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EU chief deems Obama economic moves the 'road to hell'

Moneynews - EU Chief: Obama Plan is Road to Hell

The head of the European Union slammed President Barack Obama's plan to spend nearly $2 trillion to push the U.S. economy out of recession as "the road to hell" that EU governments must avoid.

The blunt comments by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek to the European Parliament on Wednesday highlighted simmering European differences with Washington ahead of a key summit next week on fixing the world economy.

It was the strongest pushback yet from a European leader as the 27-nation bloc bristles from U.S. criticism that it is not spending enough to stimulate demand.

Shocked by the outburst, other European politicians went into damage control mode, with some reproaching the Czech leader for his language and others reaffirming their good diplomatic ties with the United States. The leaders of EU's major nations -- France, Britain and Germany, among others -- largely ignored Topolanek and his remarks.

What can we expect? For every time he seems to show some rationale for the U.S. that is successful, he either does something, or someone reminds us in strong and blunt terms, just how obstinate BHO can be. In light of this, too, the Openness-in-Chief, the "TOTUS" isn't reproaching world currency ideas flaoted out there, is he? Not that I have heard. How very disappointing.

It irks me, the reserve to defend what's American on so many counts, by this president. Write off the U.S. dollars' once and future (if there is a future!) strength... it's untoward to act like we're still stronger on all counts than any other nation and able to be caretaker of freedom and capitalism and markets. Let's just give it all up now, while WE HAVE THE CHANCE, in light of the deep recession. Is that the thinking? I hope not.

It is too soon for the Earth of Star Trek, with a world-governing council, planetary "credits", etc. Too many ideologues with deep desires to kill innocents for their god or their power. In other words, to keep with the Star Trek theme, Earth has its own Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, who are interested in harming others, despite overtures to Iran and others by Ms. Clinton and friends.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Abortion 'pride' is encouraged by professional student

Opposing Views: OPINION: It's Time for an Abortion Pride Movement - Jacob Appel

Everybody is proud these days. While “pride” as a collective concept may have originated with the Gay Rights movement of the 1970s, now marchers in the St. Patrick’s Day parade are as likely to sport pins boasting “Proud to be Irish” and my Jewish friends are as proud to be Jewish as my Muslim friends are proud to be Muslim—although I always wonder if they wouldn’t be equally proud if they had been born into the opposite faiths.

...

The anti-abortion movement already has its own pride movement. If one reads about reproductive issues in the conservative media—which I often do—one is bombarded with tales of mothers who have sacrificed personal and professional opportunities to bring fetuses to term.

Because, you know, sex as the right of every horny kid and adult on the planet, with no consequences deserved for the realities of the act, is paramount. There is no reason for facing the consequences of being a loose-legged bimbo, being an oppressively horny and emotionally selfish boyfriend, getting sloppy about birth control, or no reason for taking responsibility for being otherwise stupid. That is not the easiest option, after all. Getting rid of the problem is the solution. No matter what that means. Reminds me of liberal concepts for everything. Insincerity, and personal rights -- those to the level of a vicious selfishness -- above logic, responsibility and everything else.

Oh, I see! Judging from the volumes of degrees Mr. Appel has, this author is a professional student. That must be a nice life.

Out here in the real world we see people ruined by decisions that they think will make the "pain" go away, only to be haunted by it their wholes lives. Pride, indeed.

I guess studying ethics and having a sense of them are two vastly different things, in looking at this guy's thinking. Abortion pride and bestiality acceptable, I've seen all I need to. This guy takes mindless, academic openness to a new high. Or, low.

Somehow, many supporters of abortion rights have been lulled into accepting the rhetoric that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” That may be good language for winning elections, but it does a profound disservice to the millions of women who have abortions in this nation each year. Abortions should be safe and legal. That goes without saying. But rare? Abortions should be as frequent or as infrequent as are unwanted pregnancies.

Furthering being the creepiest "ethicist" I have ever read, he goes to the extraordinary level of proclaiming -- without actually saying it, but effectively admitting -- his deep desire for a utopian world where guilt does not exist. I assume this author figures the whole world thinks as he does, that a baby out of the womb is a baby out of mind:

I dream of the day when women are not afraid to walk the streets with pins reading, “I had an abortion and it was the right decision,” and when station wagons bear bumper-stickers announcing, “Thank me for having an abortion when I wasn’t ready to be a parent.” I admire those individuals who work to ensure a women’s right to choose. But choice is a merely a foundation. Ultimately, women—if they so desire—should feel comfortable expressing public pride in their brave and wise choices.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Pe-floozie drops airhead bomb, this time on illegals, which got me thinking about drugs

America's fearless House leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in comments that can fairly be called playing to the crowd in a most profane sense, spoke at a church to a group of apparent illegals recently, telling them that deporting illegals was essentially (see site, Immigration's Human Cost) "un-American." But that was only after she informed the illegals that they are "patriotic." Yes, that's right: illegals are patriots, and our system is broken... if they leave.

She argued that forcing parents to leave the U.S. equates breaking up families, which is cruel. Nah! Is that cruel? This visit to a church was mistaken for a guest speaker engagement, I guess, but it was really a get-out-the-vote visit, the beautiful, adoring, kindly, fearless leader densely into campaign mode for 2010. Already, and we haven't even saved the planet yet, or the economy, or illegals' families. Which is most the utmost vital to our universal liberty, freedom and happiness again? Sorry -- channeling Pelosi there for a moment!

I am not being very serious, am I? The concern is, though, is Pelosi? Why would she say these things and not mean them? What kind of system would endeavor to break up families, she asked. What system would endeavor to hurt puppies? Indeed.

Who wants to willingly break up a family? I would suggest nobody but a mean, jealous mistress (or the male equivalent). Of course, what Pelosi means is that Republicans want to break up families, and that the mission of our current immigration laws are to break up families. Not to get control of who can enter this country whenever they please, like all those old-fashioned countries like (to name a few) China, France, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Mexico, and Cuba do. Oh wait, they barely offer immigration, let alone do they let illegals stick around! So, how is it that we are able to take all of them on, will-nilly? What's Ms. Pelosi's plan, then? No plan given? Just rhetoric? To the illegals? In her home district, in budget-throttled California?

Talk about playing to the crowd!

