The picture circulating thru the blogosphere:
The reality of the part of Obama's visit that was spent with the 6th graders:
Jan 30, 2010
The Teleprompter Meme
Via FactCheck.org, Obama's addiction to the teleprompter isn't quite what the wingers want us to believe. Well, I'm shocked - y'mean the wingnuts would actually make shit up!?!
The picture circulating thru the blogosphere:
The picture circulating thru the blogosphere:
Jan 29, 2010
SOTU 2010
A few items:
Obama took a shot at the Supreme Court's decision in favor of corporate campaign spending, and the "conservatives" have their panties in a bunch. When he started the job as President, he didn't stop being a citizen - the guy has an opinion; he gets to tell us what it is.
"you're here to serve the needs of your constituents, not your own political ambitions"
Obama may have tricked the Repubs on the jobs thing. He says employment is the top priority for 2010, which of course gets everybody on their feet, and then he tacks on the bit about wanting a Jobs Bill on his desk ASAP. I'm thinkin' the Repubs need to be seen as favoring employment, but they don't wanna be in favor of a Dem effort to get The Gummint to provide jobs for people.
The best part tho' was when Obama talked about the proposed Transaction Fee to get some of our bailout money back from the banks. All the Dems were up and applauding, while all the Repubs were sitting on their hands. True or not; stereotyping or not - the image was pretty stark. Obama wants the banks to pay us back, and Repubs just wanna keep giving tax dollars to their rich buddies on Wall Street.
Obama took a shot at the Supreme Court's decision in favor of corporate campaign spending, and the "conservatives" have their panties in a bunch. When he started the job as President, he didn't stop being a citizen - the guy has an opinion; he gets to tell us what it is.
"you're here to serve the needs of your constituents, not your own political ambitions"
Obama may have tricked the Repubs on the jobs thing. He says employment is the top priority for 2010, which of course gets everybody on their feet, and then he tacks on the bit about wanting a Jobs Bill on his desk ASAP. I'm thinkin' the Repubs need to be seen as favoring employment, but they don't wanna be in favor of a Dem effort to get The Gummint to provide jobs for people.
The best part tho' was when Obama talked about the proposed Transaction Fee to get some of our bailout money back from the banks. All the Dems were up and applauding, while all the Repubs were sitting on their hands. True or not; stereotyping or not - the image was pretty stark. Obama wants the banks to pay us back, and Repubs just wanna keep giving tax dollars to their rich buddies on Wall Street.
Jan 28, 2010
What If
We rearrange the borders of the states to reflect changes in population - the way we do it with Congressional Districts. (click on the picture to enlarge)
SOTU 2010
One of the highlights:
Our most urgent task upon taking office was to shore up the same banks that helped cause this crisis. It was not easy to do. And if there's one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans, it's that we all hated the bank bailout. I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal.But when I ran for President, I promised I wouldn't just do what was popular -- I would do what was necessary. And if we had allowed the meltdown of the financial system, unemployment might be double what it is today. More businesses would certainly have closed. More homes would have surely been lost.
So I supported the last administration's efforts to create the financial rescue program. And when we took the program over, we made it more transparent and accountable. As a result, the markets are now stabilized, and we have recovered most of the money we spent on the banks.
To recover the rest, I have proposed a fee on the biggest banks. I know Wall Street isn't keen on this idea, but if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.
As we stabilized the financial system, we also took steps to get our economy growing again, save as many jobs as possible, and help Americans who had become unemployed.
That's why we extended or increased unemployment benefits for more than 18 million Americans; made health insurance 65% cheaper for families who get their coverage through COBRA; and passed 25 different tax cuts.
Let me repeat: we cut taxes. We cut taxes for 95% of working families. We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college. As a result, millions of Americans had more to spend on gas, and food, and other necessities, all of which helped businesses keep more workers. And we haven't raised income taxes by a single dime on a single person. Not a single dime.
Jan 27, 2010
Tricksterism And Thuggery
There was a lot of noise when a kid named James O'Keefe came into the light with his "ACORN sting" - he's the guy who went into a Baltimore ACORN office, posing as a pimp and asking questions about how to evade taxes - but of course, there was a lot less noise about how the video from his hidden camera had been creatively edited to make ACORN look as bad as Cluster Fox needs them to look.
(BTW: ACORN has some big problems and it's never a bad idea to bust people doing wrong things; I'm just saying we need to follow our own rules - Due Process keeps us all free.)
Now we have this from NOLA.com.
We should make a point of watching who steps up to take care of this guy. In one way, he's the Henry Hill of conservatives - willing to do anything to get in good with the mob boss. I wonder though, about the publicity. If he gets too famous, it should be harder for him to pull off his tricks in future. So what's he really up to?
(BTW: ACORN has some big problems and it's never a bad idea to bust people doing wrong things; I'm just saying we need to follow our own rules - Due Process keeps us all free.)
Now we have this from NOLA.com.
We should make a point of watching who steps up to take care of this guy. In one way, he's the Henry Hill of conservatives - willing to do anything to get in good with the mob boss. I wonder though, about the publicity. If he gets too famous, it should be harder for him to pull off his tricks in future. So what's he really up to?
Jan 26, 2010
What He Said
No particular reason for this right now - it's just good to remind ourselves that here in The US, the process is as important as the goal.
