No Soup For You

Play along with me here.

Stretch your arms out as wide as you can. Wider. Wider! C'mon, you're hugging a big pile of money! WIDER!

Good.

Now, at the tippity tip of your right middle finger is zero dollars. At the tippity tip of your left middle finger is the total amount of all the bailout money that has been given to the financial industry since the late fall of 2008 -- TARP money, supplemental funding, zero collateral loans (of your money), handouts and golden cushions. All of it.

Keep stretching: that pile keeps growing...

Now, take all the money represented by the first knuckle on the middle finger of your right hand. That's the money the Obama administration proposes to use to help out homeowners who are in danger losing their homes.

I'm not entirely sold on that plan. But I'm definitely not sold on the billions and billions of dollars (with no real end in sight) being doled out to AIG, BofA, etc.

The Right Wing would have you believe that class war is the left's idea. But let's just see what happens when the barest fraction of their precious bailout money might be siphoned off to keep people under a roof. "Ooo, we can't have that! That rewards bad behavior!"

This is the true spirit of "trickle-down" economics, laid bare. The truth is, even the trickle pisses them off.

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On the radar

Borrowed Suits' recounting of my epic half-marathon/motorcycle wreck weekend has been picked up and edited by a new 'blog: The Accidental Extremist, where it has been retitled "Chariot of Fire (Burning Sensations)."

TAE features true-life stories of accidental idiocy, whether death-defying or merely dignity-slaying. I got the point to them from the gentlemen at The Foggy Monocle, another fine internet establishment which I highly recommend.

Here's to living the dream.

Hey Big Spender

Tax and spend, tax and spend. Now who would that be?

The Secret in "The Secret"

A while ago, I wrote a post bashing "The Secret" as a venal -- nearly insane -- piece of "self help."

Well gentle reader, I stand corrected. Here is a man who knows the true value of that timeless tome.

Don't drop the soap!

THIS is who I campaigned for

His best speech yet. Unfortunately these links have trailers fore and aft. Skip them, but watch this speech.
Part I

Part II

When More is Less

From Glenn Greenwald:

It hasn't taken long for the right wing media to hit its stride.

Both Fox News (of course) and the Washington Post (again, of course) are busy trashing the Obama budget for its purported "cuts" on military spending. Oh Noes!! The libruls are running from the fight and weakening Amurika!

When I tell you that your TV is lying to you, this is what I mean.

Obama is not cutting military spending. He is increasing military spending over W's last budget by $14 million dollars. Last year's budget called for $513 billion in defense spending. Obama's FY2010 budget calls for $527 billion.

527 > 513

Some Pentagon officials and congressional conservatives are already trying to portray the OMB number as a cut by comparing it to a $584 billion draft fiscal 2010 budget request compiled last fall by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Congressional Quarterly.

Just like Bush, Obama gave the Joint Chiefs less than they wanted. So, instead of reporting the truth (that Obama raised spending on the military), the right wing media reports that he's made cuts in spending.

That's a lie, for those of you slow on the uptake. A lie.

And it's just one lie out of many. But I'm tired right now.

Read Greenwald's piece. Also check out Matt Yglesias' take on Gallup's poll, which shows that Americans think we spend too much on the military:
Yglesias:

Meanwhile, no matter how much Obama spends on defense, it’s inevitable that the GOP will criticize him for not spending enough. And that alone should guarantee that the “too little” numbers will tick back up in the direction of at least 30 percent.

Bad. Getting worse.

I guess these things go on all the time. When you're as close to the bottom as Detroit, I guess the abyss is that much closer. But we're all sliding down the ramp. I expect we'll see more of this before we see less, and not just in Detroit. Not to belabor the point, but this is not a sign of greatness.

Life goes on around body found frozen in vacant Detroit warehouse

After another two calls to 911 on Wednesday afternoon (one of which was disconnected), the Detroit Fire Department called and agreed to meet nearby.

Capt. Emma McDonald was on the scene.

"Every time I think I've seen it all, I see this," she said.

I forgot I even had this!

With a change in administration, it looks like the State Department will be coming out of mothballs and re-engaging in the business of diplomacy. (You remember diplomacy -- it's all that nonsense that used to get in the way of the shooting and bombing we've been enjoying.)

Naturally, the folks down there are a little giddy about the prospect of their jobs actually meaning something again. Apparently, the following email has been making the rounds:

Dear World:

We, the United States of America, your top quality supplier of ideals of democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight- year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4. Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional on January 20. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding,

Sincerely,

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

I picked this up at The World From Eagle Hill.