A little sexy, if not as sexy as Blogblah’s convertible driving image, is the Washington Post’s opening of a series on America’s intelligence community, the billions spent in waste and redundancy and the hundreds of thousands of wankers shuffling papers in Top Secret.

Since I’m talking politics again today despite my realization of the total impossibility of it having any practical effect, there’s a smart look at the hard right turn of the GOP into the Tea Party by Jonathon Chait at The New Republic; it turns out there’s a downside to playing to the radicalized angry white south. More than that, it turns out that there’s a limit beyond which the public Tea Party leadership is unwilling to go — it won’t let talk radio host Mark Williams of the Tea Party Express express his “satiric” letter to Abe Lincoln from the NAACP’s “colored people”. The Tea Party umbrella organization kicked out Williams and his organization from their organization as the big tent gets smaller.

My review of “Inception”:
Freud goes into the Matrix, plot gets muddled but Escher climbs his stairs until Keanu…er…Leo DiCaprio goes “Whoa!”

A strategic perspective on the oil spill and outrage HERE.

A representative quote:

We Americans have been abused again and again by those we trusted. First it was the banks. Now it’s the oil companies. It’s not that we had some wide-eyed innocence about how moral and ethical they were – this is business after all.

But we expected them to have a clue how to do their jobs. We expected the banks to be smart enough to know not to put the entire world’s financial system at risk just for a few extra winnings at the gambling table. We expected the oil companies, who were engaging in acts of simply astounding engineering prowess, to have worked out contingency plans to mitigate the obvious risks of drilling holes in the ocean floor 5,000 feet down.

It’s not even that mistakes were made or things went wrong. What’s enraging Americans is the completely cavalier attitude these ultra-rich executives have shown in the face of their utter stupidity. Watching these executives give testimony, it feels like we’re watching teenagers claim “I dunno” after they wrecked the family car in a joyride.

In today’s news, the spew goes unchecked as capping failed and nine miles of beach in Pensacola was covered in sludge, per Anderson Cooper.

Vintage RayBans

I respectfully dissent.

Look at last night’s election results without any coloring.

On the East Coast in So. Car., Mrs. Nikki Haley is cruising towards being elected the first woman governor of that state.

In Arkansas, Sen. Blanche Lincoln fought off a stiff male challenge from the left (yes, I intended that).

In Nevada, Sue Lowden and Sharron Angles vied for the right to challenge Majority Leader Harry Reid.

In California, the Republican Party nominated Meg Whitman for Governor and Carley Fiorina to face incumbent U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer.

I’m not inclined to make too much of this, except to say I think too little has been made of an election in which so many women have played such a prominent role and been so successful at such a high level. I’ll also note that Oklahoma is very likely to have its first woman governor. With the exception of Sen. Lincoln, all those women are Republicans, which seems counterintuitive on several levels considering the policy stances of that party vis the Democratic Party.

Something is going on that has little to do with incumbency, it seems to me, but it also seems that it may be too difficult for political writers to think and write about.

I’m going to leave it there and let you guys draw your own conclusions.

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In a column in today’s New York Times, Frank Rich writes about a topic that’s been really bothering me lately: why the hell are the discredited neocons — who have been consistently wrong for more than a decade about everything foreign policy — still on the Sunday talk shows?
When does Stephanopolous look William Kristol right in the eye and say: is this like when you said the Iraq war would be over in 6 weeks? Is this the same as when you told us we’d be greeted as liberators in Baghdad? Is there any part of the “robust” assertion of American military power you advocate that has actually succeeded in doing good for us?
And, yes, I would include Sen. McCain, who has a foreign policy that is based on nationalistic fighter pilot chutzpah and not any serious and in-depth study of global issues, and who, I will remind you, lost the presidential elections rather badly.
They aren’t foreign policy experts, they just play one on TV.

There is a real foreign policy debate about realistic strategic options, but you wouldn’t know it by reading the popular press or watching cable television.
It’s only our survival at stake, why would we want a credible discussion?

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The Conventional Wisdom now has it that Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is a net bad thing for the president. Conventional Wisdom being what it is, it’s wrong again. A Nobel Peace Prize is a good thing for a president and for this country. Any other interpretation is gloss and illusionary thinking by people who wanted a foregone conclusion.
A Nobel Peace Prize is only a bad thing to those who need defense contractors to keep the money flowing and have such a strong penis/cojones envy that they love war.

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We are on the cusp, btw, about health care. All the attention has been on the Baucus bill coming out of the Senate Finance Committee, but that’s only one of five bills that have come out of two senate and three house panels.
It seems to me that it’s time for Reid and Pelosi AND OBAMA to say to Republicans that the Baucus bill is our attempt at bipartisan health care reform. It’s as much as the GOP is going to get. They can agree to drop the filibuster and vote for the Baucus bill and if they fail to do that and the Democratic Party must go it alone, then it will do so behind a bill that satisfies the progressives and the regressives can bite it.
The “whip count” stories I’ve read indicate that Pelosi can count on at least 210 votes of the 218 she needs to pass something like universal/single payer health care. Reid has about 51 votes without Joe Biden.
Since the GOP is going to run against the health care bill in whatever form it passes, why not pass a bill that Democrats can be proud of and defend?
One more time, does anyone else notice that the GOP emperors are naked?

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Speaking of naked Republicans, today’s Daily Disappointment carries a story purporting to examine if U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) will be politically damaged by reports that he’s up to his neck in the U.S. Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) sex and payoff scandal.
The grey lady of OKC says no, Tom will be just fine.
They may be right.
What Dem is gearing up to fight him? No one.
After seeing what happened to Andrew Rice against Inhofe, can’t say I blame the Dems much.
Screw that, yeah, I think OK Dems are a bunch of cowards and lickspittles, groveling at the feet of ignorant fundamentalist preachers.

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In personal stuff, George Oswalt’s opening in Norman Friday was, by my lights, a huge success. The work was vivid, thought provoking and challenged both the eye and the mind. Dinner afterward at Victoria’s on campus corner with the artist, his wife and a dozen others was delicious and filled with bonhomie. Love you, George, think you’re great.

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