Can we talk about birds here, too?

Good Lord. Check the expression on the men’s faces vs. the women’s faces!!!

…but she’s still got those calves, so she will be alright – party or no party.
Hey WT!

Even the bees.

So exactly what would the party do to become more like Sarah Palin? Have the rest of it’s brains sucked out?

peace, yo!

Yep … we’re a very shallow group !

WT !

Sheesh. Last time I saw somebody swing as far to the right as these people wanna do, he ended up doing a U-turn.

As long as you keep your grammar in the proper syntax.

Petrocelli!

Oh, please, please, please let the GOP nominate her in 2012. Maybe they can get all the craziness out of their system and then come to sit at the grownups table.

Hi, WT!

Hey, Teddy!

We’re going to need the Republicans wandering in the wilderness for forty years just to clean up the mess they’ve made.

I’m actually kind of concerned about her. I just can’t discount the Grand Old Party of Jesus. I think we scoff to our detriment.
They’re out there, they’re driven and they’re ignorant.

You’ve got that right, Bro ! Who would be a fitting Veep for her ?

My dittohead looooooves him some Palin. “They” really did a “hatchet job” on her. Did I mention that he is a sexist chauvinist pig? Yep, that’s the lady I want representing women in government and women’s issues…the one that will charge her sistahs for rape kits when the guys get outta control, again.

spit. but dang, she’s cute!

The way it seems to work, though, is that the farther right the Rs go, the Ds just follow.

How many voters in Joel’s Army anyway?

and Kristol fancies himself a Queen maker, or something.

I hear Vitter has mommy issues. Perfect choice.

BRAIN BLEACH! STAT!

I know what you mean. I have a relative by marriage who runs a gun shop and is Full Metal Wingnut; every so often I send the stuff he’s been sending his kith and kin to folks like Dave Neiwert so they can keep tabs on them.

How about Man on Dog ? Ghouliani ?

a plurality of Republican voters think the party has grown too moderate over the past eight years,

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!
The future is looking brighter by the minute.

A distinction has to be made between Republican pols and Republican voters. The former only cares about their corporate cronies but somehow convinces the latter that they actually care about (oppose) abortion, gun control, and to a lesser extent illegal immigrants.

We Democratic voters tend to be concerned about more than two or three issues but we’re probably also delusional if we think Democratic politicians will actually accomplish anything constructive, much less progressive. Whether in the minority or majority, bending over and grabbing their ankles appears to be the only party position they know.

Palin has my vote.

She’ll have yours too, if we still have elections.

Oh. Meh. Gad.

rofl!

Brit financial writer on Charlie Rose sez rest of world has desperate, overwhelming hope that Obama can do it. (Davos.)

Sounds familiar.

Nope. Mr. 9/11 is too busy with his “motivation” speaking circuit with Zig Ziglar. I kid you not.

Hey, if Palin really is the Republican Savior, maybe she should tap Joe the Plumber for VP.

I’m all for it.

The Republican Party deserves to go extinct. Something else can come along and take its place.
~

Oh, I sincerely hope not. I really want to watch them go over the cliff into the abyss of insanity and perpetual irrelevance.

Crackerjack analysis.

I concur.

Hey, ot. Does FDL have a Nielson Survey pop-up that asks you to participate in the current FDL reader survey?
Just got a pop-up for the first time on this mac…

It’s a tricky photograph though. Palin’s gams are obscuring someone else speaking at the dais. So are those lads salivating at Palin or what might be Mitt Romney?

Where are the red F’me shoes?

Hey, even the starving grate-dwellers of the dead American empire need their Princess Di ..

Me too. I’m filling it out. I think FDL gets paid when we click on it.

Well, I’ve never visited this website personally but I hear she has graduated to F-me boots.:-)

O.M.G. … anyone stoopid enough to pay to listen to Ziglar is fair game for TrickyRick™

I think they’re hired college students and therefore, on drugs.

If she’s wearing them, and they are red, that’s probably “F***You boots.”

Palin-Harris ‘12, because the chosen of god are entitled to steal from you.

Are we taking about Condi boots or moose hunting boots?

Digg It.

palin for prez!

Did you click the link?

Dugg
thanks ratfood

Half-baked Alaskan: The Sarah Palin story.

Didn’t see the link…… ok it is Condi boots….. figures…..

Well, I say, let’s agree with them on Palin’s wisdom and greatness.

She is going to visit DC to argue for big fiscla stimulus bucks for her distressed energy producing powerhouse state.

