Krugman's Latest Post

February 27, 2009, 11:04 AM

Triumph of the dull

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In his CPAC speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that conservatives are more “interesting” and “fun” than liberals. Here’s his proof: “who wants to hang out with guys like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich when you can be with Rush Limbaugh?”

In comments the first poster notes that Rush would probably bring better drugs.

Headlines I Love to See-Link

New GOP Standard Bearer Rush Limbaugh Is Less Popular Than Jeremiah Wright

Max Blumenthal links to a poll that was conducted before the 2008 elections which explored voter attitudes toward a variety of subjects. While Rush enjoyed modest popularity among Republicans, among all voters he had lower positive ratings than either Rev. Wright or William Ayers. No word yet on how he stacks up against athletes foot and telephone solicitors.

Quote of the Day-link

I could probably offer a quote by Glenn Greenwald every day that he posts, but anybody can just read his column, and I highly recommend that, so I'll just glean the ones that really jump out at me, like this one........

And, just as a general note: if you watch cable television news during the daytime, you can actually physiclly feel your brain shrinking.

Krugman; Please Listen To This Guy-Link

Great post on Paul's blog today, he's calling for Obama to resist the urge to appease Republicans and just stimulate the economy already,
I thought this section caught the kernel of what he's been advocating for months now.


You see, this isn’t a brainstorming session — it’s a collision of fundamentally incompatible world views. If one thing is clear from the stimulus debate, it’s that the two parties have utterly different economic doctrines. Democrats believe in something more or less like standard textbook macroeconomics; Republicans believe in a doctrine under which tax cuts are the universal elixir, and government spending is almost always bad.

This Krugman fellow is a Nobel Prize winner in economics, ignore him at your peril.

Most Republicans approve of torture-link

Wow....any Republican you know, the chances are better than even that this person is a torture advocate. The link leads to Behind the Numbers, a political blog at the Washington Post.
Here's the money quote;
"Overall, 58 percent support the prohibition Obama declared before taking office, but there's a wide gap across party lines: 71 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of independents in the poll said torture should never be used, but most Republicans, 55 percent, said there are cases in which the U.S. should consider using torture against terrorism suspects."
Could it be these people just watch too much television?

The poll was conducted by Washington Post/ABC News.

If News Was Truth

Click on the image for a larger version.

SNL called their shot in 1999

I don't think they were too far off the mark.

Quote of the Day-link

Meanwhile, about Mr. Obama: while it’s probably in his short-term political interests to forgive and forget, next week he’s going to swear to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient.

And to protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that’s not a decision he has the right to make.

These are the last two paragraphs from Krugman's column today, he drives a point that I've repeatedly emphasized for about the last eight years or so, all federal office holders take the same oath with respect to the Constitution. Aside from their nominal duties that is the only requirement they have to fulfill. Any talk of mandates is pure BS, the president is not your daddy and the laws of the land are what protects us, not an obstruction to our "protection". Great column, as always, go, read.

Gunther and the Sunshine Girls-Suntrip

It's not all doom and gloom here at Itflows, and who couldn't use a laugh about now anyway? Here's the Swedish parody group Gunther and the Sunshine Girls, I've never heard of them or seen them anywhere but on the internet. Apparently they tour, they've been here in Denver (I was unaware of that) and Las Vegas, L.A., all over. I'd say as comedy they compare favorably with Flight of the Conchords and they remind me of Sprockets from the Saturday Night Live of a generation ago.

Human Shield

A very brave young Palestinian woman places herself between demonstraters and Israeli guns.

Bill Moyers

This is the most fact-based and fair commentary you're likely to see on the subject of the current events in Gaza.

Clusterbombs being used in Gaza-link

Your tax dollars at work.

Quote of the Day-link

"All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side ... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." - George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism, 1945

I found this quote in Glenn Greenwald's blog at Salon.com today (title-link). I highly recommend his recent posts dealing with the events unfolding in Gaza. The comments section of the blog offers many examples of the pathological mentality Orwell described. One needn't wade into those comments to see that kind of thinking on display, simply tune to any American news broadcast. American politicians of any stripe can be depended on to echo the exact same sentiments, as if that would give cover to their funding of the atrocities committed on their behalf. Of course the greatest offense in evidence here is that all the Palestinians in Gaza have been denied their humanity, they're less than human, barbarians, beasts that can only be dealt with by brute force. The last forty years has certainly taught us that!

Little Doggone

Sad to report that my bestest little buddy Lucky has passed away. He died last Sunday, Dec. 28, about 1 in the afternoon. He went peacefully, I thought he was only sleeping. Lucky was with us for almost 14 years and I estimate that to be his age in human years, dog years = 98, dude had a pretty good run. Check out his video, it was shot out in the backyard, from the shadows you can see this is midday in the height of Summer, as I recall, a very hot day. It's hilarious how he scurries around, all the while casting meaningful glances at the back door, he really wanted back inside that cool house.

I'm gonna miss that guy.

When can I get one of these?

h/t Paul Krugman

I'll be farting through silk once as I activate this bad boy!

"Clean" Coal

Quote of the Day

It's not an actual quote for today, but a notable comment from Matt Groening's character Montgomery Burns, "I'd give it all away for just a little more".

That seems to be the credo of Henry Paulson and other gazillionaires driving the bailout of America's financial institutions. You may recall last year when progressive in Congress tried in vain to procure $8Billion for children's health care, that was shot down, can't panic the bond markets. Now the banks are in crisis, spare no expense, hundreds of billions of your dollars are being passed out like party favors with no guarantees that the money will be employed in the public interest.

Here's a question for you, if the failure of banks and various institutions is such a crisis, and may require a stimulus package of as much as $7 TRILLION ( about half the GNP ) to be thrown at it, why not just nationalize them and see if we can get some oversight for crying out loud!? The same goes for our critical industries such as the Big 3 automakers ( if they were nationalized maybe we'd see fuel efficient vehicles manufactured in this country someday ). Airlines are sure to fail, but other transportation modes are of more concern, specifically shipping. The railroads are more important than any of the institutions that are getting all the attention now, indeed, neglecting this vital linkage would be a serious national security risk.

I'm not saying that these businesses should be confiscated, government can and does seize or commandeer private property in emergencies from time to time, but public interest demands that any bailout funds must be administered responsibly. At this point I can't detect the transparency you'd like to have in this process. So, where is the money going?   

Prismatic Clouds

I saw these clouds just before sundown, this type of cloud is at a high altitude and composed of ice crystals, that's how the sunlight is diffracted, creating the prismatic effect.                                                                             

As usual, click on the images to enlarge.

The wind turbine in the back yard

I built this with PVC tubing and scrap wood, it's suitable for generating electricity, just needs to be mounted to an alternator or a generator. Getting the electricity into usable form is more complex and expensive than making a giant pinwheel like this, but you have to start somewhere, and it's nice to watch on windy days.

Quote of the day

" Today we're a nation of tattooed barbarian "consumers" with no impulse control, a swollen sense of entitlement, ruled by a set of authorities ranging from one G.W. Bush to the grifter-billionaire pantheon of Wall Street CEOs...."

Jim Kunstler   October 13, 2008