So last month I decided that Victoria Silvstedt did not quite measure up to the Bollywood actress Urmila Matondkar. And the nobodies who don’t read my blog, flooded me with e-mails and comments that I was crazy because Silvstedt was just all that and a bag of chips. Mmmm…well, life would be boring if we agreed on everything, huh. I just can’t get past the porn-star look. Vicky just looks too porny.

So I’ve been trying to come up with a W.

I gave Whitney Port a look-see. Looked her over, again and again. And I thought I found the contender for maybe a few minutes there…but in the end, Whitney’s just too pale, thin, young and stick-like. I’d probably have to say Vicky would win. And I didn’t want that, because Vicky’s all rode-hard-and-put-away-wet and stuff.

And that’s why we’re late, it’s our own indecision. The primary elections in the State of W, they’ve been putting a drag on things.

So here we go.

Victoria Silvstedt, and from the new Friday the Thirteenth remake, Willa Ford.

Oh me, oh my, what a decision. Ah well. Victoria loses two times in a row. Advantage Willa.

Got an offline from blogsister Daphne who seeks to commiserate with me about the ongoing pussification of men vis a vis this year’s Super Bowl commercial. We-ll…here’s how the entire day went.

Coffee.

Breakfast.

Compare notes on homework the kid’s supposed to do.

Half-assed effort unloading the dishwasher.

Nap.

Change light bulb in bathroom.

Clean off beer bottles from the outdoor balcony table.

Walk to Starbuck’s to get Sunday paper.

Laundry.

Haircut.

Watch re-runs of Tales From the Dark Side with girlfriend.

Watch re-runs of X-Files with girlfriend.

You can read between the lines…yeah…I don’t give two shits about football.

But we here are very concerned about the ongoing vaginization of America. And we know every year’s serving-up of Super Bowl commercials tells us something new. And from our blogsister’s warning, it would seem the something-new this year is not terribly good. So what’s the worst you’ve seen?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Hehehe…this still makes me giggle. Very cool.

With a grateful hat tip to blogger friend Buck.

There’s a little bit of a thing going on with the lefty bloggers noticing some scribbling on Sarah Palin’s left hand. Actually it’s more than a thing. It has bounced way up to the tippy-top of the scrolling Memeorandum page. So for today, at least, it is a really big deal.

I’m trying really hard to figure out why certain left-wing blogs are treating this picture of Sarah Palin reading notes off her hand as some kind of major coup. The notes she had written are “Energy,” “[illegible],” Taxes,” and “Lift America’s spirits.” That’s some cheat sheet.

I get that it’s a sort of “turnabout is fair play” from the set that must be very annoyed by now at all the prompter jokes. But it misses the point of why the prompter jokes have caught on. A prompter feeds your remarks to you word for word. The idea that you would need such a device to talk to a room full of sixth graders or a meeting of your own staff is funny.
:
UPDATE II: A reader writes:

Hi Mr. Spruiell,

I think the “illegible” part you referred to in your post, as best I can tell, originally said “Corpsman.”

Ha!

Yeah, that last is a reference to this. That’s kind of a real big deal at the moment too. At least, if you are a corpsman, or if you know a corpsman…hard to see how it can be a bigger deal.

I could maybe be sold on the point that scribbling notes on your palm comes off as being a little…rustic…but then again, I don’t have five children, plus a brand-new grandson and a dipshit for an almost-son-in-law, nor have I ever governed an entire state, let alone our nation’s largest.

Be that as it may, as Mr. Spruiell notes above, anyone who tries to make a scandal (or accept one) out of this is missing a point, and rather embarrassingly.

I’m thinking back on my own experiences — when do I not feel quite up to trusting my own memory? When is it that I feel this need to jot down a list on whatever is handy?

Ah…well, when I’m designing an application. Or writing the code. Or debugging someone else’s code. Or…going shopping. Or figuring out what homework my son should have done, when he says he’s done. Remembering to drop off my girlfriend’s shirts at the cleaners, or pick them up again.

Remembering to cover all the bases — in whatever.

See the pattern? Delivering on useful things that help people.

Now if these liberal nitwits want to take this ball and run with it, thereby further substantiating the idea that they’re managing lives chock full of omphaloskepsis — never doing a goddamn thing to help anyone else from one week to the next…and this is what leads to their obsessive-compulsive demands for wealth redistribution in our public policy to promulgate the charity they cannot be bothered to show in their own spheres of influence — they should go right on ahead.

All things considered, if I were a hardcore Bush-bashing pinko-commie hippy-dippy liberal, what with the “corpseman” thing going on and all, I’d just leave it alone. But hey. That’s just me.

Hannah Giles smacks down Bob Beckel gloriously. Bob, you’d better just pull back.

