Good news eneryone

So what's the first thing you want to hear about a new BP strategy to collect all that oil that's everywhere there used to be water? Is it this?

BP's latest plan to capture the oil gushing from the runaway Deepwater Horizon well poses significant safety risks for "several hundred people" working aboard the ships that will process the corralled crude, the oil giant has told the Coast Guard.

Hmmm. Continue.

With so many vessels working in a relatively small area, Suttles wrote that there's a risk of a "major surface accident." Video of the site Sunday showed more than a dozen vessels on the scene; a jet of burning natural gas perhaps 200 feet long shot from one.

Ahh. Massive oil, oil fumes, ships, people, and fire collected in a small area. And, given BP's normal level of safety, combined with the surely cut rate level of safety that will be required of a hastily thrown together plan, as well as the fact that there's no properly tested or designed equipment to try this new plan, or that there's all the junk and garbage BP threw down the pipe floating around that could clog up this equipment, there's a larger than usual risk of explosion, death, and the Gulf turning into a oil and dead animal soaked inferno.

Eh. Is that actually going to make this situation even marginally worse? No. Onward with the dangerous plan. I hope everything doesn't explode. Though, given the planet's luck throughout this whole incident I'm expecting that this will somehow set the atmosphere on fire or accelerate global warming to the point where the ice caps are melted fully by August.

Dodd moves on, doesn't understand what 'compromise' means

Some small amount of relief is to be allowed on the financial reform front. After weeks in which it appeared that the Consumer Financial Protection Agency was being weakened, that bad concessions to predatory industries were being made in order to stay buddy buddy with ranking GOP committee members, and disappointing decisions, made in the name of 'bipartisanship', were being made in order to keep letting the finance and banking industries screw us hard and not have to change their behavior after toileting the economy, now it seems that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd has said "fuck this shit" and is moving forward with his own bill.

Largely because he seems to realize that the GOP strategy of "pretending to negotiate in good faith in an attempt to stall things, get large concessions for things they want, and then not support the bill", last employed in the health care debate, was wasting time, making the bill worse, not adding GOP support, and in danger of losing him Democratic support. So Dodd will unveil his own bill... and he's promising that it'll have most of the concessions he made to the GOP in it for some reason.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said he will release his version of legislation to overhaul financial rules, signaling that talks on a compromise with Republican Bob Corker have collapsed.
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“I have been fortunate to have a strong partner in Senator Corker and my new proposal will reflect his input and the good work done by many of our colleagues,” Dodd said. “Our talks will continue and it is still our hope to come to agreement on a strong bill all of the Senate can be proud to support.”
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“It has always been my goal to produce a consensus package,” Dodd said in the statement.

The kind of consensus that involves little to no Republican support and will involve the very people you negotiated with calling whatever the bill is some sort of socialist giveaway to banks? So you can't continue on with the negotiations, you have to move forward, you don't think the GOP is on board or will help out in any way (trenchant insight), but yet you're going to keep all of their suggestions that weakened various ways of regulating and governing the industries that just set fire to everyone's money? Makes sense.

So you don't have a consensus, you don't have a compromise... but you'll stick to the comprise negotiated just for the hell of it anyway instead of moving for more stringent, smarter, and better protections and laws? Sounds like a Democrat to me. Now's when you unleash the crazy liberal communist shit in order to drive them back to the table. Someone should tell Dodd how to negotiate. But I guess he does have to think about reelection.... oh that's right, he's retiring. So this all makes complete sense. Good luck with all of that, Chris.

This looks good

There is some slight consternation over the Senate race in Massachusetts to replace Ted Kennedy's open seat. With the election coming up on the 19th, polls have the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley anywhere from holding a double digit lead to a narrow 1-2 point lead against Republican challenger Scott Brown. Unfortunately for her, there are a few too many polls showing a 1-2 point lead, so everyone is in panic. Mostly because Brown has run on the "I'll filibuster health care, no reform, do nothing, down with the Union!" platform that so encapsulates the modern GOP and unless the House and Senate get off their asses and decide on a reconciliation bill, Brown would be able to join a filibuster of it.