I gather the friendly looking geezer with her is security and not just a fan…

And I am sure Palin wants big federal government spending checks. I don’t see how federal tax cuts will help her out with shrinking permanent fund distribution checks.

I spent the afternoon with a client, a very nice guy, a staunch Conservative, all-day FAUX News watcher, kinda hobbled by injuries and age.

And he knows my leanings, but we are complimentary personalities, and we laugh off our differences.

But today, for the first time I can remember, he was struggling mightily to keep the Billo talking points out of our conversation. I was amazed – he is turning back into the Dem he was before, in his words, “Clinton befouled the office.”

Like most western “libertarians”, Alaskans are totally dependent on federal subsidies of various sorts.

All I can say is: Swing Bay, Swing! Just keep swinging and never come back!

When I asked a couple of months ago, FDL’s Alaska expert said that the payouts were a long moving average to smooth them out, so they won’t be dropping quickly. I asked wrt Palin’s reelection chances. Apparently the payouts will hold up for years.

What are the other big western subsidies? Mining rights below market costs? Grazing rights? Other? Of course, the federal govt does own half the land in the west.

this is the best frickin’ news I’ve heard all week, and whoever took that picture deserves a Pulitzer.

Welcome, AnastasiaBeaverhausen!

I’m keeping my money for the Palin from Alasky/Shameless from GA committee.

Maybe Palin can run with her husband as a joint ticket. Didn’t we hear that are co-govs?

I know what you mean. In this small town/city, she got 4,000 people to come to the local high school gym to see her. Party of Hate.

wow. my dittohead was trying to rearrange the furniture in his head a little tiny bit too. it’s a big effort, but who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

Yes, we must raise a toast of welcome to any new member of the Beaverhausen clan!

Slainte!!

Any analysis of what Obama is actually doing or is this more of the typical Rose blather on the economy. Last week Rose had on a panel of Martin Feldstein, Leonhardt from the NYT, Jack Welch once of GE, and Chuck Schumer. It was all kind of surreal. Welch was talking about a social safety net but then how we mustn’t touch executive bonuses. Feldstein didn’t like the tax cuts but hated nationalization. Leonhardt said no one knew how big the hole was but he liked the stimulus anyway. And Schumer was just cheerleading the stimulus, Summers, Geithner, you name it.

I was surprised that he apparently didn’t make the recent DC trip. During the campaign it seemed he was afraid to let her out of his sight. Then again, I saw him walk onstage ahead of her so he might have simply been confused about which of them was the candidate.

Watching Rose out of desperation. The usual L&O pablum I watch at this hour has been preempted by something even worse.

Oh, he still fears “Socialism™” like the plague, thinks we should let all the banks fail, and blow a big giant F-You wet one to the automakers. But he’s right on healthcare and education – thinks they should be monstrously expensive and government-run.

He’s not coming around so much as feeling his mortality a la Lee Atwater, and knows his grandchildren are in for a world of hurt.

Confusion seems to be deeply embedded in the Palin family.

I think it is more a money in money out kind of thing, most Western states send less to Washington and get more back from it. Whereas a big Northeastern state like New York sends a lot more to DC than it gets back.

I missed that but watching DeMint on George the Steph was quite a site.

I blame Elliott for making me do it ! *g*

Palin/Cheney ‘12

Puleeeeeeezzzzzz let the republics put her up again.

All federal leases are deliberately set at 60% of market value. The western cattle industry in most states would collapse without federal grazing leases. With timber leases, this is compounded by the government assuming the cost of building and maintaining the logging roads, which costs would normally be assumed by the timber companies. There are also impact fees (rather generously calculated) paid to local and state governments since so much of the land is off the tax rolls. Finally there are all the federal jobs to maintain all that federal land. Overall, Alaska gets back $1.87 in federal expenditures for every $1 paid in federal taxes, second highest in the nation (New Mexico is #1), Here in Montana it is $1.58.

Confusion seems to be deeply embedded inbredded in the Palin family.

Yeah, I know it isn’t a real word but I’ll bet they don’t.

WRT NY, that was true before the financial industry imploded. In the future, not so much.

That was a faux pas on his part – pimps never walk in front of their girls, always behind.

Thanks. I should have gotten the timber industry. Didn’t know about the impact fees.

Lynne or Mary ?

Don’t forget the wolf hunting. Ashley Judd hasn’t.

Happy Birthday again !

