John Kerry has hired the guy who claims that Kerry went easy on the BCCI investigation. Does this signal a return to Kerry’s more courageous stance of his youth?

Not many generals have been inclined to portray calm in Iraq as irreversible. But in southern Iraq, where violence has declined so steeply that now U.S. troops come under attack only twice a day, that’s what Maj. Gen. Michael Oates perceives:

“In southern Iraq, it’s my considered opinion that (the progress) is not reversible,” Oates said.

Bill Greider boils down the attempts by Blue Dogs, Jim Cooper, the Pete Peterson folks and others to loot Social Security:

Follow the bouncing ball: Washington first cuts taxes on the well-to-do, then offsets the revenue loss by raising taxes on the working class and tells folks it is saving their money for future retirement.

This is a fine way to wake up. In an interview with the WaPo’s Lois Romano, Obama top advisor David Axelrod politely yet firmly hands Cheney and Rove their STFU papers.

• Tragedy in upstate New York.
• Generational Theft Economic Recovery Act to pass today.
• But…but…most Americans oppose the stimulus.
• Worse than Japan?
• Hopefully, Gregg’s withdrawal kills this “bipartisan” stuff.
• He was for the stimulus, before he was against it.
• A blow to Obama? 
• Good news.
• Leon’s getting larger.
• No. This has been another…

David Vitter takes bold stand against “empathy”. Must make Mrs. Vitter real proud.

Paul Dateh on violin with inka one on turntables – Hip Hop Violin

Tracks covered:
- A Tribe Called Quest: Check the Rhime
- Jurassic 5: Canta de Ossanha
- Ghostface Killah: Chercez la Ghost
- The Roots: The Next Movement
- Gnarls Barkley: Crazy
- Johnny Pate: Shaft in Africa

What’s on your mind tonight?

Famed dessicated stick of fistic jerky Chuck Norris has news, frightening news! Barack Obama means to impose the Dictatorship of the Porn-o-tariat.

‘No one has ever gotten a 15-6 for losing a village in Afghanistan’

Paul Krugman has said we are living in a “Macroëconomic dark ages” where knowledge of the past is “being lost.” Specifically he points out how long exploded fallacies are being offered up as deep scholarly truths. To be a classicist for a moment, there was, in fact, a Dark Ages during the Bronze Age when the Greeks lost their knowledge of writing.