That's troubling to people who would like to see some attempt to make health care more available and cheaper, even if the bill is intensely mediocre. The only recourse left would be for the House to pass the Senate bill ass is, which would be difficult. So, in an attempt to prop Coakley up and make sure she keeps that winning margin and makes sure health care will pass, groups of concerned citizens have rushed to her aid.

With Democrat Martha Coakley in trouble in the Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat, Democrats could lose vote No. 60 for President Obama's health-care bill. In response, an army of lobbyists for drug companies, health insurance companies, and hospitals has teamed up to throw a high-dollar Capitol Hill fundraiser for Coakley next Tuesday night. The invitation is here.

Of the 22 names on the host committee--meaning they raised $10,000 or more for Coakley--17 are federally registered lobbyists, 15 of whom have health-care clients. Of the other five hosts, one is married to a lobbyist, one was a lobbyist in Pennsylvania, another is a lawyer at a lobbying firm, and another is a corporate CEO. Oh, and of course, there's also the political action commitee for Boston Scientific Corporation.

All the leading drug companies have lobbyists on Coakley's host committee: Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Sanofi-Aventis, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Astra-Zeneca, and more. On the insurance side of things, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cigna, Humana, HealthSouth, and United Health all are represented on the host committee.

Doesn't that just warm the cockles of your heart? Health reform hits a hurdle and who rushes to lift it up? Not regular people, not our elected betters, not health advocacy groups or public policy organizations, not health care unions, but big pharma's biggest and baddest lobbyists with fat stacks of cash at the ready. Gee, it's almost as if the health reform bills currently being reconciled include massive billion dollar giveaways and guarantees to pharmaceutical and insurance companies.

So just in case you were wondering whether or not the reconciliation process was going to lead to some better deals or an attempt to cut prescription drug prices so that we can at least pay something closer to what every other country on the earth pays or that the new Democratic Senator from Massachusetts might be as big a fighter for health care as Sweaty Teddy was, think again. Big Pharma is trying to bail Democrats out and give them what they want, so it can get what it wants; free money. Makes you feel good about all that the health reform bill does, doesn't it? Just be happy for the crumbs you got.

Things that don't sound good

The why's and how's of how a terrorist was able to pack his Jockey's with exploding groin candy and was only stopped through a combination of incompetence and passengers noting that a man trying to light his sack on fire isn't normal already don't look very good. But as we get deeper and deeper into investigations into what was and wasn't done, well, the specifics don't sound any better. Take for instance this USA Today interview with crotchety old National Security Adviser/Dip-set rapper Jim Jones.

White House national security adviser James Jones says Americans will feel "a certain shock" when they read an account being released Thursday of the missed clues that could have prevented the alleged Christmas Day bomber from ever boarding the plane.

President Obama "is legitimately and correctly alarmed that things that were available, bits of information that were available, patterns of behavior that were available, were not acted on," Jones said in an interview Wednesday with USA TODAY.

"That's two strikes,"

Well, unless it involves some revelation about Michael Jackson's death or an additional dozen mistresses for Tiger Woods, I doubt America will even stifle a disinterested yawn, let alone get "shocked". But it is a tad disturbing when your national security adviser looks at all the facts and decides that should be the reaction the American public and would be... if we had an adult country or a functioning political system.

But what would theoretically shock Americans? I don't know, something like this maybe?

U.S. border security officials learned of the alleged extremist links of the suspect in the Christmas Day jetliner bombing attempt as he was airborne from Amsterdam to Detroit and had decided to question him when he landed, officials disclosed Wednesday.
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"The people in Detroit were prepared to look at him in secondary inspection," a senior law enforcement official said. "The decision had been made. The [database] had picked up the State Department concern about this guy -- that this guy may have been involved with extremist elements in Yemen."