YouTube - Pelosi Calls Illegals "Patriotic", ICE Raids "Un-American"

I think Speaker Pelosi really means well in her mind, but it's extremely misguided. What's more scary: Biden as VP or her as House Leader, or third in line to the presidency? I think our govt is holding us hostage with these people in charge!

Next they'll legislate nap times for every workplace to keep stress levels down, counseling and required "me time" for murderers, rapists, gang members, and terrorists rather than jail time. Perhaps they'll eliminate the two-party system "just to save time" during elections, too. They seem to be trying that pretty hard, what with seniority rule (NEA-style leadership rules) legislation that self-preserving Pelosi wants to pass through Congress.

Being "cheeky" (that's Brit-speak for wise-arsed), I considered the elder Bush selecting dopey Dan Quayle as VP to be deviously brilliant -- made Secret Service especially eager to keep Bush alive! Who wanted to see Quayle as president?!! This, this though, is a whole new bag of salty chips.

Someone commented, I think facetiously, under the video, why couldn't the illegals bring their American-born kids to Mexico with them when they were removed? Fair question, I suppose, but it is also a laugh riot. People die trying to come here, but they scamper the other way -- Americans and others -- into Mexico, to avoid being jailed (or killed by an enemy) in the U.S. This is, of course, unless they are drug professionals or wealthy folks who have acres of land in Mexico and good security.

The sad state of Mexico today is a long time coming, and part of the reason that it is so bad is that, like is often the case, is the leadership put off reacting to a growing problem far too long, across recent presidencies, before they were devoted to going after the drug cartels in Mexico. Barely democratic, reasons for leaving there and coming to the U.S. are mostly economic.

If it weren't for current Mexican president, Felipe Calderon, nothing would be being done about rampant drug cartels/gangs there. It is as if they tried to dam a river after long discussions about it, and they failed, causing flooding. Regrettably, GW Bush's pal Vicente Fox may easily be called a lame aristocrat type who left the drug cartel problem alone (lame, much like Clinton was here, serving as a squatter-in-chief) only to let Mexico's criminal powers (perhaps with it driven by criminal enterprises here and elsewhere) go farther. That overlooks the fact that he was also the first non-PRI party (across history of that party and its predecessors), thus the first opposition party president since ... 1910. Off the hook? I don't know. Seems to me they could have asked us (the U.S.) for help, but I suppose one cannot blame Fox for playing it safe. As for Clinton... never mind.

In the here and now, in 2007-09 (and beyond) we face several years of death and terror, the police frightened of the thugs (assuming they are not the same, which they are not always the same) in trying to end crimes' rule, has resulted, since Calderon brazenly declared war on drug cartels. Thus making it, by backhanded insult, seem all the more foul that we should send anyone back to some border areas of Mexico.

- jR

Is Roseanne closing in on title held by irrational gay kook has-been?

Is Roseanne closing in on irrational gay kook has-been for most rampant awkward political and paranoid ranting? It appears that since neither can manage to get any TV time, they've gone another route. Or, Roseanne is just happily whining about mad Jewish self-hating stuff. Maybe she just needs better meds, who knows.

ohlmert you lie:

you say that twelve rockets were fired into israel since the end of the "war" (ethnic cleansing). Not one Israeli was hurt or killed by these rockets, and now you say you are going to go back and kill more palestinians to teach them a lesson!!!

I think rockets are being fired by your own sources, since less than ten israelis have been killed by them. You are bullshitting the world as you pocket money made from arms sales, along with bibi and your agents in Hamas. step down all men in power!

Ignoring that she knows so little about things that she rabidly regards Israel as the ones committed to ethnic cleansing when sincerity, if not logic, notes that Hamas and those on the other side of things are the evident and shameless ethnic and religious cretins, this is still a crazy rant.

I bet you thought "Betty Rubble" "actress" Rosie O'Donnell was chief crazy of big mouth, female, once humorous (outside of being humorous to watch like a chimp at zoo), liberal Hollywood lingerers. Here's some competition.

- jR

If I had a dime for every time a socialist said this over the years...

If you think this is bad, wait till next year, says Russian scholar.

Russian scholar says US will collapse --next year (AP via Breitbart)

It wasn't clear how persuasive the 20-minute lecture was. One instructor asked Panarin whether his predictions more accurately describe Russia, which is undergoing its worst economic crisis in a decade as well as a demographic collapse that has led some scholars to predict the country's demise.

Panarin dismissed that idea: "The collapse of Russia will not occur."

But Alexei Malashenko, a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center who did not attend the lecture, sided with the skeptical instructor, saying Russia is the country that is on the verge of disintegration.

"I can't imagine at all how the United States could ever fall apart," Malashenko told the AP.

It's pretty sad when, by contrast to the topic at hand, a contrary view after a Russian speech on the collapse of the U.S. gives me more confidence than my president!

- jR

Rush Hitler and Uncle Tom Steele are the latest characters from MSNBC guests

NewsBusters must be lying, because they are part of the Hitler squad Garofalo is talking about. But wait! They're using the people's own words.

Olbermann & Garofalo See ‘Self-Loathing’ ‘Black Guy’ Michael Steele, Limbaugh Compared to Hitler | NewsBusters.org

Garofalo: "any female or person of color in the Republican party is struggling with Stockholm Syndrome."

Even for Oblubberman's show, this is odd. There's not even any fake maturity to the opinions shared typically on the show. Perhaps he should offer all of his guests a stiff drink prior to going on. Might prove to make them funny to anyone who isn't as rabidly biased and tactlessly cynical as he.

Oh, ick. Just ick.

- jR

A little radio control comedy

(The "radio control" I am referring to is what certain liberal factions want to do with AM radio: control it's content.)

Today's broadcast brought to you by Equal Time Radio:

We don't understand free markets, we're just going to give the audience what we know they want.*

* What the audience wants is set, programmed equal time for opposing opinions as sanctioned by one side of the political spectrum. If advertisers won't sponsor the programming we define, we'll fund it with freshly printed dollars. After we buy the radio stations from the existing, free market owners, of course, since they'll be bankrupt since the regular audience abandons them for roughly half of every day.

- jR

Majority Whip Clyburn calls stubborn guvs racists for disliking stimulus

Michelle Malkin » Top Democrat accuses anti-stimulus GOP governors of…RAAAAACISM!