Rose takes all of these Establishment get togethers like Davos so seriously. This year when I hear Davos it’s like a punchline to a joke. About the only thing I learned out of it was that the English and Germans are backing a similarly lame bad bank to the one that Geithner is talking about. Seems like another case of mediocrity run wild.

Will probably continue to be so in the future as well. While upstate benefits significantly from federal subsidies, it is more than counterbalanced by the markedly higher wages paid and the wealth generated by the industrial sector in the state. You really have to be poor, rural, and agrarian/extractive to get on the other side of the balance sheet.

You might be flattering them too much with your choice of the word mediocrity.

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, a week and a half ago, I went to the annual forecasting luncheon of the NY Assn Bus Economists. The quality of the analysis was dismal.

The bad bank theory confuses me. How can there be any bad bank at all when the bad assets inside the CDOs can’t be accurately identified? Because the good banks can’t find the bad assets to sell to the bad bank.

Alaskas principle sourde of revenue is the Alaska Permanent Fund which is based on a minimum 25% tax on leases and profits on resources taken from State Lands. This is invested and the dividends used to pay for State needs, as well as a good chunk paid back to State residents. Works out to be about $1500/person. No State taxes.

This was largely created by a Republican, Gov. Hammond…and is about as close to Scandinavian Socialism as one can get in the US. Palin has nothing to do with the States well-being, if anything, she’s started draining the fund, impacting its longterm capability to pay out residuals. In addition, one of her deals for a NG pipeline may have brought in less than she claimed.

Thank you! Aging like fine wine – locked in a cold, dark cellar. 8-)

LOL !!!

There is no industry to speak of in NYS anymore. The whole economy is the financial industry house of cards, as near as I can tell. At my mid-Hudson house region, there is still an amazing large amount of ag (labor of love as near as I can figure) and everyone else is an artist, artisan, retired, or unemployed.

Dick. Why not?

Hey Dr D. You get your cake on fb?

The man whose ticker just keeps on ticking.

He will live forever.

Then what the hell are they doing in Binghamton, Rochester, and Schenectady? I suspect most of the farmers are making a living by not farming (federal set aside program). That is really popular in many areas out here where you could easily lose your shirt trying to actually farm.

I did. Thanks a bunch!

The undead cannot die.

Many of us are hoping he’ll be in Irons & Chains by then.

He is Nosferatu, unclean, undead, of the night.

They must be manufacturing something there. Wikipedia states:

In 2007, the state exported a total of $71.1 billion worth of goods

All of that is manufactures, which are apparently concentrated in upstate.

Happy Birthday! Nothing to fear in getting older, folks will love an age Spotted Dick.:-)

Dope, then.

Of course, I exaggerate. But in Binghamton area, Corning retrenched mightily after the tech bubble burst. In Rochester, Xerox (after bankruptcy) and Polaroid (heh) are shadows of their former selves. In fact, I don’t know if Polaroid still exists. GE has left Schenecdaty in droves. Buffalo, my home town, peaked in the late 1960s, and the population is now half it’s peak.

The silver lining in the economic devastation that is upstate NY, is that the towns still have a great deal of 19th C character. Historic preservation is one of my interests.

Whoops, forgot the link.

Maybe Fred Thompson will be done with his nap by 2012, and can run as Palin’s Cheney-like Veep. They’d like that — a red pickup and a pickup in red.

Especially when there is more money to suck out of the Federal government.

LOL!

His appeals won’t be exhausted ’til 2025 or so. Can’t misunderestimate Addington.

Yeah, well I already have pretty spotted record. 8-)

You need to look at the figures for earlier years. Mfg in NYS is shrinking on a minute-by-minute basis. See also Krugman’s Nobel lecture. His prize was for analysis of foreign trade that is no longer relevant. I.E. the importance of geography in the 19th and much of the 20th C. He had a great map which included all the mfg route thru NYS. Erie Canal, followed by RR on same route. Requiem in pacem.

Well have another one Dr D!

Time to tuck my little cloven hooves in for a long winters nap. A splendid evening to all.

LOL!
that is about as close as I will get to wading in a stream for a few months. That water is cold in the summer and now it is absolutely frigid.

Night ratfood. Sleep well.