If the intelligence had been detected sooner, it could have resulted in the interrogation and search of Abdulmutallab at the airport in Amsterdam

Ahh, your information told you that this man should not be allowed to board a plane without first going through an interrogation and search, but not only is this database watch list information not work quickly enough, when you do get the word that he's a terrorist super-freak you decide to let the man complete the flight he shouldn't be allowed on in order to question him at the completion of it. But don't worry, security types in the article will assure you that's wasn't where the mistake was made. No, the mistake was made when the father called the government to warn them about his son and, despite having enough evidence to put him on a 'no fly' list, he was allowed to get on a plane. Well, that does make me feel better.

Actually the scary thing is that we still might not be able to address this stuff because our national security and terrorism policies are more focused around exploiting the politics of the situation instead of fixing things. So it's 50/50 on whether or not we can fix things like "not letting the guy on our watch list get on the plane". Let's just put in the work to make our security lapses go from "shocking" to merely "mildly surprising". Baby steps.

I'm not sure I like the sound of this

When you've just committed to a policy to escalate the manpower, diplomatic force, aid, and money to Afghanistan in a last ditch effort to salvage something out of an eight year neglected clusterfuck, what's the one thing you don't wan to hear about the intel capabilities of US agencies that are supposed to provide an understanding and framework to help you execute the diplomatic and counter-insurgent plans that the whole effort hinges upon? Is it this?

Flynn’s report — which was prepared for public release by the Center for a New American Security – begins with a stunning admission. “Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy,” the report states. “Having focused the overwhelming majority of its collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, the vast intelligence apparatus is unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which U.S. and allied forces operate and the people they seek to persuade.”

I should mention that's the nice paragraph in the article, it actually gets a bit more scathing after that. But what would this Flynn character know anyway? I mean he's only the top intelligence aide to International Security Assistance Force Commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal and a Major General in the US army.

Ah well, I'm sure we'll be able to win their hearts and minds even if we don't know what those hearts and minds want or even where on the Afghan body the heart or mind is located. What's understanding a populace got to do with getting them to do what we want forever? I'm sure this will all work out splendidly.

The new good idea you aren't allowed to have

As new financial regulations bills make their way through the long and torturous process of the Senate, there is one surprising thing about most of them: they contain a surprising number of good ideas. Hell, even John McCain came up with a pretty good set of proposals, namely reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act. But one of the really good ideas that has really gained traction among Democrats is the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, an independent organization with independent authority to craft, set, and enforce a set of rules on the finance and banking industries in order to protect the American public.

This, of course, is a dangerous idea. As such, Republicans have vowed to gut it. I'm not sure they're making the right argument though.

"From the Republican point of view, the idea of a separate agency is still anathema," said Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah, a senior Republican on the banking committee. An independent agency, he said, can go too far in the direction of tight regulation without taking into account the effect of the rules it creates on business and the economy. He said he's seen it happen before.

"Can you say EPA?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows. The Republican Party has regretted for years that President Richard Nixon made the EPA independent.

There's been some movement: Republicans who once pushed for total elimination of the CFPA are now ready to back a compromise solution that would make the CFPA subservient to a larger financial regulatory agency, whose leadership could modify or eliminate any protections deemed hurtful to business.

A new EPA? I'm sure that's meant to sound ominous, but I rather like the sound of that. Maybe make it tougher and more independent than the EPA so that an administration can't turn over control of the agency to the industry it's supposed to cover... like Bush did with the EPA.

Still, it's nice to see the old familiar battle cry of "it's harmful to business" carted out for it's ten millionth consecutive appearance in a debate surrounding business. What's that make it... every single law or regulation ever proposed that would subject anything to any iota increase in regulation or scrutiny is harmful to business? What are the odds?

Glad to see that a compromise option is still on the table. That compromise being the same compromise that is always floated: keep the name of the oversight agency you want to create, but completely mangle the idea to the point where it isn't recognizable and all the things it was supposed to do are removed or neutered to the point of ineffectiveness.