Well, Attorney General Eric Holder, here's your conversation about race: House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina is now accusing GOP governors who have fundamental misgivings about the trillion-dollar stimulus of opposing the law because they don’t like black people.

Who’s being divisive, Eric Holder? Who’s obsessed with race? Who needs to stop self-segregating and stop spreading race-based poison? Where’s the outrage? Clyburn earlier this year invoked plantation imagery to suggest that S.C. GOP Gov. Mark Sanford’s opposition to earmarks was based on RAAAACISM (another blog post by Malkin referring to black race-baiting leader, quote obtained from it below).

I cannot believe this comment from a high-placed national government leader. It is such a dumb claim, evidence of a mind enshrined in some bitter, unreal viewpoints, that I am stunned of its source. This man was appointed by his peers as a leader among leaders. His comments are more a judgment of his peers and his constituency on its own that I could ever improve on today. Not without a lot of acid pills. One would think this guy was on a school board or county council somewhere, at best. But no, James Clyburn is none other than the House Majority Whip!

Thanks, Majority Whip. You do justice to the title, though you're more polarizing than I might have imagined. Where do we get the criteria for leadership roles?!! One could say this guy is Trent Lott's reflective opposite, with this bizarre rhetoric! Only worse!! Will he step down? Does he have any HONOR? We will have to stay tuned!

“[H]e happens to be a millionaire,” Clyburn said of Sanford. “He may not need help for the plantation his family owns, but the people whose grandparents and great-grandparents worked those plantations need the help” in the form of federal money.

Wrongs were done. They cannot be forgotten. But it is always the case that weak minds offer far out or foul arguments. This is one of those. To inject slavery, racism, and plantation innuendo into this debate is about as high minded as a college course on Family Guy.

- jR

So-called progressives' cry against AM radio: anti-free market rules are pro-free speech

The recent assault on talk radio by progressives (so-called) has also produced comments that moderate reporting, or non-biased to non-media people, is boring. That's just one of the little offshoots of this odd agenda being taken up right now.

I have a serious problem with this. This is the worst of what liberalism, or progressivism, or whatever you call it, has to offer. It shows the broader goal they look toward: to run things without a care of free markets or consumer and market guided business. It's called overregulating. They are for it. I am against underregulating, but this is no better. Nooo better!

The playground rules of equal time at bat is now being pushed for radio. Have you ever listened to AirAmerica? I once listened to a ten-minute assault on Barbara Bush, back in January 2009, calling her mean and vicious and alleging all sorts of profane things about her. I think they actually referred to her as fat at one point. I mean, it was foul and just mean. Why? How appealing is it that these "radio personalities" go after the MOTHER of the current president! Little wonder this stuff dies in the free market! Crude, and more ironically juvenile than Pee Wee's Playhouse (or, for that matter, more juvenile than Glenn Beck's radio show some days, when he does the cynical, half-funny "America's favorite game show" segments)!

Since the free market does not exist for these pro-overregulation clowns, there's ongoing debate of 'conservative' radio vs. fairness doctrine for radio. Not papers & TV, but just radio! Would force far left liberal - oh wait, 'progressive' - radio on radio stations. For what? Their future economic success?!!

They call it a 'system' of companies. Bull. Air America not a company, then? It ignores the biz law of what sells ads, which certainly TRUMPS any 'BALANCE' LAW. Ask any struggling paper just how much ads determine their life or death! Or, any radio station! This smacks of collectivism, where the media would be controlled by the all-knowing, all-controlling hand of government. Period.

I would welcome more successful liberal radio, because the so-called progressives are being so oddly anti-business, anti-free market, and inferring communist ideals in their hassling of radio stations and their owners that it smacks of outright shameless envy and jealousy. They will apparently stop only short of cutting power sources to radio stations with this assault on AM radio. (I should avoid mentioning that some areas, such as Nashville, Tenn., have excellent FM talk stations.)

Think Progress » Dear Rush Limbaugh, Why Are You Hell-Bent On Protecting A Radio Market That Limits Free Speech?
(First of all, HAAA! What a headline! Can you guess where that's going? Duh!)

ThinkProgress asked the authors of the original report to respond to Limbaugh. Two co-authors, CAP’s John Halpin and Free Press’s Josh Silver, gave us this response:

Dear Rush Limbaugh:

We have a straightforward question, which we hope you will answer in a straightforward way: When a handful of major media companies control who and what is allowed to be broadcast on the commercial dial, how is that not regulation of radio content? When these same companies then push out one-sided, right-wing information 90 percent of the time, how does that uphold freedom of expression?

Those of us at CAP, Free Press and other public interest organizations do not want to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and we definitely do not want to limit free speech. We want more of it. You and other conservatives seem more interested in protecting a system that does the exact opposite.

If Limbaugh wants a debate, let’s have it.

Go ahead and call him, debate it! Please! There's only a few of you who could manage to handle it! But debate? Good luck with that. Rhetoric as what comes from ThinkProgess will not play for success on this issue. I think it would bore his listeners if he waited until these closeted big govt freaks had the nerve to call him and offer something remotely close to a civil, topical argument about this subject.

In the piece they at once call these "commercial stations", yet bluntly claim that they "push" an agenda? How is it that they are making any money, then? Somebody must be advertising on the stations! So all the advertisers are conservatives, too, and there's some secret handshake of advertisers and listeners who support those businesses?

Their presumption falls on its face, it seems, and they surely must know it. How can dashing free market ideals for their version of a "free" (wink) media possibly pass muster under authentic public debate? These pro-controlled airwaves (oh, but ONLY radio!) people are tossing rocks, and keeping their distance, they are not offering a debate.

Liberals have most of TV in their back pockets. Viewership of news on TV is lowering, for them. MSNBC is the laughed-at geek among all TV news entities, and steeply liberal. It is rising generally, we learned recently from viewership reports, but MSNBC is comparably rising far less than FOX News. Fox News is of course another media outlet despised by liberals. This one is disliked for simply not being liberal rather than for its being rampantly conservative -- but don't try to tell any of them that, they're too busy calling it racist, fascist and owned by "the Man". These same liberals pan PBS and NPR for being too moderate, too. Shame. I like both of those, and appreciate their reporting. Funny, I thought reporting was meant to be objective as possible, but plenty of progressives -- and a few blow-hard counterparts on the far right -- call objectivity boring. So much for news reporting and "boring" old journalism!

