So, looks like we’ve got a deal on the new stimulus package (assuming you find a milquetoast agreement between a bunch of spineless weasels stimulating). Oh, I don’t doubt that there are some good things in there, but I think we’re gonna have to put a few trillion more dollars on the tab to get things turned around. I’d really hoped to have a WPA program to rebuild things, and maybe a CCC-like project to give younger folks the opportunity to see what it’s like to work while doing some good.
Instead, Democrats had to suck up to Republicans like Susan Collins (who managed to strip protection for whistleblowers out of the bill), just to get something passed. Sounds like Harry Reid tried to screw over Nancy Pelosi on the whole deal, too. Or maybe it was the other way around. Whatever.
The financial CEOs were less than impressive yesterday testifying before Congress, attempting to justify their huge bonuses in light of their companies using taxpayer dollars to fund them. Barney Frank appeared to stump them by asking why they should get a bonus for doing the right thing, and wondering what they’d do differently if they didn’t get a bonus.
Speaking of bailouts, Nadia Suleman, the poor woman’s version of Angelina Jolie, now has a website up accepting donations to help fund her baby jones. Donate enough, and maybe you’ll get an embryo pendant or something (at least a Sammy the Stem Cell pin). I think all those anti-stem cell research right to lifers ought to be falling all over themselves bailing her out, personally. She’s a great poster child for the cause, and it’d be a helluva lot cheaper than putting money into healthcare and education for everybody’s kids (which would be welfare, and therefore bad).
Ford’s Theater just reopened after an 18-month, $25 million renovation, and the President and his wife were on hand. Not sure how good an idea that was, but it looks like they both came away unscathed, which is more than I can say for a dead Russian satellite and a US Iridium bird (part of the system that provides satellite phone service), that collided yesterday, destroying both. They’re tracking about 500 pieces of debris so far, and there’s a slight possibility that the ISS will be affected. As we get more crap up there, this sort of thing will no doubt become more frequent.
Oh well, look like it’s about time to get off the couch, and get ready for work. Have a good day.
Today is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin.
They will be 200 years old.
Likely to stir some consternation in xto-fascist and racist circles.
I need to go put that Darwin fish on my car.
:cake: :cake:
PJ, how could you say that the bailed out bankers get bonuses? They do NOT. That would be too shocking. They are given retention awards. These are vitally necessary payments because the market for failed bankers is so HOT HOT HOT, that without these
bonusesthey would be wooed away to other jobs. In fact I’m looking for someone to wash my car, right now.Ms Suleman, mother to the mob, is apparently broke and collecting food stamps. So, how did she pay for infertility treatments? Did she get a retention bonus too? Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to do it the old fashioned way? Something is not right here besides Ms Suleman’s head.
The wind is howling and I’m ready for my last day of work before a nice week of vacation. (There are perks to teaching.)
My perspective of Lincoln has changed over the years. I suppose that comes with age. A superficial reading of Henry Lois Gates makes the point that the Emancipation was more about political expediency than concern for human rights concerns; also the fact that Lincoln himself personally was a rascist who ultimately wanted to send the blacks back to Africa. Watching the circus going on in Washington, I often question the value of a Civil War that was fought in order that 160 years later the country would be ruled by a small minority of moral midget rethugs who congealed in former confederate states.
maybe a Darwin fish with a top hat is in order :knit:
…
Was it Maxine that did the interview with Mark in the tub? Splish SPLASH!
Comment by Kristapea — February 11, 2009 @ 11:15 pm
Corrine Brown (D-FL), representative from the Jacksonville area.
Man, I miss that show. Breakroom Live is good, but it’s not the same as MS.
And I’m off work until Tuesday, which is good other than I don’t think I can get BRL on the crappy PC I’m using at the moment. So I’ll have four shows to catch up on next week, I guess.
Judd Gregg has withdrawn from nomination as commerce secretary. He said he had irreconcilable differences with the Obama agenda.
Good riddance Gregg! Now, perhaps Obama will appoint someone reasonable.
It would be really nice if he couldn’t go back to the senate, but I don’t think he has resigned. I guess his replacement is unhappy.
The American Civil Liberties Union has released previously classified excerpts of a government report on harsh interrogation techniques used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. These previously unreported pages detail repeated use of “abusive” behavior, even to the point of prisoner deaths.
The documents, obtained by the ACLU under a Freedom of Information Act request, contain a report by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, who was tapped to conduct a comprehensive review of Defense Department interrogation operations. Church specifically calls out interrogations at Bagram Air base in Afghanistan as “clearly abusive, and clearly not in keeping with any approved interrogation policy or guidance.”
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Unredacted_documents_reveal_prisoners_tortured_to_0212.html
Who’da thunk filling the Commerce Secretary cabinet position would be so tough? Then again, the Obama vetting team isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be, I don’t think.
I think there are great differences between having the Dems as the opposition party and having the Rethugs to whom winning and wielding power are the only considerations.
Ronettes singer Estelle Bennett dies at age 67
Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler
vote for your favorite bastid!
25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis
I agree pj. and that particular thug wasn’t the sharpest tack in the drawer. They have these repubs on robo-pills. If they get out of line, something seems to frighten them to get back in line.
bummer ’bout Estelle.
don’t know where these went
:dancers: 🙁 :gate:
I think it is about time for BHO to give up his ‘dream’ of the bipartisan. I hope that I am wrong but this Gregg thing smells really funny. I will be interested to see if it affects the stimulus vote. There sure seems to be a very concerted effort to undermine the Dems not unlike the the early days of Clintons.