So let's see, we have the creation of an agency whose goals make sense, is popular among the masses and the elites, sounds like a good idea, is meant to protect the American people, puts the sectors that destroyed our economy under more scrutiny, and has the support of a large number of progressive Democrats. I think we know where this is headed: Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson getting it taken out at the last moment. That's a shame, it sounded like a great idea. Ah well, it's all for the best. I hear that CFPA would have been exactly like the EPA and would have harmed business.

Broken In Brief: Area man flirts with insanity as he attempts to explain mother's computer problem to her

HARTFORD—Today, after a brief period of around five minutes when the entire world did not make sense to him and his thoughts were consumed by paranoia and murder fantasies, area man Ron Durham was able to regain his senses after a disastrous attempt to explain to his mother how he fixed the problem she was having on her computer.

The brief flirtation with insanity began early in the day when his mother called him up with complaints that her computer, which Mr. Durham had mistakenly bought for her in an attempt to move her into the 21st century, was “acting funny” and added to it a list of nonsensical claims that included the gem “the packets aren’t sizing.”

As Durham arrived to look at the computer, his sanity was initially tested by his mother’s complete inability to explain what was happening in terms that a normal human would comprehend. After a fifteen minute period wading through this crazy woman’s cluttered desktop of solitaire games, pictures of grandchildren, and wrongly installed programs, he finally found the problem and fixed it quite easily.

Tragically he made the mistake of informing his mother of the actual problem and solution, explaining that it was “a simple matter of updating drivers.” As he slowly realized what he had just done, Durham was unable to run out of the house in time to avoid the rapid fire rash of bizarrely nonsensical computer/automotive questions.

As his mind caved in on itself, devouring his will to live under the weight of a carburetor/Windows tandem word bludgeoning, he finally understood the only two solutions to end this madness: murder or escape.

"Magic,” he blurted out. “I was wrong. It was magic that caused it. Magic also fixed it. It was magic all along...inside each of us." As his mother paused, perhaps to contemplate the witness of said magic or perhaps in affront to what she had to know was an egregious lie, Durham used the momentary pause to gather his senses, say goodbye, run from the house, and take stock of how precious life is.

Fun fact

As you hear wonderful new news about the Afghan/Pakistan region, like that interesting little tidbit about how Hamid Karzai's opium dealing brother is on the CIA payroll, or how a bomb ripped through Pakistan and killed 90 people...while Secretary Clinton is visiting there, or the Taliban storming a "protected" house in Kabul and killing 6 UN workers, or the bit about how the Obama Administration has decided that in regards to the Afghan War "the debate is no longer over whether to send more troops, but how many more will be needed", remember this: Troops already outnumber Taliban 12-1.

There are already more than 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan working with 200,000 Afghan security forces and police. It adds up to a 12-1 numerical advantage over Taliban rebels, but it hasn't led to anything close to victory.

Now, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan is asking for tens of thousands more troops to stem the escalating insurgency, raising the question of how many more troops it would take to succeed.
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The Taliban rebels are estimated to number no more than 25,000. Ljubomir Stojadinovic, a military analyst and guerrilla warfare expert from Serbia, said that although McChrystal's reinforcements would lift the ratio to 20-1 or more, they would prove counterproductive.

Well I can certainly see why we're so eager to put more troops in. 12-1 is hardly and overwhelming advantage. Better bump it up to 20-1. Fuck it, 40-1. Let's have more soldiers than Afghans, then I'm sure we'll be able to outwit and kill the 25,000 Taliban fighters. One thing I'm sure of is that occupation armies never piss off citizens and inflame insurgencies, especially not after 8 years of futility, and especially not in Afghanistan, with its long traditions of welcoming foreign forces with open arms. What do they call Afghanistan, the Welcoming Center of Empires? I'm sure this will go as well as every armed conflict has ever gone in Afghanistan. Good luck, get to work.

Hey wonderful

Finally some good news. Senate Democrats have come out and stated, definitively, that there will be a public option in any final bill that comes out of Congress. Alright boys, way to show some conviction!