Liberals lay claim to the majority of large newspapers in the nation, and seem to be doing just fine with not forcing "balance" on those media. So, what gives? Not debate, that's for sure! Can you imagine if conservative talk radio hosts started insisting that such action be taken to level the playing field on television, or in major newspapers, what would happen? Can you imagine if someone allegedly legitimate tried -- seriously, not as a joke -- to petition HBO to have a counterbalance to the Bill Maher show?

How is it that AM radio, which is for some the mocked poster child for old technology, gets so much attention from these folks for abuse of free markets? Isn't this a bit like hilariously odd, like a liberal faction of our government demanding that we invade the Phillipines?

Perhaps they are doing this since they simply want to win the ubiquitous debate, not actually have one. You know, like Chavez holds elections, and supporters take control of gov't buildings while the election happens to show their support. They'll debate it, but only on their terms. "I'll debate you any time! Just submit the questions three days ahead of time, please!"

I really wish I could resist reacting to any particularly stupid fringe ideas for control, at either edge, but I cannot help it when they are conceptually bizarre and insincere as this is. Who'd have thought that AM radio was the chief threat to the First Amendment!

- jR

(rev. Feb. 24, 2009)

GOP selects black dude, 'what?' moment courtesy of NY Times

The Mexican-sponsored, conservative-bashing, often deceptively liberal clarion (OK, The Nation and TIME do it as much, so perhaps "clarion" is harsh) publication, the NY Times, continued its jab and run efforts to brazenly distort the ranks and reach of the biggest party for conservatives and political right of America upon the selection of the new Republican Nat'l Committee chairman.

While reporting on the election of the new, -- take a breath in order to state some "obvious," "bigoted" reasons why they did it, lefties -- black (!!!) RNC chairman, they might as well have belabored the fact that the guy is not a black space alien, thus the RNC is still -- as they see it -- the small-minded party of bigots. After all, they took Al Gore from the White House, the bad people.

Republicans Choose First Black Party Chairman - NYTimes.com

From the start, Mr. [Katon] Dawson, while well-liked in the party, was hampered by worries that his selection would reinforce the notion that Republicans are increasingly becoming a Southern regional party.

What? The GOP is risking being considered a regional party. Seriously? Notion, huh? Of whom? And barbecue-lovin', drawlin', Democratic Party paragons Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, are what, exactly? Too far into the past, are they? Not sure they would agree.

Is that quote the dumbest sentence in the NY Times for the day? I want to hope so, but I can only guess. It is a poorly written sentence (but since I note it in a hastily written blog, I will only point that out in passing, adding that the NYT piece was not from a blog).

I suppose around the NY Times offices, GOP chairman Michael Steele might be nicknamed Uncle, uhh, Mike, for being in with the slave owners of the GOP, too. Next there'll be a cartoon on their opinion page with Uncle Mike being denied service at the GOP's HQ cafeteria.

The paper also mentioned this, before bothering to go into Steele's win any further:

Mr. Dawson also withdrew from an all-white country club he belonged before he started running for office, a point that was raised by Republicans concerned that it would provide a bad contrast in a year when the country elected its first African-American president.

Now, the fact that there exists clubs that are intentionally (I don't care what they claim, I mean a presumed intent) all-white anywhere is disgusting to me (unless, of course, there are nothing but white people in the general area). But, to me, such clubs simply remind us that there are more white snobs than other types of snobs in the country. I wish they'd spend more time in those clubs, and less time ruining the fight for scraps of the rest of us.

Democrats should really beat this one to death, even though this Dawson dude didn't get the chairmanship. You know there's never, ever been a white Democrat member of an all-white country club, that's simply unimaginable. And never were any of the important members of the Democratic Party ever in any groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, or some all-white frat or anything, or directing hoses to be fired in the direction of blacks, or anything like that. Nope! Never!

Mr. Steele made no mention of his race in his acceptance speech, and members said that was not a major factor in their decision. Nonetheless, it was clearly a force, playing out at a time when the nation has just inaugurated its first black president.

In addition to Mr. Duncan’s experience with a white country club, another candidate for candidate — Chip Saltsman of Tennessee — came under fire after distributing a Christmas CD with a song parody entitled, “Barack the Magic Negro.”

The song was a parody, and it actually was a response, meant in humor, to a LA Times article from which that phrase came. But don't confuse anyone with the facts, just poop out propaganda for sucker liberals to step onto -- and walk it around.

As usual, the liberal obsession is with things such as race, sexual interests, and how to ban dodge ball and God from playgrounds. Let's hope at least one knows how to save the world from the bums that hate America. A JFK-type of Democrat. In other words, not a rabid, bellowing liberal.

Ron Brown was the first and only black chairman of the DNC, from 1989 to 1992.

- jR

Forbes: Paul Krugman let out to pee on NY Times

Help! The crazy economist is after me! OK, Krugman takes a wild pitch at supply-siders, that's all. But it is a wild throw! Read the piece in the NY Times, you'll notice the rest of it is not even cohesive with the first paragraph. I assume this means he is now forging ahead full steam with a "hate Republicans" career (even though he was an economist affiliated with a pretty big one, once). I guess the getting's easy now, huh?

Forbes' writer Karlgaard blogs his defense of supply-siders and business, and damns -- rightfully, I say -- the immoral capitalists. We could use more of that!

Failure Of Morality, Not Of Capitalism - Forbes.com: Digital Rules By Rich Karlgaard

“Old-fashioned voodoo economics--the belief in tax-cut magic--has been banished from civilized discourse. The supply-side cult has shrunk to the point that it contains only cranks, charlatans, and Republicans.”

Take a guess. Who wrote this?

If you said "one of those anonymous twerps posting on Daily Kos," you are forgiven. Had I not cut and pasted this crazed quote myself, I might have guessed it came from a reedy tenor in the Huffington Greek Chorus.

It was actually Paul Krugman, writing in today’s New York Times.

