To his credit, John McCain today seems to have tried out a few of the ideas I suggested in my article An Inconvenient Hate. Did he get the idea from me? That would be fun, but it doesn't matter. Regardless of why he did it, let's just always be unambiguously thankful and… Read full post »

It's a loathesome practice, hate-mongering. I don't know why someone would do it at any time. It's just destructive and serves no good end. But, if it even makes sense to say it this way, John McCain is picking an especially bad time. As a nation, we're too on edge for… Read full post »

Why does Trader Joe's insist that Splenda® is not healthy, and therefore refuse to stock foods containing it, while being happy to stock large amounts of chocolate and other foods full of fats or sugars?

What is with this stubborn insistence that natural foods are what's healthy and that foods… Read full post »

One of the cascade effects we're going to see really soon, if the government does not block it, will be people missing payments on credit cards and finding that their credit card rates shoot through the roof.

For the last many months, credit card companies have been quietly issuing complicated… Read full post »

I think Bush doesn't believe in Democracy.

He says he does, of course. But independent of the Newspeak that pours forth when he speaks, his actions make it clear that he doesn't care at all about what the American people think.

It isn't any one thing. It isn't the… Read full post »

My question tonight is simple: Why don't politicians engage us to a greater degree as partners in what is alleged to be our own Government? I'll probably have more to write on this another day, but for today I just want to offer the text of a hypothetical speech I was… Read full post »

Just after the VP debate tonight, Joe Blow wrote the following in his article Still "Not Ready to Lead":

The only thing I have to say in her defense is that she came off looking a lot better than in previous media encounters, which begs this question: Was she sandbagging… Read full post »

There may be lean times on Wall Street, but it's Christmas at Wal-Mart. They're starting it early this year because some shoppers “need to spread out their Christmas shopping over a longer time-frame than they may have last year.”

Leaving aside for just a moment the various arguments mad… Read full post »

On Real Time with Bill Maher recently, Andrew Sullivan was raising the issue of home ownership and lamenting the fact that there is special preference for buying homes in the tax law. Why discourage renting?

This issue is personal to me because I once did some home repairs and paid… Read full post »

Am I the only one who wonders if the Republicans actually plan on an every-few-years electoral failure as a way of giving them cover for the excesses of their policies? I almost think they'd like to lose this one at this point because so much stuff is about to fall in,… Read full post »

Sometimes my posts or my comments run long and I don't notice. That's because I have a nice big 1600x1200 LED screen. So text I write often doesn't seem so long to me until I see it posted next to something someone else wrote. Oops. I hope all my readers have… Read full post »

I've been pondering what happens if the Republicans lose confidence in Palin. They have to know she can't do the job. I'm sure they're just trying to find a way to spin the inevitable.

Long before the election started, I said that Romney was the one to worry about. I'm… Read full post »

On the discussion thread for Paul Levinson's blog post Obama Should Reject McCain's Call to Postpone Friday Debate, Tim4change writes:

First, forgive me if this is a repeat of someone else's comment: I think this one is a no-brainer. Go ahead, have both of them go back to Washington and

… Read full post »

I've been asking everyone I know who they're supporting in the election. I'm a political independent who's supporting Obama, so it's probably no surprise that my friends are either independents or Democrats supporting Obama as well.

Once in a while, though, I find someone who's supporting McCain. Th… Read full post »

At my personal web site, I occasionally write essays on various political topics, and there's an essay about the FDIC that I just went back and re-read and found myself to be pretty happy with it for as far as it goes.  But today I thought I'd expand on it a… Read full post »

Dave Cullen blogged about No blank check without concessions. For as far as he went, I thought it was great and made a good point. But then he stopped abruptly with this cliffhanger of a remark:

Yes, we'll save you, and here's the price to you.

Dave was saying… Read full post »

Larry Lessig has observed (and copiously written up, in books like his Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace) that there are two kinds of codes, that is, laws: He uses the metaphor of east and west coast, meaning that on the East Coast is Congress, enacting rules that govern us in… Read full post »

Bill Bennet, Secretary of Education under President Reagan and Drug Czar under Bush [41] was on today (September 18, 2008) on MSNBC's Today show this morning. There are a number of things to write about that, such as Meridith Vieira's correctly calling him out on trying to use the new buzzword… Read full post »

Never mind that we have an ecological crisis and an obesity crisis, we have somehow built an an economy based on the notion that if hordes of people don't go out and buy new black and orange plastic decorations, there might be an economic crisis.

But, hey, we're having an economic… Read full post »

No more Bush doctrine.
McCain and Palin bring change:
Lipstick politics.

Costly endless war.
How will we pay for health care?
China, lend us more!

Fought wrong enemy.
Wasted effort in Iraq.
Ignored Climate Change.

All the world's problems—
McCain can fix in 5 years!
And if not, she/… Read full post »

Maybe it's just the part of the country I live in, but Memorial Day and Labor Day seem to have lost their meaning, having morphed into Start of Summer day and End of Summer Day.  The first marks the approximate end of the school year and seems more precisely to be… Read full post »

This letter is offered publicly to Ms. Palin.  If she replies, I'll post the response.  (Don't hold your breath.)  Anyone with an opportunity to interview her may feel free to borrow from these questions, let's just get the answers somehow, shall we?

Dear Ms. Palin,… Read full post »

McCain is poised to be the oldest President ever inaugurated.  And he's battled cancer already, as well.  Fighter though he promises to be, he's also mortal, and we can't be quite as sure he'll complete his service in office.  As such, more than average attention must be paid to his ch… Read full post »

Amusing myself while Palin is dodging the press, I've tried to come up with a good Palin-drome...  So far this is the best I've done:

    Tin, mad one, manila Palin. Amen. O, damn it.

Ok, so it doesn't make a lot of sense when you look at it up close—it's just supe… Read full post »