Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.
“I’m either feeling very good or else I am insane.”–I preferred the Monkees’ psychedelic side.
And it’s love you bring
that I can’t deny
With your wings
I can learn to fly,
Sweet young thing.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress” of being nauseatingly rich. Yeah, it sucks to be in the .001% (HT @edbott)
Don’t elect a rich guy to fix this system.
Bonus Drop Means Trading Aspen for Coupons – Bloomberg
Most people can only dream of Wall Street’s shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades. ….
The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
The party of fear and irrelevance
Have a cookie — support a Girl Scout ‘terrorist’? – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com
Thus does social conservatism skid through the last barriers of basic intellect, simple decency and common sense, hurtling breakneck off the deep end. Next stop: utter incoherence. …
But then, social conservatism is where logic fears to tread. It is a worldview driven by fear of the world beyond its racial, gender, religious, cultural and intellectual borders. Historically, it always has been. …
And you have to wonder: How narrow must a man’s worldview be, how paranoid his outlook, what a bunker his very life, when he is scared of Girl Scouts?
Some of us have argued that social conservatives use fear as a tactic. And there’s likely some truth to that. But one senses little of tactical planning in Morris’ missive. No, the fact is, he believes what he says. Many of them do.
If you want to be scared of something, be scared of that.
Have a cookie — support a Girl Scout ‘terrorist’? – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com
The threat of a brokered Republican convention
I’ve been fearing this for some time. Last weekend, Maureen Dowd said there is talk of a Republican savior emerging. When I mention Jeb Bush, my liberal friends think Duhbya destroyed the brand (as he nearly did America), but look at the loons the party has taken all-too-seriously so far. A friend thinks it might be a general, a hero. Leaving less than 2 months to find the skeletons before the election.
Michigan, Arizona Prepare For Tuesday’s Primaries : NPR
ROBERTS: Now, I don’t think most Americans think their kids shouldn’t go to college for ideological reasons. The effect of all of this, David, is that people in the party – the governors who were here in Washington this weekend – are beginning to say maybe we need another candidate; maybe we need a brokered convention – a wide open convention. Now, those things tend not to happen. But there’s a tremendous amount of nervousness, particularly with a new poll out today showing President Obama beating any Republican handily and doing very well with independents.
GREENE: There’s still a chance for a fresh face in the time that we have left, is political commentator Cokie Roberts.
More than 36hrs non-stop wind, so far. 50+mph gusts in Abq; 70+ in eastern NM. Oh, joy.
Spring is coming. Just 3 more months of this.
Each Republican front-runner is crazier and meaner than the previous
Rick Santorum’s rhetoric goes to the extreme – The Washington Post
By Eugene Robinson, Monday, February 27, 12:11 PM
Something had to change — so, in recent days, Santorum’s avuncular smile has become a nasty sneer.
On Saturday, he attacked President Obama for advocating higher education. Yes, you read that right: Santorum came out against going to college.
“President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college,” Santorum said in Michigan. “What a snob.”
Huh? Santorum elaborated: “There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day, and put their skills to test, that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he [Obama] wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image.”
Ridiculous? Offensive? Hypocritical? Manifestly, all of the above.
Only a fool or a liar is unaware that higher education is all but a prerequisite for success in the post-industrial economy; the unemployment rate for college graduates is just 4.4 percent, compared to 9.5 percent for high-school graduates. The idea that encouraging young people to go to college is really an attempt to lure them into indoctrination camps, or campuses, would be grossly insulting if it were not so comically paranoid. …
Progressives have an obvious interest in seeing the Republican Party choose a weak nominee, but they shouldn’t hope for Santorum. He would be the most extreme candidate since Barry Goldwater — and probably would suffer the same fate. But the nation can’t afford to take that chance.
Rick Santorum’s rhetoric goes to the extreme – The Washington Post