. If you think we need to be forgiven our electoral choices, lest we should lose the great emotional (and scant financial) largesse you poured forth after September 11, let me assure you that your self-esteem is grotesquely overinflated. To prosper or even survive in this tough town, we do what we have to do, not what we think would be pleasing to the suburban bacon-cheeseburgermeister.

C

What Atrios Said

Two Blocks Is A Million Miles

c

The Alternative

I want to put up a part of David Kurtz's deconstruction of Rep. Anthony Weiner's speech on the floor of the House.

Too many progressives seem to want to sit on the sidelines until someone, a Marquess of Queensberry, comes along and changes the rules of the game to make it more civilized. What they don't seem to grasp is that democratic politics are the Queensberry rules. They replaced mob rule. The fractiousness, unpredictability, and feralness of politics are vestiges that remind us of what the real alternatives to democracy are. The real alternative is not a debating club and smoking jackets.

Tho Nature, red in tooth and claw




...and then



And what Krgthulu said.

C

Stop by Scott's place

... and get the wonder of this

And hit the tip jar if you can.

C

Late

I didn't comment on this until I processed a little more information.
Oh, and I was drunk.

In short, you'd want to make Israel look like a paranoid, bloodthirsty and extremely belligerent nation of racist freaks, determined to murder fuck out of civilians with total impunity year-in, year-out, so that the entire planet disowns them by, for example, withdrawing their ambassadors and issuing a barrage of denuncations.

Q. Do those elites really want to go there?
A. Yes

C

After Smack, Nothing Else Sastifies

TBogg here, swinging for the fence.
Wanna taste?

Ha ha. So neighbor-lady is fucking Sarah Palin and not in the way that forces Rich Lowry and Matthew Continetti to give each other sad unsatisfying dutch-rudders

Speaking solely for myself,

HOMERUN

C

Just the facts, Ma'am.

KThug is getting irritated

So a question for all the people who say that the economic troubles under Jimmy Carter discredited postwar economic policies: why don’t the troubles under Bush similarly discredit post-Reagan policies? Funny how that works.

I suggest you hide.

C

Nice To See It Crafted So Nicely

Very Nice

Why th' hell would ducking, or side-stepping, the question have been preferable to affirming that his core beliefs include the idea that laissez-faire property rights trump personal rights, even in the most egregious cases? In a perfect world this wouldn't even be a story; it would be old news.

Go see the finished product here.

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I Endorse This Message

What John Cole said.


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Highly Velocitized Brain-matter Alert

Dear Ms. Coulter,
who among us would think that Arizona's SB 1070 could be offensive?

Well, the Phoenix Suns do.

You're welcome.

C


ps Who would have thought some nice NBA franchise would have a Noche Latina?

pps Oh, wait. it isn't just the club, it's league-wide.

Oh,

and Roy.

Make clicky the linky.

C

2 Great Tastes

The bullet point data sets it up.
The analysis knocks it down.

And now the “conservative intellectuals” are SHOCKED that conservatives have closed minds. You all spent the last 30 years turning every issue into a binary construct, and then lying about half of the god damned equation, and now you are shocked that people’s minds are closed?

John Cole on mother fucking fire.

Or;

the next part of my schtick is I embed a video. But I can't find an embedable version. So just go over to youtube and listen to Cult Peace Dog BBC 1987.


C

Objective Reality

This is better than "ground-dwelling band apes".

The implicit account here seems to be that, after all, we might hope we had these divine immaterial minds capable of directly apprehending truth, and then we might have a firm foundation for objective knowledge, but alas we’re stuck with these electrified meatsacks whose chief virtue was to make our grandparents relatively good at staying fed and shagging.

Which is what we are/do.

And now the cinematic release:



C

h/t Matt

Oooof

We iz in ur gubmint












Making nu roolz

Arbitrary Numbers

Didn't I hear to never trust anyone over 35?
Oh, yeah. That was a geologic era ago.



Peas

We Win

I been waiting for this, as my gbcw post.

Democrats will keep the House and Senate at the 2010 midterms.



Thanks Lumpkin. h/t Digs

Out

yesterday I hooted.
On the 1400 (CST) BBC news I heard that Al Haig was dead.
He was a fucking monster.

"Come on. Jesus! God! You know, you'd better get out and read Machiavelli or somebody else because I think you're living in a dream world!"

I love that whole blasphemer-wrapped-up-as-a-realist frame.

So as to not be misunderstood, peace to his survivors and blessings on his command.

I think he should have died in prison.

Fuck it! It's Links for You.

I am severely depressed.

Coakley,Health Care, Indefinite Detention and some folk's hound.
And then the cherry-on-top.

Still, Roy can lift the corners of my mouth.

Think about it: Bill Hicks is dead and Jay Leno is coming back to The Tonight Show. And you still think there's a God?

Bill and Molly Ivins are sitting on a cloud working on reincarnation.

The material wites itself.

On Being An Optimist

So, the other shoe has dropped.
First clunk from the apt. overhead was the election. We won. Yay!
The Administration installed a Wall Street-approved bunch to stabilise an horrible situation. This was thoroughly understandable.
Smart thing was, Big O left (get it?) an out. A guy to whom to pass it when the other team's defense collapsed into the lanes. Pass it to the outside. That would be Volcker

Thank you for your service Secretary Geithner.
You didn't fail Larry, but you may have to go to summer school.

C

ps I actually heard a Republican today say, "I hope they (R's) don't get overconfident". Yay!

The Tell

Digby writes a tender intro about missed opportuities.
Dollars to Doughnuts she got the tbogg from this thread.
I got it bwo Betty
It really is a wonder; an amazement.
You know, some of these bloggers are kinda smart.

Another tease:

Progressives are really really sincere people. Liberals can’t be bothered.

I (Heart) Jimbo Riley

'scuse me while I put my glasses on.

I'm guessing that if you brought together the great theologians of the age (I'm joking, but just play along) and asked them to contribute to an anthology entitled "What Works in Spirituality?" that you'd learn the continuing existence of Evil in the world, despite our having discovered the One True Religion any number of times over, is the fault of practically everyone except theologians.

C

Houston 2010

Bum-bum-Buuuhhhhh













Now go and enable Atrios's trolley wonderland.
G;ive us transit corridors that people are willing to pay more to live on.
Give us a walkable set of neighborhoods and schools to tempt the Sugarland/Katy/Pearland/Woodlands "flighters" back to dense urban living.

And I want a pony.

C