Cozumel, I agree with you!!! For Ciro Rodrguez, who we all fought for to return to the Congress to have him vote for this warrantless wiretapping anti Constitutional piece of legislation is an insult to the district. He will hear from me.

I don’t know why, but I sense the hand of Rahm Emanuel in this. Does anyone know of his involvement?

Was this taking place at the Hyatt O’Hare? *blinks* If it is? and it happens next or some other year? Suggestion. Bring your OWN suppplies. A rice cooker for one, and snacks of all types.

That place is notorious for sneakup charges. Crazy for conventions but it’s also the only place that can handle 12,000 or so anime geeks in one weekend and stay standing. That way we dont’ raid the ambush pricing fridge and by bringing our own supplies we seldom go and eat anything out of the overpriced ’snack bar’.

What I’ve learned from trips like that is that you have to go out to the city and find a WalMart or Target or something and buy bulk water, food, etc. and store it in your room(s) and only go out to eat dinner. Don’t buy into their “we’ve got you trapped” concept.

montag @ 211

And, given some time, and the kinds of deals Quayle has been making for them, in five years, Cerberus might well be the next BCCI….

Oh, yeah, believe me, when I heard the winning bidder was Cerberus, I immediately thought this was the new money laundering facility.

They will run it into the ground and leave my home state of Michigan hung out to dry, another wave of the slow-moving hurricane that is forcing blue-collar workers to leave the state in droves.

No doubt it’s part of their on-going plan to destroy unions.

AnnieW @ 84

I also do not understand the issue with tap water….I drink it whenever I can.

I recently saw a report of this issue, and every single “water expert” that was interviewed said they drink tap first and foremost. Had something to do the plastic leeching, and the fact alot of what is filtered out is actually pretty good for you.

I read about the plastic bottles being bad for landfills. How might we suggest water should be packaged to avoid that problem while still making it (and many other kinds of drinks) available to the masses?

Remember, you’re not a nanny, so just be a friend to our less well-informed neighbors.

Prairie Sunshine @ 59

Re this morning’s conversation on Meet The Press about what makes a great president [list courtesy Doris Kearns Goodwin].

I’m convinced that Edwards will be a Great President. And Elizabeth will be a Great First Lady.

The one characteristic I thought was glaringly absent from her list was ‘honesty’.

Honesty (with others) is not an exceptionally important quality for politics. It’s like the joke George Burns told about making it in movies — he said it was all about “sincerity” and once you could fake that you’re gonna succeed.

Honesty seems important, but we need presidents who can lie out their wazoos with complete aplomb. If they couldn’t we wouldn’t trust them to be capable of doing ANYTHING to protect us and our Civilization.

I know it’s odd, but that’s life.

SanderO @ 45

Mad Dog,

if you don’t have money in America… you can’t play… at anything…. even being a blogger… and especially at being progressive.

The money people made it that way.

Speaking of money people, look what they’ve done now… (As in “oversight? What oversight?”)

Credit Default Swaps: The Land of Efficient Insider Trading?

Right now no US regulatory agency claims oversight jurisdiction for credit-default swaps. Not the SEC. Not the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Not the Treasury Department. Not the Federal Reserve.

This is how 17 trillion dollars (current world credit exposure) gets “disappeared”. More selling underway in Asia … Could be popcorn for breakfast.

Wow! Now that’s a story we’ve gotta keep an eye on.

Is it ‘the biggest theft in world history’ or just an unintended disaster?

thank you Teddy for saying everything I think….after awhile all this stuff piles up too high and someone needs to knock it over and step all over it then kick it to the side…this making nice business just makes me nice – and SICK

Bravo to you, too. I tire of the fawning and pandering. Sometimes plain speaking says it best.

That being said, I had an amazing time and met some amazing people, including Jane, Christy and Pach.

Hopefully they can do better on the venue next year.

Olbermann should have moderated the forum (although he is doing the AFL-CIO one tomorrow night in Chicago). If not the forum, it would have been great to have him there doing something — maybe he could have come to Chicago a few days early.