Bipartistupidity

Almost everyone's had to go to the car dealership and buy a new car. When you go, you go with a basic premise in mind; that both you and the salesman want you to walk out with a new car. Both of you want your situation to be different when you leave than when you came in. Starting from that premise, the negotiations are pretty easy. There about things like warranties, accessories, and price. When you leave with a new car you might say to yourself, " I paid a little bit more than I wanted too, but, I got an extended warranty and a new mp3 player installed. All in all, I'm happy with the deal." The salesman, after you walk out, might say to themselves, " You know, I didn't get them to spend as much as I wanted. However, my commission will still be nice, and, I got another sale so I'm closer to getting that ' Salesman of the Month' bonus. All in all, I'm happy with the deal." This is possible because both you and the salesman on the otherside of the table knew you would both benefit from getting you into that new car.

Now imagine that salesman doesn't want to sell you that car. Imagine he thinks that you'll just make the car dirty if you get it so he's determined to make sure none ever leave the lot. Negotiations are gonna go a little bit differently. You ask if you can have an extended warranty, NO. You ask if you pay above sticker price if you can have a new and better stereo, NO. If you can pay under sticker price and let them off the hook for the warranty, NO. After awhile your gonna get fed-up and say, " Forget you then! I'll just go and build my own car." Now how many of us know or could afford to build our own car? Probably not many. So, you have to go ask someone to build it for you. They say, " Sure, but I wanna use it 3 days a week." You need a car so you agree. You borrow money to buy the engine, but the person you borrow the money from says they don't like speeders, so their only gonna give you enough money to get an engine that tops out at 60 mph. You agree. You go to buy the spark plugs, but you can only afford the economy ones that don't fire well so it's always rough to start the car. Lastly you get the shell but you can only afford an ugly rusty one. So what have you got: An ugly piece of junk that's hard to start, won't go past 60 mph, and you only get to drive 4 days a week. Now there's an argument to be made that you should scrap the car, get your money back, and come back at the endeavour when you've got better means. There's also an argument to be made that at least with a car you'll be able to get around better, thereby increasing your possibility for getting the means you need to improve upon your crappy car. There are valid points on both sides. However, let's not forget the reason for this predicament, i.e, the salesman being completely unwilling to negotiate with you for a good car in the first place.

Democracy is based on one unchangeable principle: Nobody gets everything that they want. We are all free and equal because we are all equally disappointed in what we get from the bargaining table. But if you want a seat at that table, you have to be willing to lose a little bit. Does anybody think that if 10-20 House Republicans had come up to the Speaker and said that they would be willing to vote for Healthcare Bill as long as there was no Public Option, that the House would have one in their bill? Does anyone think that if 1-2 Senate Republicans had been willing to cast their votes in favor of the bill if their was Medical Malpractice caps, that the Democrats wouldn't now being telling their trial lawyer friends to please not be mad at what had to happen? You sacrifice some things you want in order to get others. You want good grades, your not gonna be able to party 24/7. You want a nice house and money to spend, your going to have to be at a job that for most people isn't greatly satisfying. You want a family, your days of doing what you want, when you want, are going to have to go out the window. The ability to sacrifice some things in order to get other, more important things. There's a word for it: Adult. Let's hope that those in Congress who would rather say 'No' then ' Maybe' acquire this ability before the country turns into a slow crusty lemon that only works 4/7 of the time.

HCAN: Health Reform Chart under H.R.3200

From Health Care for America NOW!

Read more here

The Stimulus Is Working

From Fast Lane, the Department of Transportation blog:

Here's the scorecard:

•$22 billion--nearly half of DOT's stimulus money--made available to the States;
•Over 6,600 projects approved
•Over 3,200 projects underway right now

And the future promises even more boosts to economic activity:

•$8 billion in high-speed rail development
•$1.5 billion in TIGER discretionary grants

Sounds great to me. Let's remember, there was never a promise of immediate relief. The President never said that no one would ever lose their job ever again. The stimulus is about creating and sustaining jobs as well as rebuilding our national infrastructure and expanding green technology to have a more robust economy and a better national future. There is a long way to go, but we could not have started without the stimulus.