Jan 25, 2010
From Citizens To Prisoners
Democracy in America is a Useful Fiction - by Chris Hedges
Corporations have 35,000 lobbyists in Washington and thousands more in state capitals that dole out corporate money to shape and write legislation. They use their political action committees to solicit employees and shareholders for donations to fund pliable candidates. The financial sector, for example, spent more than $5 billion on political campaigns, influence peddling and lobbying during the past decade, which resulted in sweeping deregulation, the gouging of consumers, our global financial meltdown and the subsequent looting of the U.S. Treasury.
Corporations have 35,000 lobbyists in Washington and thousands more in state capitals that dole out corporate money to shape and write legislation. They use their political action committees to solicit employees and shareholders for donations to fund pliable candidates. The financial sector, for example, spent more than $5 billion on political campaigns, influence peddling and lobbying during the past decade, which resulted in sweeping deregulation, the gouging of consumers, our global financial meltdown and the subsequent looting of the U.S. Treasury.
Jan 24, 2010
Knowledge
It's estimated that medical knowledge, for example, doubles every seven years, and scientific knowledge doubles every twenty years.
The total written knowledge in the world is said to have doubled between 1450 and 1750, and then to have doubled again between 1750 and 1900.
Between 1900 and 1950, human knowledge doubled once more, and then again from 1950 to 1975.
Now, it is believed to double every 900 days. By the year 2020, global knowledge is predicted to double every 72 days.
plain truth = schooling never ends; education is never finished.
Jan 23, 2010
Never A Bad Time To Laugh
You have to take everything seriously enough to make the effort necessary for finding the humor in it. Comedy is some serious shit.
From The Spectator, here's the first of what i hope is just the beginning of our recovery from the depths of terror.
From The Spectator, here's the first of what i hope is just the beginning of our recovery from the depths of terror.
Redneck Love Songs
"If Love Were Oil, I'd Be A Quart Low"
"I Got In At 2 With A 10, And Woke Up At 10 With A 2"
"At The Gas Station Of Love, I Got The Self-Service Pump"
"I Got In At 2 With A 10, And Woke Up At 10 With A 2"
"At The Gas Station Of Love, I Got The Self-Service Pump"
The New Paradigm
A couple of posts at The Baseline Scenario point to some real-world examples of a creepy feeling I've had for several years - that the point of the exercise is no longer to honor your word and to deliver at least what you promised, but to make the customer force you to hold up your end of the bargain. It's like every business is adopting the Used Car Lot model.
James Kwak tags it as "Design or Incompetence", and has begun to lean toward Design. ie: they do it on purpose. The banks or the mortgage companies or whoever make the contract or the offer of service as complicated and opaque as possible in order to suck us in and then fuck us over. (first post - second post)
Most of us being 'hassle-averse', we're not inclined to press a point even when we think we're not being treated quite right. Applying this assumption to a business rolling out a new offer (using rough round numbers here): I'm trying to pull in $1M in new revenue, with a Net Target of $300K. I'm spending $500K getting it out to the public, and I'm offering discounts/rebates totaling another $200K. Then I sit back and watch the numbers as the calls come into Customer Service. But what if I make a coupla relatively simple adjustments? First, the offer of discounts is big and splashy, but I add several lines of disclaimers and eligibility requirements in very complex and jargony language. Then I take some steps to ensure that I'm weeding out the new prospects who are likely to insist on getting the good deal they think I'm offering (putting them on hold when they call in works wonders - but any hurdle will do); plus, I build in a way for the Cust Svc reps to get a little bonus by cutting into the discounts, or upselling, or counterselling, or whatever. It could also be as simple as not telling the reps what the offer actually requires the customer to do to be eligible for the deal. It's not quite Bait-n-Switch, but it's really close.
The point is that we're going way off into the weeds of Caveat Emptor. Companies that can make it obvious that they're working hard to earn back the trust of their customers will lead the economy back to solid footing. Without that trust and confidence, we don't have an economy.
James Kwak tags it as "Design or Incompetence", and has begun to lean toward Design. ie: they do it on purpose. The banks or the mortgage companies or whoever make the contract or the offer of service as complicated and opaque as possible in order to suck us in and then fuck us over. (first post - second post)
Most of us being 'hassle-averse', we're not inclined to press a point even when we think we're not being treated quite right. Applying this assumption to a business rolling out a new offer (using rough round numbers here): I'm trying to pull in $1M in new revenue, with a Net Target of $300K. I'm spending $500K getting it out to the public, and I'm offering discounts/rebates totaling another $200K. Then I sit back and watch the numbers as the calls come into Customer Service. But what if I make a coupla relatively simple adjustments? First, the offer of discounts is big and splashy, but I add several lines of disclaimers and eligibility requirements in very complex and jargony language. Then I take some steps to ensure that I'm weeding out the new prospects who are likely to insist on getting the good deal they think I'm offering (putting them on hold when they call in works wonders - but any hurdle will do); plus, I build in a way for the Cust Svc reps to get a little bonus by cutting into the discounts, or upselling, or counterselling, or whatever. It could also be as simple as not telling the reps what the offer actually requires the customer to do to be eligible for the deal. It's not quite Bait-n-Switch, but it's really close.
The point is that we're going way off into the weeds of Caveat Emptor. Companies that can make it obvious that they're working hard to earn back the trust of their customers will lead the economy back to solid footing. Without that trust and confidence, we don't have an economy.
The Crystal Ball
Fixing healthcare will not fix the economy. But if you don't fix healthcare, you can't fix the economy.
Here's a nice peek into the future of the debt from a CBO report put out a year before Obama took office.
Here's a nice peek into the future of the debt from a CBO report put out a year before Obama took office.
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