A Republican, socially conservative or not, would never survive such drama. The irresistible tale of a greedy hooker and her Muslim pimp would forever resurface anytime the man entered the spotlight or made a major decision. The media would call into question his judgment, based on past events, and relentlessly attempt to taint his public image. But off Beckel goes, free as a bird.

Hat tip to fellow Right Wing News contributor Lori Ziganto.

Did someone forget to tell Valerie Plame?

Okay, it’s like this…

…if it’s just me leaving a message for Joan of Argghh! to the effect of “I demand to know where I can get ahold of that shirt,” with pretty-please, thankyews, et al, it’s almost a given that nothing will come of it.

Maybe some of you can help me out.

Gotta have it.

The science is settled.

Because hey, I’m willing to keep an open mind on it. The innerwebs are a great big place, and if you should happen to come across something you think is more suitable, you’re more than welcome to drop a link in the comments below.

But I don’t think you will.

Phil starts out trying to figure out of His Holiness is a “socialist” or not…and by the time he’s done, he’s stated the case beautifully.

This, folks, is what it’s all about. Seriously, someone should get up at the next assembly and read it top to bottom. Well, you know…picking it up right after the part where he’s done talking about us. But this captures it. Captures it well.

Blogsister Daphne thinks there is something regal about me.

She also thinks something else…

Not gonna work darlin’ man. You don’t have an evil bone in your body, Morgan.

Oh, dear. Well…if the compliment is proven wrong (to say nothing of woefully outvoted), can I still accept it? She seems to think I’ll just be waltzing past St. Peter’s desk barely slowing down enough for a high-five. Somehow I think the conversation might be a tad more complicated than that.

Can’t be that squeaky clean. I have facial hair after all.

Oh…my…dear…fucking…God.

I’m just gonna — you know what? That’s it. I can’t think of anything to say. Nothing to add.

After umptyfratz decades nobody can figure out why there’s still any racial tension. But they know I have to pay for the problem and the solutions…they know that much. Just can’t figure out why it still lingers on.

Enema with crushed glass is too good for ’em. Fucking assholes.

Hat tip to News Real Blog, via Gerard.

Update: Jammie Wearing Fool figured out what to say about it (hat tip to Michelle):

Could you imagine the media meltdown if Fox did something so stupid?

Yup. Whoomp there it is.

This needs more attention. Just for starters, if the Republican party is really afraid of a splintering effect in American politics and a re-triangulation like what happened in the 1850’s that will bury it forever…and that’s a real possibility…it makes sense for the bosses to start talking about what they bring to the table as an organized party.

It’s also just plain interesting. The Senate is designed, through the writing in the Constitution itself, to be “won” through increments. That probably made more sense before the senators were popularly elected, and before partisan politics took hold. But it still makes sense: Lower chamber can go any which way every two years, the upper chamber has more inertia to it.

Just imagine the message delivered if the GOP overcomes that? Forty-one seats to fifty-one, in a single election? I still see it as comically improbable. But winning the Senate is a numbers game…and when one studies the numbers, one sees the possibility does exist.

The money I’ve already placed on it, is on the lower chamber. And I’m ready to spend it right now. San Fran Nan has exhausted her opportunity. She’s as popular as Gonorrhea.

…for Chris Matthews? Keith Olbermann? Joe Biden? Or maybe…ew, I don’t know if I wanna say that.

It really wouldn’t take too much human intellect to respond to constituents’ letters the way my two dimwit hippy female senators do. Maybe the scene is captured from their office, and the “staff” is busily matching up subject matters to the letters so the boilerplate can be sent back. Could be a bunch of liberal bloggers bitching away about how stupid Sarah Palin is. Or…or…or…

The mind fairly explodes with ideas. Maybe we should have a caption contest.

Hat tip to Trip. Great stuff. I can see right now it’ll come in handy.

I came up with an idea for a regular (or not) award of the Sickest Commercial I’ve Watched Or Heard Lately…or SCIWOHL. I had two inspirations for this, and unfortunately the GooglGodz are frowning upon my efforts to locate video or audio of either one. But they’re both sick.

And no, that one about the woman saying a product was “so simple even my husband can use it!” didn’t make the cut. Generic abuse heaped upon the time-honored Doofus Dad is just too humdrum and mundane by this point. Haven’t got time to do a search on that. Haven’t even got time to try to recall what the product was.

No, the first thing was a bank card commercial. Daughter calls her daddy on the flip-phone to tell him she’s at the mall. But don’t worry, she stole his debit card out of his wallet! A few minutes later, daddy gets a phone call from an automated computer lady telling him a transaction in an amount exceeding twenty dollars was made against his checking account. He goes on line and gets darling on the flip-phone, and asks her what she bought at…uh…”Teen Hottie?” Oh, don’t worry daddykins! I saw a bunch of my friends wearing that crap at the food court so I took it back. T.H. is so yesterday!.

