Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.09

Putting America’s Diet on a Diet
So a lisping celebrity British chef is going to West Virginia in order to get them to change their eating habits and not explode their hearts so much with the 15 pound cheeseburgers for an ABC documentary series. This is not going to turn out like Deliverance how? It's a noble cause Mr. Oliver, but I advise caution. You push too hard against America's Craz-E-Burger culture and the people of West Virginia will light you up like a couch at WVU.

Iraq All Over Again?: The press & Iranian nuke allegations
So what did the American news media learn exactly from the buildup to the Iraq war that it's doing different for our buildup to a war with Iran? Nothing. Actually, they learned Iraq was a good template to follow in the future. Hell they aren't even changing up the "experts", "evidence", or ominous intoning. Why is it that the newspapers are the ones that have to die, why can't it be TV news?

No 'golden age' in the Senate
For all of those people like me who opine about how the new Senate isn't like the Senate used to be, the Politico is here to remind us that no, the Senate was always a pile of shit, stacked to the rafters with lunatics, idiots, racists, and barely literate crooks. True, but at least they got shit done. We aren't even afforded that courtesy anymore.

Direction of NASA’s Future at an Impasse
Despite early success today lobbing the first salvo in the War of Lunar Aggression, NASA is at an impasse in regards to future plans and funding. Especially when dealing with human spaceflight and new means to get them up there. As if that wasn't hard enough they have to pitch these billion dollar ideas at a time when the economy cratered, and trillion dollar action is being taken on health care with climate change on the horizon. So, uh, good luck with all of that NASA. Just keep proposing all your stuff in terms of violent aggressive action against space, like moon bombing, and I'm sure Congress will find it a sufficiently worthy endeavor.

Still chasing shadows?
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman always knows how to bring the disheartening financial news. This time it's about how banks, financial institutions, credit markets, and he Fed all seem to think that the best course of action for our economy would be to make everything like it was back in January of 2007....you know, right before our money got set on fire. Sounds great. What are the odds the world economy crashes twice in a row? Isn't thee supposed to be some lag of a few years before history repeats itself? It's not supposed to repeat before it's even finished happening yet.

Stay classy, PA

The "Alabama in the middle" section of the state reared it's head today during Arlen Specter's nationally televised turn to get hooted at by tinfoil hat wearing birth certificate experts.

Towards the end, a man critical of health care reform asked Specter to “go back to Washington and represent us first as an American and tell Mr. Obama he’s an American and if not, there’s other countries.” When Specter replied by saying that “I think President Obama knows he’s an American,” many in the crowd booed and one person held up a sign saying “liar.”

See I think I know where Arlen's problem was: he tried to answer the question as if the man who asked it was a rational person with a legitimate concern. May I suggest the next time someone asks Specter to remind Obama he's an American or confiscate his license to prove he's an American, he should just take the microphone and attempt to beat the questioner within an inch of his life, then ask the audience if anyone else wants to waste his time.