...supply-side capitalism is just a simple and benign idea. It posits: Only suppliers can supply us with goods and services. The demand side can’t will a product or service
into existence. Society therefore advances economically when it reduces tax and regulatory barriers to the creation of goods and services.
Hardly a cultish idea. One can unpack this simple idea into entire books, and many of Krugman’s betters have. The reputations of Smith, Say, Schumpeter and Hayek surpass that of the dyspeptic economist writing for The New York Times.
In fairness, Krugman is not alone. Many people do blame capitalism for bringing us to this low moment in the economy. Do they have a point?
They do if capitalism, as they define it, is devoid of any underlying morality. True enough, it is hard to see any underlying morality when one surveys the present carnage caused by liar loans, shady banks, duplicitous politicians, Ponzi schemers and regulators angling for Wall Street jobs.

The author continues by reflecting on the title of his piece, and I think perfectly, rightly, so in his suggestions on how to get back on track. Lest we ultimately FAIL (!!!), I should note.

This weekend, I caught a BBC radio program on the meltdown in “The City”--London’s financial district. The program quoted many young Brit bankers who said morality was a barrier to personal success in The City. Better to have the sociopath gene if one wants to become a billionaire.
What we are hearing and seeing, in other words, is a failure of morality, not of capitalism.
How do we get back to the old Adam Smith/Benjamin Franklin idea of free enterprise based on a moral foundation? It won’t be easy, but I think we need to start with these:
Please read the piece to review his kernels of good old American business... goodness, and keep going.

Krugman, a Nobel-winning economist (that was the old days, while today some suggest he's merely a political pundit who hates the GOP and favors state-heavy economics) will have NOTHING to do with that remotely unpartisan, working together thing. He wants to blame it all on the same people that 18-year-old video game addicts who don't read want to blame it on: the bloody Republicans.

Oh, please, will someone please out him as a slimy little socialist -- and uncover some sickly thing he likes doing in his free time or something -- so we can move past this kook?!! Geez -- where's Noam Chomsky when you need him!!! (Gaaag!)

- jR

Obama's first day: we are going to lead with 'transparency and the rule of law'

You may read the entire piece via that link below. Might be worth a read. The ending is what's unexpected, and, well, LOL funny.

If you're in for a laugh, check out the dialog between Biden and Obama at the end (and quoted at the bottom of this post). I don't think Biden's up for this -- correction! -- I think Biden is going to make a terrific elderly and trim Lou Costello to Obama's mellow Bud Abbott. Biden is apparently not up to being next in line to the president.

However, a little levity never hurt anything. I adore levity. I don't trust people who don't enjoy levity in nearly all circumstances (rationally: short of Family Guy Peter Griffin tactlessness, for reference). Some people think levity in the workplace, during meetings especially, is a sign of stupidity, lack of tact, or ignorance. Those folks are not so much fun at a party, or even at a movie, I expect. They are not much good to work with, either. That said, not sure I want nutty Uncle Joe with his finger on the button.

Obama Announces New Pay, Ethics Rules - RealClearPolitics

Obama: Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.

Our commitment to openness means more than simply informing the American people about how decisions are made. It means recognizing that government does not have all the answers, and that public officials need to draw on what citizens know. And that's why, as of today, I'm directing members of my administration to find new ways of tapping the knowledge and experience of ordinary Americans -- scientists and civic leaders, educators and entrepreneurs -- because the way to solve the problem of our time is -- the way to solve the problems of our time, as one nation, is by involving the American people in shaping the policies that affect their lives.

After some rather noble and respectable words from Obama on his first full day as president, upon the swearing in of the senior staff of his Administration, there's this little bit of verbal slapstick:

THE PRESIDENT: The American people are really counting on us now. Let's make sure we take advantage of it. I know you will. So thank you for your commitment.
Joe, do you want to administer the oath?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Am I doing this again?

THE PRESIDENT: For the senior staff.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: For the senior staff, all right.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. A number of Cabinet members have already --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: My memory is not as good as Justice Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts. (Laughter.) Okay, no, I -- this is the list. Do you have a copy of the oath? Which senior staff are we doing?

THE PRESIDENT: A whole bunch of senior staff.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Okay. All of the senior staff --

THE PRESIDENT: Rise.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: -- please rise. I will say "aye," and then you repeat your name.

THE PRESIDENT: Marvin, button up your coat. (Laughter.)

Those are words I hope we can all believe in. The quote at the top, I mean. Not the silliness immediately above. Obama understands what rule of law means, quite succinctly, being a Constitutional lawyer.

- jR

All hail the Mexican billionaire: news media to plummet farther, NY Times goes first

The Times to get their own bailout. From Mexico. Is this a Peter Sellers film I've not yet seen, or what?

New York Times may find benefactor in Slim | Reuters

The New York Times Co has heard more than its share of opinions on what it must do to survive. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim appears ready to let his cash do the talking.

The 68-year-old telecom tycoon, ranked by Forbes magazine as the world's second-richest man with $60 billion, may pump hundreds of millions of those dollars into the Times Co.

I SUPPOSE this is because his money, and plenty more of it, is not needed in Mexico, where everyone is wealthy and enjoys a good economy, reasonably safe neighborhood. Who knew? Well, I guess those stories of Mexico plummeting into a nether-world of battles of police versus drug gangs, especially near the U.S. border, were just propaganda.

Slim is the second richest man on earth - ON EARTH! Indeed. Glad to see his own country doesn't need the awesome usefulness of his huge bags of money. I had no idea how well the infrastructure improved in Mexico in the last week, and how economically stable Mexico was! On the other hand, I guess he's already applied his wealth where it is needed: keeping the impoverished where they belong, like a good crooked capitalist in a grandly crooked political system that poses -- far more laughably than most -- as a "democratic system."

Here's a fundamental question: how exactly would someone become the SECOND WEALTHIEST MAN in the WORLD in Mexico? Seriously, how? Mule sales? Earthquake insurance? Drugs? There's a lot of world out there, and this guy pulled off second place on the richer scale (grin) from creepy, dangerous, unkempt, corrupt little Mexico.

Go ahead, look the other way, NY Times. You're good at seeing one side of a story! Take that cash in one hand and proclaim appreciation for "progressive" policies on your pages. You get Slim's money to hang on like a bloated U.S. auto company, and the U.S. at-large gets Mexico's troubled citizens, for any reason, like a painfully trickling Mariel boatlift.