Where to begin. Let’s start with the obvious.

First of all, if she’s too young to get her own goddamn bank card, she’s too young to go wearing “hottie” things and then telling daddy all about it. Who the hell is this guy, Hulk Hogan? This is sick. Second problem: I get that, if you receive your alerts you can lengthen her leash a little bit, let her make some decisions for herself. This is to be applauded. Or it would. But — if that’s what it’s all about, why give her a debit card? What happened to a strict limit, in the form of a cash allowance? What’s this product all about, anyway. Princess just shouldn’t have to worry about spending limits? If it’s over $20 the poppa is gonna rag all over her, and that’s what she has to worry about?

That’s no limit. You’re not going to buy anything at a mall for less than $20. If everything goes over the line, then nothing does.

Third problem: Exactly what bullet is being dodged, here? The commercial does not say. Daddy knew Princess was traipsing off to the mall with his borrowed debit card…Princess picked up something for more than $20 that made her look like a trollop. Daddy made an inquiry and it turned out the item had already been returned. The marketing department, it seems, is being deliberately vague. The problem was that Princess was overly materialistic? The product failed to solve that problem. Princess wants to dress like a tart? The product doesn’t solve that either. Everything that makes your daughter look like a hooker costs more than twenty — NOT TRUE. Belly-button studs, for example. Four bucks and change maybe.

Fourth problem: The daughter is, of course, doomed to a life of unhappiness as are so many adults. She bought her item (it’s never specified what the damn thing was) at Teen Hottie…and I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts she got it “because all the kids are wearing it.” She returns it the instant she finds out everybody’s wearing it. She’s suffering the classic confusion of wanting to be better than anybody else while she’s trying to be identical to everyone else. Can’t be done.

It’s just sick. Period.

The other entry is from the 2010 Census. Little girl asks her mommy what the census is about, and momma gives her this big ol’ speech about how this is the only way they can make it known to Washington that they’re out here, needing their goods and supplies, that they have needs — and get what’s theirs. Get their fair share.

Pure communism. That used to be an evil thing, remember that?

Besides of which, there isn’t a dad mentioned anywhere. Come to think of it, ditto for the other situation involving the pervert, his tarted-up daughter, and any kind of mom. Where’s she?

Believe it or not, I think the Census ad offends me more. The idea that we’re all just out here in the wild frontier…suckling away at a Washington momma-piggy’s teats, fighting over each other for the sustenance. Have to tell our Washington overlords that our tummies are empty, so they can use their infinite wisdom to figure out whether it’s time to raise taxes on the evil rich people again.

What the hell is this? Castro’s Cuba?

Hope I don’t hear of any sick commercials like these ever again. I hope that, but I don’t have too much faith about it.

We really do need a “Bein’ President for Dummies” book. Now, more than we ever did under Mister Wonderful’s predecessor.

He just doesn’t get it.

Hat tip to NoisyRoom.Net, via Rick.

Oh, holy CRAP. Say what you will about Rush Limbaugh, but boy howdy do I ever agree with this:

I penned a message to Obama that I would like to deliver now. Because Mr. Obama, I think it’s time we had a heart-to-heart talk. Let me be the father that you never had or never really knew, because I think you need some guidance. It’s time to man up. It’s time to grow up. That speech last night was an embarrassment. You couldn’t focus, you lashed out in all directions, you refused to accept responsibility for your own actions, and you were angry.

And he was, folks! He was mad. Being president is a big job. It’s a big responsibility. You wanted the position, Barack. You campaigned for it. You told the public to trust you with it, and they elected you — and you’re now president of the greatest country mankind has ever known, and yet you act like this was all coming to you, like you deserve it, that you’re better than the people you are supposed to serve and that you have no tolerance for debate or dissent. That’s not the way it works as president, Barack. We have a Constitution, we have checks and balances, we have separation of powers, we have states — and most of all, we have the people. You don’t get to impose your programs and policies on the nation and the people without our consent.

This is a representative republic, not a banana republic, and let me remind you: Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky are not our Founding Fathers. This is a nation built on individuality, built on liberty, free markets, and faith. Yet you, Barack, demand fidelity to a different belief system: A system that crushes individual initiative and free will. The president does not berate Supreme Court justices who are guests of the Congress and who have no ability to respond to your attacks. You’ve made such a mess of things, Barack, and it’s time to stop deluding yourself. It’s time to stop blaming others. You are delusional. You are delirious. It’s time for you to assume the responsibilities of a president rather than pretending to be one.

You’ve driven the nation’s debt over the edge. It is your responsibility to fix it now. Otherwise, our young people will have no future. You were wrong to grant terrorists constitutional rights. Even the libs in New York don’t want the trial there now! You, Mr. President, are endangering the security of this nation. Now fix it! Reverse course, and end the terrorists — all of them — back to Guantanamo Bay, where they belong. You are wrong to nationalize one industry after another from automobiles to banks. You are destroying competition and jobs. You need to stop what you were doing before millions of more families go broke from your misguided policies. It’s not too late to stop this. I know you’re not going to stop it because last night you said you don’t quit, and I know what you mean.

