Fridays seem always to be slow.

1. In yesterday’s column, Paul Krugman equates the “apostles of austerity” to priests of an ancient cult who demand human sacrifices to appease some unseen god. It is, as usual for his columns, well worth reading. The strange thing about Krugman is that time after time he is shown to be right, while “serious” economic “advisers” are shown to be wrong. And what does he get for his troubles? Those in power continue to listen to those who have been wrong in the past, while they dismiss him as being some lunatic liberal. The same can be said for Joseph Stiglitz. I’m afraid we’ve been down the rabbit-hole so long, few realize there is any other reality.
2. Unlike many in the US, I have always considered Billy Graham an evil purloiner. But he was mostly pretty smart about it. His son—Franklin Graham—answers an offensive and leading question from John King even more offensively. He spreads lies and attacks with innuendo. Of course, one has to wonder what exactly would be the problem if the President were a Muslim. After all, we just had a President who thought God wanted him to be elected. (God works in mysterious ways: through the Supreme Court!)
3. A program to publicize teabagger-endorsed businesses has been suspended because the businesses found the association lost them customers. This is not surprising. It has been a couple of months since the teabagger negatives topped their positives.
4. All right! All right! There’s salmonella everywhere! Big deal. Just make sure that you cook foods thoroughly, and for things like Caesar salad, you can coddle the egg or use pasteurized eggs. I can’t speak for baking—I don’t do that.
5. Secretary of State Clinton (I like saying that) announced that Israel and Palestine will resume negotiations at the beginning of September with no starting terms. It all sounds hopeful, of course, it is impossible to be hopeful at this point.
6. There is wide coverage of the fact that 60% of Americans oppose the Afghanistan war. I’m not sure why this is big news; people have been against it for at least a year. Maybe it is that journalists are finally opposed to it?

Why is it that I consistently find the best coverage of events in foreign news sources? Oh, I know! Because the American news really sucks. Take for example, item number 1.

1. The US is withdrawing from Iraq having not completed what we promised. Insurgents are killing an average of 250 people per day; projects to fix the electricity and sewage treatment facilities have been left undone; one-quarter of the population lives below the poverty level; and the elected officials are now at 165 days without managing to create a government. But we killed Saddam Hussein. Gooo team!
2. The United States pledged an additional $60 million Thursday to the U.N. flood relief effort. Secretary of State Clinton announced this on Pakistan’s Dawn TV. That brings our total up to $130 million. That doesn’t mean you don’t need to donate!
3. As I’ve noted before, the oil spill is not getting much coverage these days since the oil is not spewing out. There is currently much contention about the NOAA report that claimed that 75% of the oil had “dissipated.” NOAA never gave me a cent, so I am not inclined to cut them any slack. Today, a group at Woods Hole reported evidence of large underwater oil plume in the Gulf. But maybe people are just focusing on the bad aspects of the oil spill; the following video presents the good side.

4. It is not surprising that 20% of the nation believes that Obama is a Muslim. (Sorry but Faux actually has the best coverage of this—for obvious reasons.) Nor is it surprising that there is strong correlation between ignorance about Obama’s religious beliefs and his nationality, and dissatisfaction with his performance. What is surprising is that this number was just over 10% a year ago. The Washington Post blames the Internet. I blame the Republican Hate Machine (including Faux News) who are forever bring up these issues without explicitly endorsing them.
5. Obama made four recess appointments today. Good for him. I don’t have a lot to say except that the Republicans behavior in this matter every bit as bad as it is in just about everything else they do.

I just finished reading The Man Who Would Not Shut Up, a biography of Bill O’Reilly. It is a very sympathetic depiction of him. It turns out that he is carbon-based. Of course, all the way through it, I kept wondering, “Why am I reading this?” And I’m half-way through a biography of Glenn Beck—I can’t wait to see if he turns out to be carbon-based too.

