There's A Difference

Violent spring weather rolled thru parts of the American South a couple of weeks ago killing at least 16.  It happened again yesterday, when a bunch of tornadoes stomped the crap out of some places across at least five states.  The number of dead this time is reported at 270, and the people who are supposed to know about such things expect it to go up from there.  There's also of course billions of dollars in property damage and lost productivity at a time we can least afford to have more people on the sidelines.

All of that seems pretty normal somehow - aside from the feeling that we shouldn't be getting all this kinda weather so early in the year.  (I'll forego the usual snark about Climate Change denial)

What doesn't feel quite normal right now is that I'm not hearing much about, "Those dumbass rednecks are prob'ly all sittin' around waitin' for a gubmint handout."
--or--
"Maybe they should call their buddies over at The Council of Concerned Citizens, or the local Chamber of Commerce if they need help."
--or--
"They shouldn't be livin' where there's bound to be tornadoes anyway".

Something else we're not hearing is a bunch of horseshit about Milton Friedman, or a Market-Based Recovery approach, 'cuz hey - it worked so well for Nawlins, it seems like we should be cloning it for just this occasion.

While we're at it, maybe somebody could ask Glenn Beck about those FEMA Relocation Camps that had him spooked not too long ago.

So no, we're not hearing any of that crap this time.  What we've heard is a president who interrupted his own announcement of a major re-ordering of his National Security team to tell people to hang on, help is on the way.

"We can't control when or where a terrible storm may strike, but we can control how we respond to it and I want every American who has been effected by this disaster to know that the federal government will do everything we can to help you recover and we will stand with you as you rebuild," Mr Obama stated at the White House.

Next time some bozo starts harpin' about how "all them politicians're alike anyways"; first you'll have to resist the overwhelming urge to throw dense heavy objects at his head, but then just try to remember what we talked about today.

Yeah - there's a difference.

Today's Keith

Know Your Market Niche

Up On The Roof

The Nylons

Birth Certificate Reax

James Fallows almost gets it.

Here we have a wonderful real-world test: if "actual knowledge" mattered, the number of people who thought Obama was foreign-born would approach zero by next week -- with exceptions for illiterates, the mentally disabled, paranoid schizophrenics, etc. My guess is that the figures will barely change.

But wait just a dang minute - did he just say the Repub Base is a bunch of mentally challenged, illiterate paranoid schizoids?  I think he did.  Wow.

The Long Form Birth Certificate

And there it is.  So we move on to the next questions:

• Why did they release the thing now?
• Are they trying to hide something else?
• Will they challenge Trump to reveal what's under that comb-over?

The only thing I can think of right now is that Obama & Company see a chance to split the opposition in a big way.  ie: peel off a big chunk of the Repub base.  They're betting that a bunch of the wingnuts will reject the evidence (and just get nuttier) and that the Repub leadership will be faced with having to choose between two or more equally bad alternatives.  

If they back away from that part of their base in any substantial way, they'll lose the Ground Support that gets their people out to vote.  But if they don't figure out how to make it look like they're pushing back towards the center, they'll lose the Moderates and Independents.  Either way, they stand to lose the 2012 elections - HUGELY.

I wonder also about where the Repubs will put all the unidentifiable money they get to spend.  I'm almost willing to bet that they'll put the emphasis on State and Local races, kinda ceding the Federal level to the Dems, with the strategy of pitting "the plucky local patriot against Big Bad Centralized Power".

As always, we'll have to wait and see, but this makes me think something important is happening.

Follow The Money

It never fails.  I don't know why we have to re-learn this particular lesson every fuckin' time.

Here's the short version:  There are hucksters here.

Whenever you start throwing large piles of dollars around, you can expect large numbers of people to show up who have recently (and suddenly) discovered they have a great passion for doing whatever it is you're spending all that cash trying to do.

Sometimes, those hucksters are perfectly well-meaning solid citizens who just kinda get caught up in the frenzy, but in the end, it's always mostly the same old story of greed, ambition and groupthink.

Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic:

Earlier this year, a reporter at a small community newspaper got the answer to a question she'd been asking for months: "Are there really 33 terrorist organizations in St. Paul, Minnesota?" That's what her county sheriff claimed in the budget reports he submitted to his superiors. According to her investigation, however, his anti-terrorism unit had been squandering taxpayer money for months on end, and getting away with it by pretending to be guardians of homeland security.

Is this man villainized in the press for his behavior? The subject of a federal inquiry by hard charging investigators? Nope. In the War on Terrorism, wasting funds in the name of security is so commonplace that the allegation isn't even surprising.

Subversive

Once upon a time, this music was considered dangerous and disruptive. Now it's just nostalgic and even a bit trite.

States' Rights

Quick tho't:

Whenever you hear somebody yammerin' on about supporting State's Rights, you need to stop just long enough to understand that what he's most likely saying is that he doesn't want the Federal Gov't interfering with the State Government as it fucks over the people who live in that state.  Just so we're clear, y'know?

Some People

Why is it that people of a certain political bent seem to end up positively obsessed with the president's dick?

Jr Bush does his little jet landing stunt on the aircraft carrier, and people get all buzzed about "the presidential package":

But the truly creepy seems to be reserved for presidents of the Democrat persuasion.  Recently of course was Clinton - way too easy; the guy's a complete horndog - and now it's Obama's turn.  This time there's an interesting twist tho'.  And it's starting to sound a little too much like the weird-science shit that the Jim Crow Fan Club was fond of.  Things like "black people's brains are smaller so they couldn't possibly be expected to operate a complex machine like a P51 Mustang" or "the black man's lung capacity doesn't allow him to perform at the level of athletic competition here at the University of Alabama."   Maybe it's just a revisit of the old standby - white fear of black dick.  

I dunno, but it seems like it's popped up again in some pretty stupid sounding legislation in Arizona:

If you intend to run for president in Arizona but don't have the required birth certificate, all is not lost. The state may be willing to accept a description of your penis -- if you've got one -- as proof you were born in the U.S.