Isn’t it funny?

You drag a country into capitalism from socialism…and the populace of that country shows some reluctance. You have to drop it like a hot potato and then probably apologize.

You drag a country into socialism. The populace says no. And…you just say you’re not going to quit, and keep on keepin’ on.

Even though, if you live in America but you really want to be a socialist…as we’ve noted before…there’s upward of a hundred other places you can go.

Of all the opinions about last Wednesday’s speech…and Lord knows, there’ve been bushels of ’em…this one, in my humble opinion, nails it better than any other.

Hat tip to Linkiest.

I find this to be so rewarding. “Progressive” causes are rather like adorable doe-eyed woodland creatures out of a Disney cartoon movie: Here and there, someone might be up to saying “Let’s not allow them to win every single time,” but nobody, at all, anywhere, ever, ever, ever, ever, seems to want to nip that jugular and go in for the kill.

Until freakin’ now. Huzzah. Yeah, club that seal.

The holier-than-thou amateurs who flouted man-made warming based on shoddy math and unproven theories have a lot to explain. But those who believed them should not be responding to these revelations with a ’so what, I am still going to save the world through CO2 reductions’.

Why not? Two reasons: (1) no one needs to repeat what the ’scientist’ involved in the IPCC did, which is promote wild speculation as fact, and (2) it won’t do anything but hurt the ecology of nature, not save it. CO2 is not a poison – it is a beneficial and important part of our world…
:
CO2 gas is one of the primary mechanism for recycling and distributing carbon around the planet. What happens when we burn carbon and release it into the atmosphere? It is taken up by plants, which are then consumed to build the body structures of all living organism. Without carbon dioxide, we don’t harness the sun’s energy and live.
:
So when we find alarmists are reaching into articles of pure speculation, political propaganda and a student dissertation to weave their lies, we are not required to take them seriously anymore. [emphasis mine]

It’s anti-achievement, anti-individual, anti-America, anti-freedom, anti-capitalist bullshit.

Got some evidence that it’s any more than that? Some untainted evidence? Something that doesn’t rest on “this guy says X, this panel of anonymous busybodies has designated him as really smart so therefore his opinion means everything”? Something that’s somewhat…oh, I dunno…really scientific? Something based on a genuinely open debate and a trustworthy process of real peer review?

I’m all ears.

Meanwhile, stick a snail darter in it.

Just a shout-out to all these folks who have (knowingly or not) thrown these invitations my way to do this-or-that on FaceBook. And a warning, I guess…albeit, not a very informed one, and I fully intend to keep it that way.

I just went through a malware adventure at the beginning of the year. What was plaguing me, I found out, was — for that instant — virtually unsolvable. It’s an arms race; from time to time, it’s gonna be that way and the bad guys are going to be winning. My victory announcement was premature. And what’s even worse, the beastie was engaging all kinds of impressive features to dodge countermeasures and hide itself. I don’t really know with any confidence when & where I picked up the damn thing.

I ended up formatting. Go scorched earth. By the time it came to that, the problem had morphed into an obsession. Think of Richard Dreyfuss building a big clay replica of Devil’s Tower. Hey, I’m a computer dude. Have been my whole life. I spent a lot of years being a computer security dude. It was my first experience running into something in the malware world “unsolvable.” Ultimately I had to come to terms with the fact that the world is generally becoming a more complicated place.

And in complication, chaos wins out over order.

And then Hector Owen steps forward with his report about receiving Koobface spam through the e-mails:

It’s the Koobface worm, it says here: Koobface Re-Activated! and here, and here, and here, and other places, no doubt.

In my case it was an email that seemed to be from Facebook announcing that a friend had sent a message, but the style was unfamiliar, which should have been the tip-off.

Subject: Firstname Lastname sent you a message on Facebook …

Firstname sent you a message.

——————–
(no subject)

youtube
poison url goes here

(The url is disguised by having www.facebook.com at the beginning, but in my case at least continued to bit.ly as the real destination, which, of course, was not the real destination.)

That’s it. There is usually quite a bit more stuff in one of these message notifications. When I took a look at Facebook, I saw the message in my inbox, but by that time, I knew not to click it.

You can find out more about Koobface over here. If you’re a Facebook apps fan, I strongly suggest you read up.

And I then see see — speaking of Facebook apps — bullshit like this…

From the beginning, the profitability and viability of popular Facebook social networking games Mafia Wars and Farmville were predicated on the backs of scams, boasts Zynga CEO Mark Pincus in this video. “I did every horrible thing in the book just to get revenues,” he crows in the clip to a gathered bunch of fellow scumbag app developers.