1. I’m right about hamburger! American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle was on the “Colbert Report,” last night and he said that hamburger should not be eaten rare. The USDA recommends cooking all hamburger up to at least 160°F (that’s 344 K, if you’re cooking in the lab). It all comes down to surface—just searing the surface of a steak will kill the bacteria, but hamburg is almost all surface. (Did you hear the story about the genetics students who made e. coli that smelled like banana? It’s true. Clever kids.)
2. As relief aid begins to trickle into Pakistan, there is much speculation about why the world is being so ungenerous about this catastrophe. Twenty million people have been displaced, hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed, and almost two million acres of farmland flooded or washed away. In addition, 1500 people have died. I had to ask myself why I gave money to Haiti but not to Pakistan. There is no good reason, so I gave my usual pittance. Now you have two reasons to give: decency and guilt. (I’m providing the guilt, in case you didn’t notice.)
   Donate to Pakistan Flood Relief
3. You know things have gotten bad when Pat Buchanan is the voice of reason. On Monday Newt Gingrich attacked the Islamic community center, saying, “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington.” Bachanan later said that he, “went too far with that comment.” But Buchanan is not the only person making sense in this ridiculous debate. On Monday’s Rachel Maddow Show, guest host Chris Hayes (“Who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks?” Wrong Hayes.) made the argument that in four years, we will all look back on this with the same embarrassment that “freedom fries” now engenders.
4. I’m sure you’ve heard that Faux News’ parent company gave a one million dollar donation to the Republican Governors Association. In response, Democratic Governors Association Executive Director Nathan Daschle has written a letter to Roger Ailes asking that Fox News (a) put a disclaimer on all coverage of governors and gubernatorial races, and (b) cover this story itself—which Faux has been strangely silent on.
5. Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s “nigger, nigger, nigger” rant has resulted in her not renewing here contract which is up at the end of the year. On Larry King Live she said that, “my First Amendment rights have been usurped by angry, hateful groups.” I don’t think that’s right. No one is saying she doesn’t have a right to her rant; we’re just saying she’s an asshole.
6. The last American combat brigade in Iraq has left the country today, but here’s the strange thing: the Pentagon has not confirmed that the move marks an early end to combat operations. And, of course, there are still roughly 50,000 non-combat troops remaining. More when I know what the hell is going on.

There was a good side to my arguments yesterday. I used the “why do you care?” argument in the Prop. 8 case, and it seemed to work. They agreed that, in fact, whether or not there were same-sex unions made no difference to them. This is the thing about Republicans: most of the time they don’t realize that what they care about really has no relevance to their lives. If we could get them to realize this all the time, you know what they would be? Democrats.

1. The Washington Post has done an investigation of Top Secret America. It is a long (each article is about 5,000 words) three-part series. The highlights? The system is comprised of almost 1,300 government organizations and 2,000 private companies located at 10,000 places throughout the US; upwards of a million people have top-secret security; there is a great deal of redundancy and waste—for example, over fifty organizations track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks; and 50,000 intelligence reports are produced each year—so many that a lot are simply ignored. And still they can’t stop the Jihadists from opening a culinary school.
2. Those Mexicans are so backward! According to Bay Windows, “Same-sex couples who get married in Mexico City, the only place in the nation where they can do so, are validly married everywhere in Mexico, in all 31 states, the Supreme Court ruled Aug. 10 in a 9-2 vote.” That means the US is the only North American country to not recognize same-sex unions. Gooo team!
3. The flooding in Pakistan has not received much news coverage. Millions of dark skinned people suffering? Yawn. It is not surprising, however, that a former cricket player—Imran Khan—has launched a fund-raising drive to help out Pakistani flood victims. Cricketers have to stick together.
4. As I long suspected, getting hit in the head is a bad thing. It seem that Lou Gehrig may not have died from Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
5. Paul Ryan continues his disingenuous claims about balancing the budget. Ezra Klein takes on his claim that he doesn’t want to destroy Medicare (he does). Ryan wants to replace it with a voucher system. Sound familiar? It’s amazing: even when Republicans have “new” ideas they are old.
6. See, my faith in Rod Blagojevich has paid off: he was only convicted of lying to the FBI. Just kidding (about my faith, not the verdict). As far as I can tell, he’s guilty as sin—and I say this as one who tried very hard to believe him. The prosecution will retry him on the other 24 counts. Even with the one count he was convicted on, he could get up to five years.

Now go spread the word to them’s that need it.

