Ezra Gets One Right

Not that he's wrong all that often, but sometimes Ezra Klein has a truly annoying tendency to shade towards Centrism.

Anyway, his main point here is that it's important to remember:

If you’re around policy research enough you’ll end up reading a lot of studies that violate your intuitions, your theories, your hopes, and even your values. You’ll have the instinct to brush them away or come up with some reason they’re wrong. In those moments, I was told, it’s worth remembering that the world isn’t here to please you.

Politics isn’t here to please you either. And this, I think, is the core of the debate over whether “presidential leadership,” whatever that actually means, can fix Washington.

It's a pretty good post from his blog at WaPo.

Today's Carlin

George Carlin addressing the language of politics.

"...how much soft money can I expect to collect in exchange for my core values?"



Fuckin' genius is all he ever was.

hat tip = Crooks & Liars

Joining The Chorus

I just want to add my own bit to the crowing of "The Left" in the last few days.

Unemployment is kinda down - but down.

The Dow is way up - closing Friday at just under a new record high.

So let me say it along with everybody else who still has a couple of living brain cells rubbing together - if this Obama guy is actually a Commie Fascist hell-bent on destroying the foundations of capitalism and ending the glories of our American traditions, then he really really really sucks at it.  Get the fuck over yourselves.

Can you imagine what we could make happen around this joint if we weren't constantly fighting a political headwind manufactured by an obstructing Congress?

"Conservatives" are always going on about "burdensome regulations".  Well, guess what - the Regulators are the ones who won't let anything good happen; the ones who "stand athwart history and say, Stop!".  They're the people who deny reality by saying there's nothing to this AGW thing;  the Regulators are the ones who keep us forever chained to Saudi kings by blocking every effort to move toward renewables;  they tell us that the 2nd Amendment means ensuring Smith & Wesson's profit margin is more important than the lives of our kids. and on and on and on.

Regulators tell us that if we just cut down on spending, then spending will go up.  Honest - that's what "austerity" comes down to.  And it's no different than the bullshit they tried to peddle about how Bush's monster tax cuts would actually increase tax revenues and make everything so much better.

It's the Big Bamboozle and it has to end.  These pud-knockers are takin' a giant shit on our heads and expect us to go on saying, "Thanks for the hat."  Enough already.

Today's Wingnut

Our returning champion - Glenn Beck, everybody!



Why does it always come down to the Reichstag fire, and why does it never occur to these guys that - oh, I dunno - maybe we could consider Occam's Razor or something?  I'm not sayin' ya gotta be perfectly reasonable like normal people, but couldn't you gimme one clear moment every 4th or 5th time out?  I'm also not saying we should just automatically eliminate all possibility that the guy was set up and/or egged on by somebody who's deeply embedded in Obama's nefarious plot to destroy America (or whatever the fuck these boneheads like to jack off to late at night on a random Friday), but c'mon - at least gimme somethin' new once in a while.

Words To Live By

Don't be the Crack Spider's bitch.

Today's Phobia

Hey, you kids...you're makin' a mess - go outside and play.

Think you got problems?

Yes, Virginia

...there is corruption in Richmond.  A lot of it.



hat tip = Blue Virginia

Today's Eternal Sadness

Charlie Pierce gets it.

So, tout le monde — as we say around the still in the holler — is talking about the very tragic events down in old Kaintuck', where you can kilt you a b'ar when you is only three.

A five-year-old boy in the southern US state of Kentucky has accidentally shot dead his two-year-old sister at the family home. He had received the rifle, specially made for children, as a gift last year.

A rifle, specially made for children. Think about it. Some sales rep at a gun manufacturer pipes up at a sales meeting, "Hey, maybe there's a market for kiddie guns! No, I mean real guns. With bullets!" Everybody cheers and the guy gets a raise, and nobody stops for a second and says, "You know, we don't trust our five-year olds with matches. Maybe guns should wait until, I dunno, middle school." Anyway, roll that one around in your head for a second as we continue into our regular feature, This Week In Responsible Gun Ownership:

Reports say the weapon had been kept in a corner and the family had not realised it still contained a bullet.

And from a commenter:

Yeah, well, we don’t know the whole story, do we? Maybe his sister was threatening him with her gun. In that case, then the gun may well have saved his life. You know what they say, the only thing that stops a bad three year old with a gun is a good three year old with a gun.

And BTW - when is it not a good time to talk about what we can do together about trying some small thing to make things just the tiniest bit better for ourselves?  I can't be the only one who sees "let's not politicize this tragedy; it's too soon to talk about gun control; we should respect the family's grief" as the perfect dodge.  Cuz guess what - we can absolutely count on the simple fact that another kid will be killed with a gun before somebody decides it's OK to start talking about gun control, and so the clock is constantly being reset to zero, and nothing will ever get done.

If you think it's OK for little kids to have guns; if your ideology or your party loyalty requires you to close yourself off and "stand firm with your 2nd Amendment Rights" in spite of knowing that tens of thousands of American families are forever broken every year because you're just too fucking stoopid to learn anything new about the US Constitution in particular or the world in general - then please raise your hand and I'll be happy to come over and slap Wayne LaPierre's dick outa your mouth for you.

Today's Pix

Music

From way out there.  1972 - Emerson Lake & Palmer's From The Beginning.

I'll let it slide this time as far as the acid's concerned, but headphones are still mandatory for this one.