In games like Mafia Wars, Farmville, YoVille and Vampires Live, you know, some of the major sources of all those garbage announcements cluttering up your Facebook, players compete to complete missions and level up. By leveling up, you can complete more difficult missions and fight off weaker opponents. You can wait for your various energies to regenerate naturally over time, or you can purchase with real money in-game boosts. Or, you can complete various lead generation offers, many of which are of the “answer page after page of questions and opt in and out of receiving various kinds of spam” variety. Some of them install malware and adware that is impossible to remove. And some of them secretly subscribe you to monthly recurring $9.99 credit card charges.

Video contains (like my own scribblings) some language that is not safe for a work environment or a mixed audience:

Bottom line?

I’m going to go ahead and remain anti-social on these social networking sites. No, I’m not clicking on your link. Nothing personal.

Tom Schaller at 538 does some grumbling:

Progressives must win repeatedly and at every stage, whereas those opposed to change typically need to win but once, at any stage…
:
Consider, for example, that Republican George W. Bush was able to push not one but three far-from-popular income tax cuts through a Congress boasting smaller Republican majorities than those the Democrats enjoy today. Thanks to the Republican voting tendencies of smaller states, the GOP’s Senate majority at the time represented fewer Americans nationally than did the Democratic minorities.

What this and other juxtapositions tell us is that a supermajority is needed to govern from the center-left, whereas a simple majority or even a minority is capable of governing from the center-right.

Naturally, I have a different take on it.

“Progressive” is a buzz word for liberalism, and when liberalism is cloaked behind the P-word it is bait and switch. You act like you’re going to restore power, wealth or both to the “Middle Class” — middle class being an imprecise term that generally refers to the income and property bracket of the person who is listening to you.

As soon as you build up a self-delusional groundswell of populist support, you do this hairpin turn and start parceling out the power and wealth to your friends. Leaving the middle class to twist in the wind. Consider the health care debacle we just saw. Choose your doctor. Keep your health care plan. “Public option.” Provide coverage to the uninsured. Cut the deficit in the process.

It all turned out to be a big ol’ crock. At the end, it was really all about power and control. In the last three or four months, hardly anybody was talking about improving services or making them more available, it was all about winning, winning, winning. Make things the way “we” want them to be. Lock it in so it can’t ever be undone.

The American People love freedom. Kinda-sorta. Enough that when someone is taking their options away, they can smell that one a mile off. And you’ll notice, this is usually the point of abandonment — when the progressive says “Oh by the way, once you go in on my plan, I’ve put some safeguards in so you can never, ever, ever change your mind. For your own good.” That’s when the American hops off the trolley.

Hat tip to William Teach at Pirate’s Cove.

Fox News, reporting from Ohio:

Robert T. Jenkins, 21, of Canton, Ohio, was arrested at 1:30 a.m. local time on Friday morning, Lt. Linda Brown of the Canton Police Department told Fox8.com. Jenkins was charged with felony vandalism and disorderly conduct.

Jenkins was arrested after police responded to a call from an employee at the Wal-Mart store telling authorities that a man walked up to the meat counter and began urinating on the steaks, police told Fox8.com. The disorderly conduct destroyed more than $600 dollars in meat.

This calls for an update to the list of rules that would/will be handed down When I Start Running This Place. Although I must confess, I am unusually speechless about what exactly the punishment would be. Whatever I decide to do in response to this kind of crime, I’m pretty sure Red Cross International wouldn’t like it much.

Pissing in beer would be worse, of course. But only just barely. Crapping onto Hooters’ hot wings…hmm, not sure. Vomiting on fish? Uh, the sentence for salmon would be about twice as much as for Tilapia I think.

…really likes to write lots of letters to the editor. Of this paper, that paper, that other one over there.

Obama is wonderful!

We’re going from one to the other today. AM…PM…coffee…beer. Because we can. Just had some Mister Fixit stuff to do around the house, and it’s mostly done.

As for the mug, yes, I did order it (click to embiggen). Stole some of Mr. Adams’ intellectual property I did, but he stole some of mine first.

That’s probably a good headline to repeat a few times with some roman numerals after it, if ever there was one. After all, the old tried-and-not-quite-true “What the hell is the matter with you people, why do you hate America and manhood so fucking much?” hasn’t yielded much by way of results, nor is it likely to.

Here’s an argument that’s proven quite effective though:

Think back on the behavior of our democrat leaders these last few months, particularly the ones that want to nationalize our health care system. Obviously, they don’t just kinda-sorta want to nationalize our health care system; they want to do this really extra bad. If they could piss rusty nickels and that would get the job done, well, what are we waiting for and hand over that can of rusty nickels.

