Obama Meets The GOP Women's Caucus

Always looking to connect a few dots - even when they seem pretty far apart.



At about 30:00, talking about The Unibomber and Eric Rudolph - "As a side note, I have no idea what it is with white folks and the woods - but whatever it is probably explains why black folks don't do a lot of camping."

Verterans' Day

"We wear our widow's weeds like nuns, and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifice"

Turd Blossom Rides Again

Elizabeth Warren scares the holy bejeebers outa some folks. Kinda like bleach scares a fungus.

Penn State Update

From Michael Collins at The Agonist:

The relentless deviate, former PSU defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, is accused of sexually assaulting children for years. According to the grand jury, he gained easy access to children and early adolescents through a foundation he founded in 1977, the Second Mile Foundation. He continued the assaults at his home and in the PSU showers on at least one occasion. The foundation serves over 100,000 at-risk youth. Sandusky started the foundation as a group home for "troubled boys" in 1977. Since hiring Jack Raykovitz, PhD, a licensed psychologist, as president, the foundation has grown into a multimillion (sic) enterprise serving over 100,000 children throughout the state.

I'm not advocating violence - don't kick him in the nuts and don't throw anything at him - but if you see this Sandusky guy out in public, he needs to be made to feel as small and unwelcome as it is humanly possible to feel.

Today's Pix

From Funny Or Die

Hat Tip - Daily Dawdle

Herman Cain’s Campaign Promises with Mike Tyson from Mike Tyson

Having It Both Ways

Art vs Life

One way to put it:
"Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, but a hammer with which to shape it." --Vladimir Mayakovsky

I don't know what that really has to do with anything right now, but I got to thinking (usually kinda dangerous for me) about parallels and coincidences and intersections, and I can't help but assume that there's no way I'm the only one in the world who wonders about the eerily converging similarities between the Duke brothers from the movie Trading Places and the Koch brothers.

Mortimer and Randolph Duke

Chuckles and Davy Koch

Olbermann On Joe Pa

It's one of the saddest things ever. Joe Paterno has been a hero for a lot of us for a very long time. And while I think this is something that happened as much in spite of his management rather than because of it, I also think this is a good example of what can happen when somebody stays in a position of great power for way too long.

Word is that Paterno will resign at the end of the season. I have to agree with Keith on this one (fire his ass today), but I'd go one more step and say that Paterno should be in front of a judge right now, trying to make a case for why he should not be in jail.

NYT Late To The Party - Again

Some pretty decent analysis from Numerian at The Agonist, on the main reason our 4th estate is in the middle of an Epic FAIL.

As an ex-subscriber to The New York Times, I too have been outraged by such stories, but not because I read them in the paper of record, which is not simply very late to the game of reporting on this phenomenon - it is too late. I’ve been outraged by these stories because I have been reading about this for years on internet blogs. Some of the most persistent reporters and analysts who write about this problem include Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com, Yves Smith at the Naked Capitalist blog, and Karl Denninger at the Market Ticker blog. All three of these writers have no doubt lost some readers over the years because they write about these stories over and over, and manage to maintain a sustained fury over the debasement of the rule of law that is evidenced by the way the big banks operate, and the inability or refusal of the government to do much about it.
These are the sort of people who have been criticized for years by The New York Times for sloppy reporting because they don’t have to live by the strict journalistic standards that are upheld every day by the mainstream media.

Whether or not this is true – and for the most part these writers have been careful about ensuring that the facts they present are verified – it is definitely the case that mainstream media reporters and analysts have not taken the angry, vituperative, and in some cases vulgar tone that bloggers take when talking about the collapse of the rule of law.

Therein lies a problem, and it is one that the mainstream media is only now beginning to comprehend. The undermining of the US Constitution and the laws as passed by Congress, and the refusal by government to investigate or prosecute these violations, which are now rife, represent some of the most serious challenges imaginable to a democracy based on a republican form of government. Anyone who takes their responsibilities as a citizen of the US seriously should be outraged by these circumstances.

Maybe we're starting to see some signs of revolt from inside the closed-loop crony-driven system which has tied Business, Government and Press together into a neat little bundle. We need that rebellion because we've allowed our little experiment in self government to slip into the oldest game in the world - ie: once everybody's guilty, nobody can be held responsible.  We have to figure out how to split it all up again, and put clearly discernible dividers back into place.  Balance has gone out of the system and must be reestablished.