Illegals are like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're going to get. Once the plans are complete, the "progressive" plans, the U.S. will appreciate how crooked Mexico is, since for the lower and middle classes it will be in the same condition as Mexico by the end of Obama's first administration, if the far left has anything to do with it (such as Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi). You go, NY Times! Let's hear it for the master of so-called "progressive" journalism.

This is the NY Times -- please turn off the irony -- which ran front page stories about a non-affair by John McCain back in 2008 which was based on totally unfounded rumors. Meanwhile, it buried news of completely strange and questionable issues about Obama as much as they could manage it. Regularly. Repetitively. Often!

This paper, once held at the top of journalistic high regard, not just a place for highly intelligent, nonobjective writers, and for politically wrongly categorized commentators such as David Brooks, is going to be bailed out by a proclaimed telecom tycoon?

Wow. That just ... that really ... that simply underlines how sad news media is today. Sad. Very, very sad. We've gone from conscientious and overt, to TV reporting and the selective nonobjectiveness of Ed Murrow, to the knee-jerk, one-sided reporting that is pervasive in much media, to being bailed out by Mexican business cretins. What's next? Reporters simply shooting the people who disagree with their editorializing?

What a waste of paper.

- jR

Chavez not dropping oil program, but the way to pay was questionable

Chavez says US heating oil program never suspended - Americas AP - MiamiHerald.com

At a news conference, however, Kennedy said Citgo made it clear the decision was not a cancellation of the program. "But at the end of the day, the tankers are not going to be in front of this building," he said.

Citgo Chief Executive Alejandro Granado later said in Boston that the company had found a way to continue paying for oil shipments.

On Saturday, Chavez poked fun at analysts who said he was cutting the assistance to make relations difficult with President-elect Barack Obama, saying they made him laugh.

"They build this analysis on a lie," he said.

I still hold to my anger that a U.S. oil company, and a nonprofit, and our country, cannot buck up and cover this and tell Chavez "thanks, but no thanks." As I wrote a few days ago in this post: Like, Totally Political, Dude!: Chavez dropping oil program for U.S. poor, who's to blame?

It seems rather unbelievable that the same thing was not possible through anyone else, that this was even an option for Chavez to use -- ironically, it did some good. I don't like the power-happy guy, as he's religiously self-lauding and stunningly arrogant, but I cannot dislike his doing as he did.

You should recognize that the oil for poor program is a perfect, and self-serving, way for Chavez to appear to be a benefactor to U.S. poor. It is only honorable on the face of it. If I rna everyone's lives, this is the least I would do. But I do not, fundamentally and wholeheartedly, believe in any system where one-party, one dictator rule serves the greater good. On the whole, it does not. It is a simple truth. Those who wish to live in such a system are welcome to. Don't even address it in this country -- this country is and God-willing will always be about ridding the world of stupid people with stupid ideas like dictatorships, fascism, communism, and socialism. People will still try, and it might make for insteresting reading (Karl Marx did well with it) but it isn't a system that can properly fix itself. Our is dangerously close to being an elitist-ruled country that cheats the poor for the good fo the rich, we can't fix that with socialism. Not the answer.

There has never been any good consistently carried through in a country that was ruled over by one person or one party. The USSR was a disaster. China is still, more than not, a screwy, impoverished backwater. Europe is full of nations that are struggling under the weight of their too-generous welfare-type programs, leaving not enough room for helping when a crisis hits. Why do we want more of that in the world?

One ruler nations run the great risk that individuals are limited throughout. Ass-kissers excel in dictatorships. I hate ass-kissers. We have lots of little dictatorships -- companies -- in America. I don't like that kind of company, or even one office of any company, and I don't like that kind of nation. Such systems are effective for killing inventiveness -- thus why many sectors in the U.S. lack ingenuity these days. It is that simple.

As for nations, any socialist leaders ever came to power through manipulation and exploitation of the poor. They pulled down the educated and many highly effective people, ultimately making the country, on the whole, less than it would be under a free society sort of leadership. Look at Cuba, for crying out loud.

Chavez is an ultimate arrogant politician. That is a simple fact. I am glad he is not the ever-loving-the-killing Pinochet or similar autocratic South American socialist-communist. He's only politically dangerous to a free, liberty-loving, democratic society. For now, at least.

But this shows the gritting teeth underneath the smile of the supposedly concerned oil and other wealthy leaderships of the U.S. They all ought to be put to task for leaving such a basic and obvious hole opened for Chavez to serve our poor.

I can't fault Chavez for this -- I fault us for being to uncreative to squash his ability to do this BY DOING IT OURSELVES.

Shame on the rhetorically wealthy oilmen in the U.S. who, along with their snob friends, choose to argue that the poor, uneducated, struggling and fundamentally overlooked in this country ought to just get off their duff or they deserve to freeze throughout the winter. Social conservatism fails completely when it enters the realm of choosing to not create a clever way to afford to help the tragically poor to get through the cold winters that half the nation faces

- jR

The People's Voice: a babbling manifesto for the rest of, umm, them

Part 2 of series:
Blogs with no purpose except to whine about the world not fitting their fantasy
Label to look for: slobbering blog

The People's Voice

Need proof of the systemic rot eroding the very cores of our souls? Look no further than the meteoric rise of the grossly under-qualified, hyper-ambitious, morally retarded narcissist who still has a realistic chance to be one heart-beat away from ostensibly ruling the most powerful nation in the world. Palinesque tendencies to “drill, drill, drill,” exploit obscene technological advantages to “cull predatory species,” employ our “justice” system to accelerate the extinction of yet another species (to advance the interests of Big Oil no less), and perpetuate the murderous “sport” of hunting with the intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt justifications of “necessity” and “cultural tradition” serve to shred our ridiculously thin façade of humanity and reveal the truly barbarous nature of Western “civilization” and the “American Way of Life.”

I'm sorry, were you saying something? I was busy watching the paint dry on my secret tree house.

If you think that I am simply anti-liberal, try again.

This site includes among its troupe of sensible activists a pack of mixed nuts who say the Internet as we know it will cease to exist in 2012, maybe sooner. One of them, a gal who wears a near dominatrix (but friendlier) outfit, was earlier offering to have sex with guys who sign on to the activist effort to keep the Net free. Virgins only, though. Sorry, Noam Chomsky.

And these people are taken seriously by someone out there. Awesome.