Now, why do they want to do this? Is it to get health care services and other resources to “the thirty million uninsured”? Or is it 37 million? Forty-to-forty-five million? Well, this is a little bit of a problem, that the number keeps changing, because last I heard they were estimating after all the dust has hit the ground this wonderful health care plan would only cover about half of those who are uncovered right now. So we’d still have tens of millions of “uninsured.” We can’t even nail down how many we have before the bill, so how do we look backward after the bill, and declare the effort a success?

Is it going to be like the Stimulus Bill, in which nobody can really nail down how many jobs were “created or saved”? But when nine pairs of shoes get sold that must represent nine jobs? Creative accounting like that?

But that’s not the point, really.

The point is that this stuff hasn’t been discussed in a very long time. I mean, like since about Labor Day. Yeah, I just got a letter from one of my hippie liberal aged wrinkly female senators, telling me what to think about health care, in response to me telling her how she should vote on health care (which is the way I think it should work). She made some vague, unenthusiastic rhetoric about providing health care to millions who don’t have it…but it was all passionless boilerplate. Probably written a year ago.

I see one of these new-age blowhards on the teevee, I don’t hear a single word about providing coverage to people. Haven’t you noticed this? I’ve mentioned it many times since Thanksgiving. It’s all about winning; beating those “other guys.”

Making sick people well hasn’t had anything to do with anything for a very long time.

And I see this right now. Scott Brown just got elected to the Senate and this scuttles, or at least body-slams, the prospect of passing anything that has been churning around under the capitol dome with regard to health care. So what do we — “we” meaning democrats — do about this?

Well, let’s see. The democrats still have 59 seats in the Senate. Here on Planet Earth, if you want to provide coverage to uninsured people and you think yet one more leviathan of a federal program is the way to get it done, you start over. And your goal will be to produce something appealing to a majority of the House, all of the democrats in the Senate, and maybe one or two Republicans in the upper chamber. Maybe three or four to be extra safe about it.

That is what you’d do if it was about health care and not about grabbing power, making the citizenry of the USA more dependent on the few anointed luminaries who happen to be sitting in elected and appointed seats. If it was really about the first of those rather than the second, that is what you’d do.

That is not what they’re doing.

Struggling to salvage health reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have begun considering a list of changes to the Senate bill in hopes of making it acceptable to liberal House members, according to sources familiar with the situation.

The changes could be included in separate legislation that, if passed, would pave the way for House approval of the Senate bill – a move that would preserve President Barack Obama’s vision of a sweeping health reform plan.

But the move comes with political risk, because it would open Democrats up to charges that they pressed ahead with roughly the same health care bill that voters appeared to reject in the Massachusetts Senate race Tuesday. Republican Scott Brown won on a pledge to try to block Obama-style health reform.

The effort also puts Reid and Pelosi on the side of giving a sweeping reform bill one more try, instead of adopting a course being floated by some Democrats in Congress and at the White House of adopting a scaled-back bill including popular reform provisions.

This is not about getting people the medicine they need, or the services they need, or “providing” any kind of a “public option.” It is about changing the tenor and tone of a country. It is about breaking the spirit of that country, as if it was a horse.

It is about quitting your day job as a representative in a constitutional republic, and taking out a sinister new job as a creepy feudal overlord. Just like an apparatchik of the old Soviet Union, or a thuggish dictator like Hugo Chavez. A master who presumes to tell his “subjects” how to eat, how to walk, when to go to the bathroom, what they like, who they hate, what their favorite color is.

It may not be an effective argument to point out that this country was started precisely to put an end to that kind of slavish dependency.

But it certainly does work, to point out the evidence that clearly indicates: This is not about providing you affordable health care.

Mr. A lives by Aristotle’s code, as do we all, that reality is reality and A is A. Dial B For Blog looks into his secret origins.

Pretty fascinating read. And Spider Man, the compulsive whiner, actually fits into it. Who’d a-thought that? The web-head must have changed his character between his first appearance, and the mid-seventies when he came to my attention.

Can’t stand that guy. A thought bubble out of Superman, on average, has something to do with whether he can stop the meteor in time…whether the rocket will strike the building…whether the train has fallen off the cliff…

…Spider Man typically does a lot of worrying about whether he’s still popular. Outcome versus public-reaction. Whines like a freakin’ Skywalker. So which one is a step-cousin to Atlas Shrugged? Surprise.

Anyway, that’s what I got out of it. See what you can make out.

Hat tip to Gerard.

Peggy Noonan makes some sense, more than she’s made for quite awhile now:

President Obama carried Massachusetts by 26 points on Nov. 4, 2008. Fifteen months later, on Jan. 19, 2010, the eve of the first anniversary of his inauguration, his party’s candidate lost Massachusetts by five points. That’s a 31-point shift. Mr. Obama won Virginia by six points in 2008. A year later, on Nov. 2, 2009, his party’s candidate for governor lost by 18 points—a 25 point shift. Mr. Obama won New Jersey in 2008 by 16 points. In 2009 his party’s incumbent governor lost re-election by four points—a 20-point shift.