G’nite ratfood.

nite ratfood

Night!. Think I will head out as well. Us old folks need our rest. Besides I need to be on my game to warp and twist those young mind tomorrow morning in my gender class. The lecture topics this week are biological sex differences (not much really other than reproductive) and sexuality (if it feels good, we will do it).

hiya Matt

I tried to walk across the river yesterday as the temp had been below freezing for long enough to make the ice solid, or so I thought. I took a big coal furnace poker with me, and stopped when it went thru the ice in front of me. Disappointed because I’ve never investigated the property across the Wallkill River from me. But I didn’t want to end up in the drink at this time of year even if it is only 3-4 feet deep.

Whoring my new OxDiary, entitled McCaskill: “Keep our powder dry”

Sounds highly unscientific and lascivious to me.

Sleep well.

The bad bank theory confuses me. How can there be any bad bank at all when the bad assets inside the CDOs can’t be accurately identified? Because the good banks can’t find the bad assets to sell to the bad bank.

I wandered off. There is a disconnect between the mortgages and the financial instruments, the CDOs, that were written on them. It isn’t so much that the individual mortgages can’t be identified. It is whether there is an enforceable link between them and the CDOs.

The question is how to assign a value to them. Banks would like to dump them on the government at or near their face value. Without nationalization, I would say they could only dump them at their mark to market value, about 25% of the face value. Within a nationalization plan, I would value them at somewhere near pre-bubble rates. This is important because it works into how much money would be needed to recapitalize them.

Very scientific and not so salacious. Remember that Malinowski’s The
Sexual Life of Savages is more useful as sleep aid than a marital one.

The Joy of Sex disappeared into my son’s room when he was 8 years old. I thought it was a godsend.

Oh, please, please, please let the GOP nominate her in 2012. Maybe they can get all the craziness out of their system and then come to sit at the grownups table.

Oh come on Teddy you know THAT will never happen! All they have is their talking points… no real substance to any of them. They are all just a bunch of stuffed shirts, in Sarah case a stuffed blouse… no I don’t mean her bra, get your minds out of the gutter Pups(:>))

On a lot of various blogs I have posted as a joke “Palin/Plumber 2012!”. Now, I don’t think it’s a joke. I can seriously see the GOP nominating her and Samuel, and making the campaign signs read “Palin/Plumber 2012!”.

It would be even more embarrassing than Bush’s gaffes.

Think of the endless amusement for the lefty blogs.

I am struck dumb with awe at the aptness of that photo at the top!

But the ratings on the mortgages and the traunches are supposed to be all wonky, and unreliable, are they not? If so, the ‘toxicity’ of any given mortgage is an unknown quantity. On Ian’s thread I suggested why not just allow the bad loans to fail, and catch them in a safety net in court when they do, where there is no eviction and where the USG can buy the loan at some statutorily established discount, from whatever entity or entities hold them? I.e. the legislation says the owners HAVE to sell to the USG in this situation. USG can either offer a new affordable loan, hold the property and rent to the former owner, or if the owner wants to leave, rent to someone else… or as a last result, sell to someone else on attractive loan terms. Thus do the toxic mortgages precipitate out from the banks’ holdings.

Dugg it

About time!!

The only question that matters is this:

Has Limpbaugh given her his blessing?*

*or is that “curse”?

LOL hey nahant how are you doing?

I’VE PROBABLY SHOWED UP JUST IN TIME TO BE EPU’D BY LLN FDL.

BUT – ANY SARAH QUESTIONS….?

(I’m not shouting. I think my cat sat on the cap lock key while we were eating)

Sarah in heels is so last summer.

Boots!

How much do you luv you sum Sarah Palin?

I was tired of her in 1996. It has been downhill ever since.

ES is upstairs with LLN!

Life is tough. But here in NYS we had to put up with Pataki for 12 years. Think of that as punishment for sins.

They put Sarah on a pedestal so they can look up her skirt.

Palin wants wolves exterminated to artificially increase number of caribou and moose. Artificial is the “emergency” mandate and blank check to kill wolves, including baby cubs from dens apparently from some of her loyal sadistic yahoo followers. Ms. Palin’s favorite way is in spare white winter simply critically wounding them from a helicopter with her high powered rifles. To die a sustained and gruesome and inhumane death. She offered $150 for each severed left foreleg of a wolf. Wolves are part of the ecosystem. They are intelligent and function in family tribes. They do not go after humans. Alaska told her bounty idea was illegal.

Faux religious Sarah has decided to annihilate one of God’s creatures. Meanwhile plight of unwed mothers and their children, women who have been raped … not a priority for Ms. Style not Substance.

Isn’t such cruelty to animals a symptom of sociopathology? Alpha-female Sara quite dangerous to ALL living things IMHO.