These people are genuine kooks! These are the folks that gun laws are created to protect... to protect others from them should their nut-job ideas and worries turn into urban assaults on the dangerous "enemy others" with their legally-procured guns (if you aren't diagnosed, you're still considered sane, sadly).

- jR

U.S. busts Mexican drug network in Ariz., Mexican pageant queen gets nabbed

U.S. police bust Mexican drug gang | Reuters

Over the past five years the network moved up to 1,000 tons of marijuana with an estimated wholesale value $1 billion dollars through Phoenix, much of which was subsequently redistributed throughout the United States, the office said.

Most illegal drugs used in the United States enter the country from Mexico, where drug trafficking has become an increasingly bloody activity in recent years.

Mexican cartels have killed around 5,300 people south of the border so far this year, as they fight each other for turf and wage an all-out war with Mexican authorities.

I am curious to see how much traction this gets in the mainstream media. So far, it has NONE, and only four pieces written about it in Arizona press (one example), even. Minor story? Is it? Is it really? Shame. It ought to get some coverage, but I suspect, as some ICE raids on illegals and anything else that has anything to do with negative impressions of our poor, helpless neighbors to the south, it will get less coverage than beauty pageants.

That is a none-too-subtle segue into a related story, odd as it is: In another recent drug gang story there are ties to beauty contests and Mexico! "Mexican beauty queen caught in anti-drug raid": A Mexican pageant queen, Laura Zuniga (center, in picture, the only girl), was caught in a raid in the pot-growing land of Sinaloa (a Mexican state, this is where Mazatlán is located).

"No one expected this young woman to be aboard, along with more than a dozen cell phones, lots of cash, pistols, bullets and two rifles," the spokesman said.

With such bizarre happenings as this, perhaps the overly-sensitive-to-offending-the-perceived-downtrodden U.S. mainstream media will actually cover the story beyond special reports on Nightline or the occasional online or print exposé. Let's hope!

Keep up the good work, drug cartels and drug selling gangs -- the more dumb moves you make, the more public your friends, the better for the rest of us, you slimey creeps. The more publicity you mean dopes get, the more likely someone will have to react against it. Here's hoping for Sean Penn to come visit you next, and write a story about how wonderful you are to the residents of impoverished villages!

I have noted similar stories, including ICE raids that net nearly 500 illegals working at a single company location, and the like, and these stories receive literally no national coverage. I never cease to be amazed at how unimportant such stories are to the alleged news media. It is downright depressing to think the news media is so bogged down with stories about Obama that one writer cannot be pulled away to write about gang arrests. At NY Times, at the Washington Post, at the Houston Chronicle, at the darned Arizona Republic, even.

Lou Dobbs, where are you on this one?

- jR

The super-evil conservatives must die! Nut jobs alive and well on the Internet

Counterpunch.org: George Ciccariello-Maher: By the Time I Get to Arizona

Much has been eclipsed in the post-election euphoria, not least of which is the continuity of racist violence in the United States. The election of Barack Obama notwithstanding, the black population still bears the overwhelming brunt of this violence, in its systematic and informal guises, in prisons and on the streets, and with the far-right gearing up we can expect more of the same. [The far-right, in this instance, is actually the radical fascist far-right, or the Nazis and white supremacists, according to what I found in a link. That's sensible, yup. GW Bush is a Nazi. Uh-huh.] But with new dynamics, political and geopolitical, come new violences, and we have seen in recent years a steady increase in anti-Latino or anti-immigrant violence alongside a notable spike after September 11th in anti-“Arab” violence.

Recently-released statistics show violence against Latino immigrants to be the fastest growing of all hate crimes, fuelled by an atmosphere of linguistic-racial hatred and permissiveness to violence against all those deemed to be from “elsewhere.” In a recent report, the Southern Poverty Law Center noted the shocking growth in anti-Latino hate crime, and in early November, an Ecuadorian man was beaten and stabbed to death on Long Island, New York, by a lynch mob of young, mostly white teens looking for some racist fun “hunting beaners,” a game they claim to have played weekly. Less than a month later yet another Ecuadorean was beaten until brain-dead in Brooklyn, this time allegedly by black men who shouted ethnic and homophobic slurs.

Such informal violence has always gone hand-in-hand with the structural violence of the state. ...

Let's forget that 20 full-fledged gang members were picked up in one little raid alone. Foreign, illegal, and trouble. Let's forget that hate crimes are CRIMES. Let's forget that these folks, if committing hate crimes, actually serve time for it. That's inconvenient and rational. Let's forget about rational! Further, in another section of the piece:

In this rising tide of state and informal violence, Arizona has come to be ground zero. There, Lou Dobbs darling “Sheriff Joe” Arpaio of Maricopa County has institutionalized a “Posse” program, deputizing civilians to enforce anti-immigration laws.

Ahem, that would be anti-ILLEGAL immigration. You know: people who are coming over here, flouting our laws, taking SS numbers from dead people -- and the living -- and generally adding to our legal and social problems, not reducing them. Which includes criminal creeps illegally creeping across our borders. Note that there is ABSOLUTELY no concern for the rape, murder and other crimes committed by the truly despicable illegals in thisa, uhhh, thoughtful piece about poor, poor victims of crimes who are in fact also criminals themselves. No, hurting or killing them is not a solution -- DUHH -- but neither is this drivel from the counterpunch'org crackpots. What of deaths of Pakistanis, Indians, for any variety of violent reasons? I guess they specialize in the Hispanic and black victims. It's good to specialize, as one evil whitey showed us with the assemply line (Henry Ford, that was).

This is not here to comment too deeply on it, but simply to note that counterpunch.org goes to lengths to connect conservatives -- and those not interested in a free-for-all society of anarchy -- with radical fascist and hate groups such as the KKK and neo-Nazis.

If you want to read this garbage, go for it. Don't try to claim any rational learning out of it, however. Please note that every time I come across this site I find thoughts that are anarchist, radical socialist, race-baiting, pure prose for preying on those who feel victimized -- especially if they are Hispanic or black. These guys LOVE to bait the illegals and blacks!

Here's one things that makes this especially offensive stuff, in my mind: Tragic and contrary to counterpunch.org's madness, there has been a lot of black folks shooting other black folks in my area. In front of nightclubs, etc. I guess there's some clever reason why that is the conservatives' faults, too. Can't blame that on Ted Kennedy or any other long-serving liberals, huh?!