In each race, the president’s party lost independent voters, who in 2008 voted like Democrats and in 2010 voted like Republicans.

Is it a backlash? It seems cooler than that, a considered and considerable rejection that appears to be signaling a conservative resurgence based on issues and policies, most obviously opposition to increased government spending, fear of higher taxes, and rejection of the idea that expansion of government can or will solve our economic challenges.

Yes, The People are upset, The People are grumpy. Peggy reads a lot into emotion: “It seems cooler than that.” Perhaps it seems cooler than that because there’s no evidence of actual anger, at least no more than there always is. Certainly no more than there was two years ago. After emotions — or perhaps before — there is evidence. The evidence says, the people of Massachusetts were asked if the current policies were working, and it was like asking a competent eighth-grader if two and two add up to nine. In other words, it is what it is; getting mad at someone doesn’t have to enter into the process.

Harold Ford says moderation is the answer:

“The lesson from last night is to reset the priorities in Washington,” said Mr. Ford…”The next elections are in November, so the president and the Democrats have a few months to get this right. But we will forfeit our majorities in Congress in November if the American people don’t feel more economically secure six months from now than they do today. And Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts is just the latest indicator.”
:
To address the anxiety Americans are feeling, Mr. Ford thinks that the White House needs to focus squarely on the economy. “First we need to cut taxes for businesses in the country, small and large,” he says. “We ought to provide a six-month exemption from the payroll tax for all firms less than five years old. We ought to extend the current capital gains and dividend tax rates through 2012. We ought to make permanent all the research and development tax credits for businesses making those investments. And we ought to lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%.”

It all echoes a recurrent tone in the online-front-pages this weekend: Half a loaf is better than none, moderation this, moderation that, blah blah blah.

Prediction: That which the public most loathes — now that the public has been forced to pull its head out of its ass — will be the last to be pitched overboard. You know what I mean. The anti-American, anti-capitalist bullshit.

How did I describe it in my letter to my two oh-so-full-of-themselves wrinkled-up hippie liberal female senators? Ah, yes: “Our approach to any problem that comes up, is to make sure no one can make a profit from solving it.”

Sorry, Harold. The good ship Liberal doesn’t see that as ballast, it sees that as the hull of the boat. It won’t be pitched. It’ll go down, and the crew along with it, from Captain to deckhand’s-apprentice’s-apprentice.

Victor Davis Hanson says the bloodletting will continue, and I agree.

Says It All

1) A new poll revealing a vast majority of investors see Obama as anti-business.

2) Obama declaiming on what he has done and what he will do to create jobs.

3) After a year Obama still has not yet figured out that his promiscuous talk of higher income, payroll, health care, and inheritance taxes, serial demonization of finance and business, and all sorts of new regulations, create a psychological climate in which the employer pulls in his horns and decides to ride things out — and this individual reaction is being repeated millions of times over, energized by the pique at everything trivial from Van Jones to apologies abroad to “Bush did it.”

Harold Ford says take the corporate tax rate down from 35% to 25%. Won’t happen. It shows far too much promise of actually solving something.

The election slogan for the midterms is going to be “Well then, how would you like a teaspoon of the stuff you and we know damn well isn’t going to fix anything?” And the voters will say “but it doesn’t fix anything.” The democrats will say “but it’s a teaspoon.” The voters will say “we’ve tried it, it’s actually toxic.” The democrats will say “but it’s a teaspoon.” The voters will vote, and then the late night comedians and so-called “news” anchors will villify, denigrate, ridicule and excoriate the voters because, hey, that was only a teaspoon, what was the big deal? You must all be afraid of a black man. Guess racism is still with us after all.

What the country really needs is an honest, open debate about the petulant, festering, bubbling, anti-business bile. It will be a very long time before we debate that honestly. Those who embrace it and continue to vent it, will see to it the debate always shifts to something else, so that the bile can continue to bubble away without being discussed too much.

You knew all along, somewhere there was a simple explanation, just waiting for someone to come along, measure and document it.

(Click the pic to view the story.)

Newsbusters:

Amidst the innumerable excuses we’re bound to hear for Martha Coakley’s defeat, credit Keith Olbermann with likely the most loathsome. The Countdown host would explain away the Scott Brown victory by accusing his supporters of . . . racism.

Olbermann floated his despicable theory to Howard Fineman: “the Republicans and the Tea Partiers will tell you what happens with Scott Brown tonight whether he wins or comes close is a repudiation of Obama policies. And surely one of Obama’s policies from the viewpoint of his opponents is it’s OK to have this sea-change in American history—to have an African-American president. Is this vote to any degree just another euphemism the way ‘states rights’ was in the ’60s?”

