Motley Moose – Archive

Sometimes, the headlines write themselves.

Gov. Sarah Palin owes more than a half million dollars to an Anchorage law firm that has defended her against ethics complaints, and she may create a legal fund to pay the bill, she said Friday.

Poor Sarah. Being targeted by a “partisan witch hunt” during the Troopergate scandal has set her back a cool half a mil, it seems. Sadly, it seems that capitalism is alive and well at all the most inconvenient times, doesn’t it? Gosh, Sarah, shouldn’t you just buck up to your “personal responsibility”, and knock off this socialism garbage, what with getting other people to pay your legal bills?

Of course, there’s a really good reason for all this- right?

“Now, it seems in order to do this job as Governor, with the political blood sport some are playing today, only the independently wealthy or those willing to spend their income on legal fees to defend their official actions in office … can serve,” Palin said…

OR- and I’m going to go out on a limb here- you could, just, uhh… not do anything to cause yourself to be investigated for ethics violations. Maybe that’s too much to ask for? Anyway, you know the story’s not complete until you see some Republican spin on the situation- blame Johnny Mac/teh eveil libs!

Only it was President Obama laying the smackdown on CNN’s Ed Henry.

In case you missed it the guy masquerading as a reporter for a television station masquerading as a news organization asked a question that included a part about why it took Obama a couple of days to respond to the AIG bonus kerfuffle.  The President answered the other part of the question but Ed, much to his subsequent dismay, refused to let it go.  And, he paid the price.

I received an interesting email this morning which I thought I’d pass on to you all here.  

Dear friends,

Last week, on his first visit to Africa, Pope Benedict said that “[AIDS] cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”.

The Pope’s statement is at odds with the research on AIDS prevention, and a setback to decades of hard work on AIDS education and awareness. With powerful moral influence over more than 1.1 billion Catholics in the world, and 22 million HIV positive Africans, these words could dramatically affect the AIDS pandemic and put millions of lives at risk. Worldwide concern is starting to show results and a willingness by the Vatican to revise the statement – sign our urgent petition asking the Pope to take care not to undermine proven AIDS prevention strategies:

The petition is linked here.

I started watching Morning Jughead and then suddenly decided to forgo news for the rest of the day. The first few minutes of discussion on the show centered in hush tones, on the terrible job President Obama did on 60 Minutes.  They wondered if our President is “punch drunk” because he laughed and made a couple of jokes on 60 minutes Sunday night. I heard a similar discussion on a YouTube post from VOTERSTHINKdotORG of a fox “news” show today.

I did not watch 60 minutes, so I do not have an opinion on the Presidents performance. I may post more tubes of these once YouTube is working again.

Anyway, I decided to listen to music for the rest of the day.

Monday March 23, 2009 in 100 seconds.

That is odd. The Dow has gone up a whole bunch, for over a week, and according to that tube, no one else seemed concerned about the President laughing and joking a bit on 60 minutes. Perhaps I should not have avoided the news after all.

Say, does President Obama ever get any credit for this latest surge in the stock market? I know they were blaming him something awful, not too long ago; you know, when it was plunging during the first 45 days of his Presidency. Hmmmmm.

I was a little ticked that the idiots at AIG got bonuses.  But I couldn’t get too worked up about it, in large part because there has been so much contradictory information floating around that has been difficult to tell what exactly went on.  I really don’t like getting pissed off about something unless I’m entirely sure what I’m getting pissed off about.

I found out today, though, that it is easy to get pissed off about bonuses when it happens to you.

I’m really curious to see what happens with today’s new plan to fix the banks. Among people to whom I listen about the economy, opinions are sharply divided; here’s a strong argument in favor from Brad DeLong and a strong argument against from Paul Krugman. I don’t know enough to have a defensible opinion, although my instincts are with Krugman and against the banksters, so I don’t have much confidence in today’s plan.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Obviously for the sake of alleviating economic suffering I hope it works out, but I also think this is an intellectually critical moment, much like the Iraq war debate.

Cross-posted to Mike’s Blog!

Reading the New York Times this morning, I came across an article on the the crisis facing Massachusetts’ universal health care programs. If you remember, in 2006, then-Governor Mitt Romney and the Democratic-legislature of Massachusetts enacted a state-wide mandate requiring almost every state resident to obtain health insurance. To accomplish this, Massachusetts provides subsidized health care for residents earning up to 100% of the Federal Poverty Level, and partially subsidized health care those earning up to 300% of the poverty level.

Of course, when it came to footing the bill, both Governor Romney and the Democratic-controlled legislature basically shrugged their shoulders and said, “Eh. Let the next bath of politicos worry about it.” This, of course, is ridiculous behavior, no matter your political affiliation. And, of course, that day of reckoning has arrived already, some three short years later.

Last year, Massachusetts lawmakers, led by Governor Deval Patrick, enacted a series of taxes and fees to help keep the system solvent- which has stabilized things for the time being. But optimistic reports suggest that won’t last more than five years or so, depending on the breadth and depth of the current economic crisis. So, in order to finally address this problem, the Legislature has come up with a good idea. I know- these are rare, coming from our politicians. It’s such a brilliant idea, in fact, that it’s almost certain never to be enacted.

But it sure makes you think.

In a newspaper article published on Tuesday day, Canadian Conservative MP and Federal Minister of Science and Technology, Gary Goodyear refused to say whether he believes in the evolution, adding that he was a Christian and questions about his religion were inappropriate.

But, when pressed on the question during an interview on CTV’s Power Play late that afternoon, he responded: “Well, of course, I do, but it’s an irrelevant question … We are evolving every year, every decade.”  Goodyear went on to give some examples from his experience as a chiropractor.

“That’s a fact, whether it’s to the intensity of the sun, whether it’s to … walking on cement versus anything else, whether it’s running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment, but that’s not relevant and that’s why I refused to answer the question.”  

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

I first became aware of William Greider after the publication of his 1981 Atlantic Monthly profile of President Reagan’s embattled Office of Management and Budget Director (“OMB”), David Stockman. At the time I was just a kid and the Reagan administration insisted they could simultaneously balance the budget, cut taxes and increase defense spending exponentially.

Greider’s reporting however exposed that even Stockman, doubted the fiscal prudence of Reaganomics. After the article’s publication, Stockman absorbed public humiliation when President Reagan took him “to the woodshed.” I trace that article as a seminal moment in my own political awareness.

Wikileaks servers are overloaded and cannot operate.  They recently posted a secret list of a proposed banned sites.  

According to Forbes, the scope of Australia’s internet censorship has developed far beyond its initial aim to block child pornography and web pages associated with terrorism. Free speech advocates fear it could be used to block legitimate activity.