Alberto Gonzales is a lying, torturing un-American person...

And therefore is completely unfit for the office of United States Attorney General.

Unlike republicans, I actually care about this country, and ALL of its people.

Researchers to study whether rich white chrisitan men are innately wussier than others...

That is to say, if Lawrence Summers had any balls, he'd have the transcript of what he said made publicly available.

Given the backlash against him, and the (more recent) backlash against the backlash, anyone who was truly interested in scientific fairness, and having the best conclusions possible reached, would provide researchers with all the data available to them, so that they might come to the best-informed judgements possible.

I can think of one plausible reason why Lawrence hasn't made a transcript public (and it's not "it's not within his power") - can you think of any others?

OOOO Larry.....

We *know* what the problem is - how do we *fix* it?

Lord knows I love Krugman, but I've been noticing that for as strong as he is on *description*, he is surprisingly weak on *prescription*.

He has of course been very strong on calling gdub a liar about the nonexistent Social Security crisis lately. But in his most recent commentary, he "misses" an excellent potetial way for Democrats to deal with the "issue":

"Everyone has noticed the use, once again, of crisis-mongering. Three years ago, the supposed threat from Saddam somehow became more important than catching the people who actually attacked America on 9/11. Today, the mild, possibly nonexistent long-run financial problems of Social Security have somehow become more important than dealing with the huge deficit we already have, which has nothing to do with Social Security."

Aside from just how damning these statements are - and they are damning - this paragraph provides a rhetorical outlet for Democrats. And it's based upon the same fundamental issue that republicans have relied on for the last 40 years - that Americans are, by and large, stupid. In particular, if you repeat something often enough, it achieves the status of true-in-the-public's-eyes.

So the strategy given by Krugman - unwittingly perhaps - is simple: hit the American public over the head with the deficit. Over and over. Don't stop. Keep doing it. No wait - do it again. You thinkin of stoppin? Don't - hit em again. One more - no, one one more. Ok - now one more.

As idiotic as it sounds - and it does sound stupid - it worked for Iraq, and it's currently working for Social Security. It's not fair that only evil people can exploit the stupidity of the American public - I think Democrats should be able to do the same. Hit em over the head with the deficit.

The deficit isn't sexy? Doesn't matter - neither is - WAS - Social Security - UNTIL WE STARTED GETTING HIT OVER THE HEAD WITH IT. Then it became sexier than Carmen Electra - go figure. So to can the deficit become sexy - just say it over and over - in response to every single question/statement about Social Security, Iraq, everything.

Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing - but only after they've exhausted every other alternative. Someone famous and beloved said that, I think.

You wanna know what the Social Security brouhaha is about?

Read this. Best. Article. Ever. Written. About. SS.

It's a long-ish article - I guesstimate about 7500 words - so that might scare a certain group of people off. So much the worse for America - indeed, that's the exact problem with America...

*Blog* *Ethics*?!? Try READER INTELLIGENCE...

Are you fucking kidding me? Sheesh. There's no crying in baseball you jackasses! My teammates have turned nothing into something - dumbasses. The evil-stupid-right was gonna believe in payola on the left ANYWAY. Sheesh.

The simple reason why the Kos-Jerome-are-just-as-bad-as-Williams crap has been going on and on and on and on and on and on is that "READERS" ARE FUCKING STUPID.

No matter how many times I say this, the "big guys" - bloggers that is, I wouldn't hope for any more out of the MSM except for Krugman - don't seem to publicly catch on. Let the fundie/freepers make whatever shit up they want - problems only come about when people are stupid enough to listen to it.

Fix the *people*, and the fundies/freepers will eventually die out, just like those (never heard of) vortex-theorists. (Newton v Descartes, circa 1684.) Pillory the reublicans' positions. Make the various positions sound exactly as stupid as they are. Hit them over the head with every single hidden coffin coming into Andrews (or whichever). The point of all such individual tactics is the same: FORCE the voters to be even stupider than they want to be. Force them. Dare them. Sooner or later, just like a 5 year old, they will give up on their stubborn stupidity, and bow to the calm light of reason.

That's a massively biased way of stating the issue. And I did it for free. By the way - THERE'S the elephant! Fuckers. Sheesh.

Colts v Pats *again*?

That is, actually, Boxer v Rice, of course.

Some people, like Kos/Armando - I can't tell them apart anymore either - think that Manning (i.e. Boxer) is going to continue his/her amaz-stonishing touchdown streak against the Pats.

I, on the other hand, saw the actual Colts v Pats game this last weekend, and therefore have strong reason to believe otherwise. My suspiscion is that the Pats will do nothing in particular wrong, and will *thereby* win, say, by 20-3.

Though I root for you, as always: good luck, Barbara.

The disanalogy, of course, is that in football, the fans don't decide. That's largely the problem, in my view.

Ok, I'm back...

... we'll let all questions regarding my absense, no matter how pressing they might seem, go by the wayside...

Question: What's worse:

(a) That a-rabs (lol) think of "the issue" as being christians versus muslims? Or,

(b) That xtians (lol) think of "the issue" as being muslims versus xtians?

I can think of things to be said on both sides. This is one of the (ashamedly) few things that isn't obvious to me. A whole lot, unfortunately, rides upon answering the subsidiary question: worse for *whom*?