Marcy Wheeler Left firedoglake too?

I had missed this announcement.
 Marcy didn't say anything not nice about her leaving but I have to wonder if the level of crazy was even getting to much for her.

Tbogg is still hanging in. He is a strong fellow! The dogs must help.

On Why I think that Naderites are wankers

GOP As The Exception That Proves The Rule | ThinkProgress:

"Which is all just to say that what happened in 1860 was not at all the case of an outsider third party presidential campaign sweeping the nation and changing things up. Instead, starting in 1854 and with continuing force in 1856 and 1858 a large number of established northern politicians left existing parties and came together at the Republican Party. Then, with caucuses already in place in the House and the Senate and strong bases of support in every northern state legislature, they won a presidential campaign against a splintered Democratic Party. So, yes, a third party that manages to persuade large numbers of incumbent officeholders from both parties to jump ship and join it could have a huge practical impact on American politics. But this simply underscores the fact that a lone wolf presidential bid, even if somehow successful, would change little. You walk before you run. You win seats in congress and identify a regional base of support before you sweep the nation. Presidential elections are fun. Party building is tedious."

Naderites, on the other hand, have no patience for such mundane things as party building.

Fuck them.

Cosmos Redux - Courtesy of Seth Macfarlane and Neil deGrasse Tyson

No, this is NOT what Seth Macfarlane is going to do with the reboot of Cosmos

Shorter S&P Downgrade Rationale

US politics are broken

The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year's wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently. Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee decisions on more comprehensive measures. It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options. In addition, the plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements

Things I Learned Listening to Sean Hannity

Purely for the "holy shit I can't believe he said that" value, I often listen to Sean Hannity on the drive home after work. This week I learned that Clarence Thomas is a legal genius. Yes, really.

Sean Hannity Might Not Be a Tool

Hannity Blasts Insurance Coverage For Birth Control, Defends Viagra: ‘That Is A Medical Problem!’ | ThinkProgress:

"Piling on to the conservative apoplexia over the Obama administration’s recent ruling that insurance companies should cover birth control without co-pays, Fox News host Sean Hannity slammed the policy last night for encouraging “screwing around,” but defended coverage of Viagra. Taking a bold stance again reason, Hannity said, “I don’t care about the scientists” who recommended the move and insisted that the birth control is “not a women’s health issue.” Asked how he felt about insurance companies covering male enhancement medication, Hannity strongly defended the practice, saying, “That is a medical problem!”"

But he wants to make sure his tool works!

30,000

Just clicked over 30,000 pageviews.

I think that is kinda cool even if there are sites that do that in a day.

The Very Definition of Centrist

Balloon Juice » Blue Dogs Not Done With Their Shit Show Fail Parade:

"I’m beginning to think that centrist means “I can’t be bothered to know shit about what is going on, so I will just go with shit that sounds plausible and middle of the road.”"

Note to Joe Lieberman: STFU

Daily Kos: Lieberman: We have to cut Social Security to pay for fighting 'the Islamist extremists': "LIEBERMAN: I want to indicate today to my colleagues that Senator Coburn and I are working again on a bipartisan proposal to secure Social Security over the long term, we hope to have that done in time. To also forward to the special committee for their consideration. So, bottom line, we can’t protect these entitlements and also have the national defense we need to protect us in a dangerous world while we’re at war with Islamist extremists who attacked us on 9/11 and will be for a long time to come."

This IS What Heroism Looks Like

A Lesbian Couple Saved 40 Kids in Norway - Global - The Atlantic Wire:

"A married lesbian couple saved forty kids the day Anders Behring Breivik killed 76 people in a combined bombing and shooting attack in Norway, reports Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen were eating lunch on the other side of the shore from the campsite where Breivik attacked. Kids started to run into the water to swim away from the attacker. Once they saw what was happening, they jumped into their boat and collected kids from the water and took them to the opposite shore to safety. They did four trips into the water and saved forty kids."

On Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Lousy Negotiating Skills Are Not the Problem | Jared Bernstein | On the Economy:

"If too many Americans don’t believe in or understand what government does to help them, to offset recessions, to protect their security in retirement and in hard times, to maintain the infrastructure, to provide educational opportunities and health care decent enough to offset the disadvantages so many are born with…if those functions are unknown, underfunded, and/or carried out poorly, why should they care about how much this deal or the next one cuts?

Those of us who do care about the above will not defeat those who strive to get rid of it all by becoming better tacticians. We will only find success when a majority of Americans agrees with us that government is something worth fighting for."

On Taking Your Ball And Going Home

Chuck for ...: Now That I Know What It Means To Be A Democrat:

"I'll be blunt - I'll not be a party to such horseshit, I'll let those who love excuses and cowardice take the reins, or load, or act as though they give a good goddam. I simply cannot continue to divide my thinking between what works and is right and what isn't 'as bad as.' You like 'not as bad as' you can help yourself to as much as you please."

Chuck Butcher is precisely the kind of "more and better Democrat" that we need in this country and instead he is putting on a big pout and walking away because he doesn't like the direction of the party. This is why progressives lose the fight. Instead of getting mad as hell and trying to retake the party, as the conservatives did with the GOP, they throw up their hands and say "I can't work within the system because it is too far gone".

This is giving up and shameful and I can't believe that Chuck means it.