Social Security (which included unemployment benefits) turns 75 today—at a time when Republicans are back to pushing for its destruction. This is a good example of why a party of strong ideology (like the Republicans) is bad and a party of pragmatism (like the Democrats) is good. The Republicans were not always so ideological, however. Here is a quotation by President Dwight D. Eisenhower from a letter to his brother Edgar on 8 November 1954:

Of course, compared to the neo-fascists of the Republican Party, even Barry Goldwater looks pretty good. But he didn’t have the best political ad of all time:

It’s Friday the 13th, but I don’t believe in luck. The current political crisis is not a question of luck. Simply put, the Republicans are eager to sacrifice the good of the country (and the world) just to gain political power. It is repulsive. If they had not gone off the deep end, I would not be so partisan. But how can anyone of good conscious be a Republican today? John Dean (Nixon’s Whitehouse Counsel) and I are far apart politically, and yet on all the issues that come up in politics today, we are in lock step. That’s right: if Nixon were a politician today, he would be a moderate Democrat. If Reagan were a politician today, he would be a conservative Democrat or a liberal Republican. Regardless, he would be more reasonable than Ben Nelson.

But since it is Friday, we all deserve a little levity. So I give you Chico Marx. Just watch what he does with the apple:

1. The word is that Obama’s deficit commission is mostly looking at ways to destroy Social Security and Medicare. As a result, Paul Krugman refers to it as the “catfood commission.” In three blogs today (one, two, and three), Krugman demolishes the “same old disingenuous arguments making the rounds.” I thought after Bush’s 2005 debacle, this was over. Sigh.
2. The Gun Owners of America and the Christian Coalition are for Net Neutrality. The liberal sell-outs! The Teabaggers are taking a bold stand against Net Neutrality. Goooo team!
3. Representative Maxine Waters held a 90-minute press conference today in which she defended herself against ethics charges. Although I rather think that Charlie Rangel is guilty, even if the case against him is over-stated, I believe that Waters is innocent. There does seem to be something very wrong with the Ethics Committee.

That’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed Chico.

The Rachel Maddow Show had big news tonight. I owe the first two items here to it. I know how evil she is: she’s a prominent member of the Professional Left. But Ms. Maddow is one of the few jewels in corporate medialand. I also wish to thank Canadian Living for the exceptional Snow Peas and Carrots with Sesame and Garlic that I just ate. It was amazing.

1. This is important, but don’t expect to see much coverage on it. Several people very close to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer are associated with Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Why is this important? Brewer was a big proponent of the Arizona “Breathing While Brown” law—better known as SB 1070. CCA runs 6 of the 15 jails in Arizona and has a contract with the Feds to hold federal prisoners—which those arrested under SB 1070 would be. Of course, the people of Arizona voted for the bill because of fear and hatred. But don’t ever lose sight of the fact that the people behind such legislation are in it for the money and power (which is just money, in the end). [Stephen Lemons’ article]
2. BP just paid the biggest OSHA fine ever. For the oil spill? Nope. They paid $51 million for problems at their Texas City refinery that had an explosion that killed 15 people and injured 170 others. But don’t think this is what the fine was for. No. They had already been fined $20 million dollars for that. You see, oil is so profitable it just isn’t cost effective to prevent the murder of company employees. Pay the fines and move on. There are a lot of fishermen who are looking for work! Goooo team! [Why is the best coverage from the Financial Times?]
3. There is a growing Republican meme that the unemployed are just spoiled people who won’t take the jobs available. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported on Michael Hatchell, a 52-year-old mechanic from North Carolina who has turned down “dozens” of job offers during the 59 weeks he has been unemployed. Newt Gingrich has picked up on this and publicly shamed Mr. Hatchell. According to the Republicans, businesses should make rational decisions, but individuals should not. For example: a business should not invest in capital improvements because of “uncertainty” about future tax policy. But individuals with 30 years experience should take minimum-wage jobs, even if they pay less than unemployment insurance. Do Republicans have no shame? Apparently. [Business Insider Offensive Article on Unemployed]
4. Someone from the Administration actually has something negative to say about someone other than the Professional Left! Jared Bernstein, Chief Economic Advisor to the Vice President, blasted John Boehner and other Republicans for their opposition to the Recovery Act. [It’s fun reading]
5. And finally a little encouragement: Alan Abramowitz presented Five Myths About Midterm Elections. Number two is: It’s an anti-incumbent year. He points out that this is said every mid-term election and every mid-term election the vast majority of incumbents retain their seats. [It is worth a read]

You may now return to your regularly scheduled lives.