HuffPo:

It took more than half a decade, countless American and Iraqi deaths in a war based on lies, a sinking economy and the drowning of an American city to finally kill Bush-Cheney-Rove’s dream of a conservative realignment.

Democrats, controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, have managed to kill their own dream of dominance in 12 months.

How did it happen?

Theories abound, but two diametrically opposed narratives have taken hold:

The first, promulgated by conservatives, is that the new administration has moved too far to the left and alienated a large swath of independent and moderate voters.

The second, pushed by progressive activists and bloggers, is that the administration hasn’t been true enough to fundamental Democratic principles, has embraced some of Bush’s worst excesses on civil liberties, and has ditched popular ideas (like the public option) in favor of watered down centrist policies, thus looking weak and ineffectual.

Five Thirty-Eight:

When a Democrat loses a federal race in Massachusetts, the default assumption ought to be that several factors are to blame.

Clearly the national environment has gotten worse for the Democrats since Barack Obama’s inauguration one year ago. This has been obvious from Congressional generic ballot polling, Presidential approval polling, early polling of 2010 senate races, the number of Democratic retirements, the outcomes of New Jersey and Virginia, the tenor of the political discourse in the country, and so forth. But perhaps it is somewhat more bad than we had previously realized.

Clearly also, the quality of the candidates and the campaign matters a lot, especially in open seat races. Although it might seem strange to have a Republican Senator from Massachusetts, it is not dramatically more strange than having a Democratic Senator from Alaska or Nebraska, or a Republican Representative from New Orleans, all of which our Congress already had before tonight. Martha Coakley, needless to say, was not a good candidate and did not run a good campaign.

Finally, there is a third category: contingencies specific to Massachusetts, but not specific to Coakley. This was a state in which Democrats had twice changed the rules governing Senate succession, first in 2004 to prevent then-governor Mitt Romney from appointing a Republican to take John Kerry’s seat (should he have been elected President), and then again last year to allow Deval Patrick to appoint an interim appointee. Moreover, because it was a special election, the time frame of the campaign was dramatically compressed, making it harder to define the Republican opponent or to recover from any initial missteps in the campaign. Lastly, Massachusetts is unusual in that it already has universal health care and the Democratic health care plan would not do it much good, which allowed the Republican to promise to oppose it without looking like a typical partisan hack.

TPM:

Message of the day to all Dems, Coakley, Rahm, Celinda Lake, national Dem committees, Axelrod, whoever, whatever: Shut the *$%& Up! I don’t know how else to say it. I’m watching MSNBC and hearing all the key players dumping on each other. As I’ve said, the Coakley campaign seems to have been run just terribly. And that’s just the beginning of it. But really, with all that’s at stake, the White House political office left this to Coakley, unsupervised? Really? I just have very little patience hearing all the people who are by definition all to blame have an argument about who’s most to blame.

What I’m seeing — and this isn’t just based on public comments but our reporting behind the scenes — is that there’s a lot more energy going into dodging blame for this unforced error of galactic proportions than there is going into the real issue: closing the loop on the health care bill. Which is the only issue in policy terms and political terms. That’s it. Everything else is water under the bridge.

I’m loving that last one: “The American People detest our plan. Let’s stop trying to figure out who’s at fault, and get it passed.”

Their vision of humanity is not fundamentally incompatible with the human race, but it damn sure is fundamentally incompatible with America. And they’ll never, ever see it. Ever. The idea that The American People figured it out for themselves, and showed sufficient independence to make up their own minds…it’s just inconceivable. Must be Coakley. She must have screwed up. Or maybe it’s Axelrod, or Emmanuel, or the Massachusetts democrat Party, or…or…or. Couldn’t be the riff-raff out there, they obviously can’t think for themselves.

“4. Speaking of Palin, she will stump for five GOP candidates, four of them will win, everyone will talk about the one who didn’t.”

— from Morgan’s predictions for 2010.

Behold, it is coming to pass:

Former Gov. Sarah Palin will announce today that she’s hitting the campaign trail for Republicans — including her former running mate John McCain.

Palin, who did not campaign in last year’s governor’s races or in yesterday’s Senate race in Massachusetts, has committed to contests in three states, including two Republican primaries, an aide said.

She’ll campaign in Texas for Gov. Rick Perry, who faces a primary challenge from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison; she’ll appear in Arizona for Senator John McCain, who faces a challenge from the right; and she’ll appear in Minnesota for Rep. Michelle Bachmann, a conservative firebrand who has emerged as a national figure.

In a statement set to appear on her Facebook page, Palin promises to campaign “FOR the people and AGAINST politics as usual.”

Everyone tremble in fear and awe at the amazing prescience of The Blog That Nobody Reads. (Insert Dr. Evil laugh here.)