So, race war, anyone? Yeah, I think counterpunch.org writers have dreams about race wars. They want to be the great white leaders of a black and Hispanic war against non-liberal whitey. So, think for yourself, not according to these kooks. I've yet to read anything on this site that doesn't smack or paranoia, race-baiting, some sort of crude race-rage-inducing victimization fantasy. Half-truths are still half-truths, no matter which side is served. These guys excel at telling a very queer, unsavory, one-sided story.

I figure that sites like it are part of the problem, not interested in a sensible solution. Not interested in a solution at all.

So, watch out for anything and anyone linked however loosely to the nuts at counterpunch.org. Enough said.

- jR

McCain referred to a black man as "that one"! That PIG!

First: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU MEDIA MORONS?

Second: CNN is no longer just reporting the news, they are trying to get others to report on non-stories via Larry King. This is verbatim from the site article about the interview. What non-story depths have they fallen? This is bad even for King. (This is just the beginning for today, since Campbell Brown, an expert on not only babbling at GOP spokesmen, but also race-baiting, states that using Barack Obama's middle name - Hussein - is pure and simple "race baiting". See next post.)

Michelle Obama not offended by 'that one' comment - CNN.com

The wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told CNN's Larry King on Wednesday that she is not offended by a much-publicized comment made toward her husband in Tuesday night's debate.

In the presidential matchup at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, GOP nominee John McCain criticized his Democratic rival for supporting the 2007 Bush-Cheney energy bill.

"It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate, loaded down with goodies, billions for oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney. ... You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one," he said, gesturing toward Obama. "You know who voted against it? Me."

Coming up on CNN:
Tonight on Larry King! "Lint! Does its color matter in this election?" We ask the "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" hosts, and special guest, Donald Trump. Tune in for an exciting and highly relevant hour of discussion.

Barney Rubble didn't do it (again); Frank champions the rejection of responsibility (again)

Barney Frank barks back on blame - BostonHerald.com

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank claims some conservatives are trying to thwart new Wall Street regulation by blaming poor blacks for today’s crisis.

“This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people,” Frank, a Newton Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, told a Boston anti-foreclosure forum yesterday.

Frank charged that some Republicans attribute the mortgage mess to minority-lending laws like the Community Reinvestment Act - and, by extension, to poor blacks.

“The bizarre notion that the CRA . . . somehow is the cause of the whole problem, (some conservatives) don’t mind that,” the lawmaker said. “In the wake of the affordable-housing goals of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and) the CRA, they get to take shots at poor people. And let’s be honest, the fact that some poor people are black doesn’t hurt, either, from their standpoint.”

And from the other side of things:

[Lobbyist Grover] Norquist denied in a phone interview that he or others are targetting blacks, saying he personally pins the crisis on “two fat white guys” - Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)

The lobbyist charged that Frank and Dodd heavily supported the CRA, which Norquist said “coerced banks to make loans they didn’t want to make. Low-income African-Americans are the victims of what these chubby white guys (Frank and Dodd) did for them.”

I guess the Herald does not regard Frank's idiotic claims as decoys being thrown up so the Dems can disavow any knowledge or blame for the housing market and financial market crisis. Or maybe they're just leaving the commentary to the people in the story. (But how journalistic! Keep that up!) That takes real character. The kind of character that becomes a pedophile priest, a crooked cop on the make against poor grandmothers, a mayor who charges his personal affairs to the office. In other words, Frank is an ass whose time has passed, but the good voters of Newton and parts thereof will likely never vote him out.

It is a shame that liars and blamers are the current champions in our democracy. I guess party rule is going to have to be replaced by mob rule? Thank goodness there are no poor gay people or Frank would be all over that, too. Goodness forbid, are there any Democrat gay black handicapped poor people?!! Then he'll really distract us from the actual point of the story by accusing the GOP of taking shots!

MSNBC struggles with political coverage reality and loses

'Olbermonotony' crisis has been significantly reduced, according to MSNBC report

The place: MSNBC.
The item: major election and political news anchoring.
The jilted babblers: Chris "I do not act just like that guy on SNL" Matthews and Keith "I used to be on ESPN just like Craig Kilborn!" Olbermann.

Yes, in a disturbingly conscientious move that can only be categorized as FUNNY for all conservatives and respectable journalists, these two bigmouths have been tossed from the political landscape: One is an egotistical and demented blusterer of extreme liberal bias and wagon-circling who seems to be OK with publicly obsessing over Bill O'Reilly, the other is a likeable and less embarrassing candle bearer for Democrats who is recently being dragged down to the first one's level.

Thus, two of the most important opinion-shapers ever to put on makeup, fiddle with earpieces, get a little too friendly with Ariana Huffington during an interview, and make millions per year while shoving their childish opinions in viewers' faces, have been displaced. That these two were ever put behind the same huge desk is comparable to Hepburn and Tracy, or Dumb and Dumber, depending on your criteria.

If your criteria is journalism, then MSNBC made the right move.

If your criteria is entertainment, then you are sorely disappointed by this move. You consolement can be found on Internet replays of his "best" stuff.

If you are Keith Olbermann's significant other or his dog, you are in for a very rough week of paranoid ranting coming from the bed, shower, hall closet, and kitchen pantry.

This could be a promising boost Chris Matthews. Considered a respectable though liberally biased newsman until he was given the seat next to his now-former co-anchor, he has begun to speak like a junior high "Most Popular" candidate trying to win over his shinier-faced pal when he's with the glassy-eyed Olbermann. I hope Matthews has enough sense to count his blessings, despite his inability to act like a man around Olbermann's pathologically confident perfect-hair personage.

Aside from when Fox News Channel launched -- touting its fair and balanced claims though they are generally leaning right -- this unselfish act by MSNBC of admitting bias and slightly downgrading its cause may be the most notable thing to happen since CNN first put out a signal that said "look out major networks, it's a 24-hour news world out there, and we're going to give you at least three hours of it!"

On the other hand, Microsoft just launched a major new advertising campaign, and the MS in MSNBC of course means Microsoft. So this could be all part of Microsoft's master plan to become a more likable, affable and tolerable provider of consumer and business technology.

"I am a PC, and I think Olbermann sucks."

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