Senate Democratic leaders signaled Thursday that their version of health care overhaul will include some form of a public option,

Wonderful to hear. This is apropos of nothing, but I wonder why Politico used a comma to end that sentence up there. That was weird. Hmmm.

, but it may be limited in scope so they can secure 60 votes to break a Republican filibuster.

Ahhh! You rotten sons of bitches. You're doing it again. You're failing again. You see...wait, what? You have something to say Harry Reid?

"We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president's desk," Reid said in a conference call with constituents, referring to some kind of government plan.

"I believe the public option is so vitally important to create a level playing field and prevent the insurance companies from taking advantage of us," he said.

Oh good, because earlier it seemed like you were loading up statements like that with tons of caveats and...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called the public option a "relative term," and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, "There is not one way to Rome; there are lots of ways to Rome."

"Remember, a public option is a relative term," Reid said. "There's a public option, there's a public option, and there's a public option. And we're going to look at each of them."

Oh Jesus Christ, stop talking! Nothing you say is good, nothing you do is good. I choose to understand these statements the way I would understand statements from a suave Gruber-esque German terrorist who tells me that he will let me and my family go......if I just give him the codes to the mainframe. I know what's he's saying should sound good, but I just can't shake the feeling that the second I listen, we'll all be murdered violently.

So when Reid says "relative term" and starts trying to parse out degrees of public options, that just means something terrible is on the horizon. In fact, that might mean health care isn't even going to happen at all. The only way to rectify this is to throw Harry Reid off the top of Nakatomi Tower before he kills us all. You know I'm right.

This sounds familiar...

Boy is this series of events starting to sound familiar. Obama: "The public option is not the most important thing." House Progressives: "The hell it isn't! We demand a public option." Max Baucus: "I'm not considering a public option, it will never have the votes to pass the Senate filibuster." House Progressives: "You better get off your ass and try old man! The House will refuse to pass anything that does not include a strong public option!" Harry Reid: "It's time to vote on a health care plan." House Progressives: "We are willing to compromise and deal on the public option. Who needs it? Why is everyone so worked up about it?"

Amid fresh signs that the White House is preparing to back a scaled-down health care overhaul that would only include a public insurance option as a fallback plan, several House liberals told Roll Call that they could support such a bill depending on how it was structured.

The “trigger” approach has been considered a deal-killer by liberals on and off Capitol Hill, and the willingness of some Congressional Progressive Caucus members to entertain it reflects a recognition that a bruising August recess has imperiled prospects for reform and redrawn expectations for what is possible.
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Liberals stressed that the shift does not amount to an abandonment of their commitment to a “robust” public insurance option. They said they would only support a trigger if that approach guaranteed the same access, quality and affordability.
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But while Progressive leaders have staked their caucus’s reputation on getting a strong public insurance option, vowing again and again that they will not cave, the rank and file aren’t necessarily holding the line.

Way to cave! Frankly I think that's the best way to go. I mean not for negotiations sake, it isn't. Signaling you're all ready to simultaneously turtle after months of "we shall not be moved" speeches is an awful way to negotiate. But in terms of softening the expectations of people who believed you, this is the way to go. It'll be less jarring and galling when you fully throw your support behind some version of the Baucus plan or some weak trigger public option that will never be triggered. But hell, any time you can cower in a corner and then accept something Howard Dean calls a "terrible idea", "fake public option", and can easily come up with several ways that a trigger will never be enacted and never help anyone, you've got to do it.

But thanks guys, for pretending that you were actually going ot stand up for something for a month or to. That must have been hard. You've now assumed your rightful position as 'getting led around by the nose by the conservative members of your party' even though you greatly outnumber them. Just one request: next time some important piece of legislation comes down the pike and the Ben Nelson's, Max Baucus', and Blue Dog Caucus leads the way yet again, don't wonder aloud why no one in the party listens to the liberals or progressives. This is why.