I am sad to see Chuck taking this stance because he was, and is, one of the good ones. I can only hope that this turns out to be a temporary break from politics for him and not the abandonment of principle because it got hard. I suspect he will be back.

Search Term Of The Day

"norway bans world of warcraft"  and .a myriad variants was my top search term last week. Funny how stuff like that happens. Weirdly enough, the top search term for the blog is "my resume"

On Why Coding Standards Are Not That Bad

Good Math, Bad Math:

"Well, then, it's rough to be you: you're screwed. But that's not really because of the ridiculous coding standard. It's because you're working for idiots. Screwing up a coding standard enough to really prevent good programmers from writing good code is hard. It requires a sort of dedicated, hard-headed stupidity. If you're working for people who are such idiots that they'd impose a broken coding standard, then they're going to do plenty of other stupid stuff, too. If you're working for idiots, you're pretty much screwed no matter what you do, coding standard or no. (And I don't mean to suggest that software businesses run by idiots are rare; it's an unfortunate fact, but there's no shortage of idiots, and there are plenty of them that have their own businesses.)"

On Calling the President A N*****

GOP Rep. Lamborn: Associating With Obama Is Like ‘Touching A Tar Baby’ | ThinkProgress:

"“Now I don’t even want to have to be associated with [Obama], it’s like touching a tar baby and you’re stuck, you’re part of the problem now. You can’t get away.”"

Come on, you know that is what Lamborn REALLY wanted to say.

Say it after me ...

The President is a n*****.

Now ... don't you feel better?

I feel like I am living in Mississippi in 1955 some days.

About All Those Newt Followers

Zandar Versus The Stupid: Nuked Gingrich, Part 8:

"About 80 percent of those accounts are inactive or are dummy accounts created by various 'follow agencies,' another 10 percent are real people who are part of a network of folks who follow others back and are paying for followers themselves (Newt's profile just happens to be a part of these networks because he uses them, although he doesn't follow back), and the remaining 10 percent may, in fact, be real, sentient people who happen to like Newt Gingrich. If you simply scroll through his list of followers you'll see that most of them have odd usernames and no profile photos, which has to do with the fact that they were mass generated. Pathetic, isn't it?"

Stupid Comment Of the Day - Balloon Juice Edition

Balloon Juice » The Important Things:

"Pat - August 1, 2011 | 5:13 am · Link

What is really sad is the fact that Krugman is right.

Obama is the worst Democratic president ever, and I have been voting Democratic for forty years.

Third party in 2012. Because there is truly nothing left to lose."

To which I say the following:

1. He often is
2. I don't know about EVER but in quite some time. Still makes him better than most GOP Presidents and certainly better than anyone they could be running in 2012
3. Anyone that really believes this is an idiot and should be kept indoors lest they trip over their untied shoes in traffic and be run over.

On Why Elizabeth Warren Should Not Run for President (Or anything else)

Should Elizabeth Warren Run for President? « naked capitalism:

"If anything, the efforts to sanctify Warren have grown. She is treated as the last, best hope of the tattered progressives, when it isn’t even clear how much she supports their agenda. She would presumably promote policies that would stem or reverse the concentration of income and wealth in the top 1%, but her view on other issues is unclear. What is her stand on our military commitments? On gay marriage? On immigration? On our broken health care system? On out of control college costs that result in most new graduates being debt slaves? On climate change? On China? She’s a formidable policy wonk and no doubt a quick study, but even smart people who step outside their areas of expertise can become hostage to bad orthodox thinking or its ugly cousin, leading edge conventional wisdom. And well advised or not, Warren may not be as liberal as her fans like to believe."

And when she too turns out not to be the second coming of FDR (who himself wouldn't be the second coming of FDR nowadays) she will be reviled as not a true progressive and the cycle shall repeat again.

I hope that Elizabeth Warren does what she does best and continues to influence politicians from her perch at Harvard with an occasional direct move into government as an adviser. She is a valuable resource and it is my considered opinion that the reality of being an elected official that had to take all those messy votes would tarnish her image a bit more than her fans would like.

Obama's Future, and ours

I wish that Obama was a better President than he has been. That being said, I think that he was still a vastly better choice than McCain and is still a vastly better choice than anyone on the GOP side of the 2012 field.

Not sure I see how he gets re-elected though unless the economy makes a near miraculous turnaround and unemployment is in the 7's next November or the GOP nominates Mitt Romney (yes, I think Bachmann or Perry are more electable at the moment).

Margaret Atwood is looking like a prophet

On How NOT To Feel LIke A Marine

As drawdown approaches, U.S. commanders in Afghanistan reluctant to leave - The Washington Post:

"This farming district along the Helmand River, once one of the most Taliban-saturated corners of southern Afghanistan, has turned so quiet over the past three months that some U.S. Marines here quietly wish for a gunfight. “Just to get off a few rounds,” said one, “so we can feel like Marines.”"

I have known a few Marines over the years and to a man (yes they were all male) they would have slapped the idiot that said this. Fighting men that understand their trade do not live for the fight, they live for the day that the fight is no longer required and they can take their skills somewhere else.

Quackery Kills In Quebec

Quebec spa death spurs warning from association head - Montreal - CBC News: "The association representing the spas in Quebec is calling on people to be cautious when choosing a spa after a woman died following a detoxification treatment at a facility near Drummondville.

Chantal Lavigne, 35, died in hospital Friday."