Ray LaHood, the Secretary of Transportation, says it more succinctly:

I know the stimulus can't make up for every job our economy has shed. But we have supported over 5,000 jobs already, with up to 500,000 more on the way once the full effect of this landmark program is felt in the transportation industry.

And every job we do create or preserve should be counted as a victory.

NYT: CA Awaits Prop 8 Ruling

Today at 10am Pacific, the California Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality and implementation of Proposition 8 which narrowly passed in November 2008. Why does the CA Supreme Court need to get involved again? Well, it's complicated. From the NYT:

Previously, in May 2008, the court legalized same-sex marriage, and since the election, several groups have sued, saying the proposition’s revocation of that right was unconstitutional.
In addition to answering that legal question, however, the seven-member court is expected to address the legal status of some 18,000 same-sex couples who were married in California between June — when the legalization took effect — and Election Day in November.
The state’s attorney general, Jerry Brown, said last year that he believed those same-sex marriages would be legal regardless of Proposition 8. But opponents of same-sex marriage argue that it is illogical to continue to recognize marriages that can no longer be legally performed here.

Want to know where same-sex couples stand legally now?

Since the passage of Proposition 8, several states have legalized same-sex marriage, including Iowa, Maine and Vermont. Connecticut, where a court decision legalized same-sex marriage shortly before Election Day, began performing ceremonies shortly after California banned them. At the moment, married same-sex couples in California have the same rights as straight, married couples under California law, though same-sex couples have no federal recognition.
Like several other states, California allows members of the same sex to enter into domestic partnerships, which afford many of the same rights as marriage. But Kate Kendell, the executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, says domestic partnerships are not equivalent to marriage.
“It is more than symbolism to say that an entire category of recognition is off limits to one class of people,” Ms. Kendell said. “And the category that is off limits is the one that is most culturally desirable.”

Confusing, huh? Maybe it should just be absolutely equal for all. You know, for simplicity's sake.

My Question to the President for the C-SPAN Interview

Recently, C-SPAN interviewed President Obama about an array of topics. They also asked the viewers to submit our questions to the president for the interview. Since question was not included in the interview, I'm just going to post it here. Maybe it might still find its way to him somehow...hope springs eternal.

Mr. President,
My question is in regards to the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law. I understand that there is a lot happening in the world and the country today that requires your immediate and continued attention. National security and commander-in-chief of the military is a major part of your duties as president. Both of these issues are directly affected by the DADT policy. Committed soldiers, marines, sailors and pilots are still being discharged by this policy under your administration. Furthermore, gay and lesbian military personnel who have not been discharged are being forced to break their oath to be honest and ethical because they have to lie to help protect this great nation. This is especially disheartening because you have stated that you do not agree with the policy. So my question is this: why have you not, at the very least, stopped the discharges from continuing while you wait for whatever you are waiting for to have the law changed?
I look forward to your answer and leadership on this issue and I thank you for listening.

Pres. Obama and the DADT

The Daily Beast has a post by Matthew Yglesias titled "Obama's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Hypocrisy". It is a short post but here is my favorite part:


The game being played here is easy enough to understand. Obama's decision on a variety of fronts has been guided by a clear desire to avoid some of the early missteps made by Bill Clinton. And conventional accounts of Clinton’s early presidency put the way he got into an early dispute with the military brass over treatment of gay and lesbian servicemembers high on the list of missteps to be avoided.
But while the political logic behind the administration's thinking is understandable enough, the moral logic is contemptible. The dismissal of gay and lesbian soldiers was unjust when undertaken by administrations that believed in the policy. But disagreement about policy is inevitable in a democracy and sometimes injustice reigns. What we have today, however, is an absurdity—an administration that clearly does not believe in the policy, that is on record as opposing the policy, that campaigned explicitly on changing the policy, and that nevertheless declines to change the policy.
Tsao and Choi are being dismissed, in other words, not because the president of the United States feels they should be discriminated against, which would be bad enough. Instead, they're being dismissed because the president doesn't feel like doing anything about it.

Read the whole piece here.

NYT: Going Dutch

I read this fantastic New York Times article on my lunch break yesterday. It is about the Dutch economic and financial system, written by an American living in the Netherlands. After reading this article, my brother's words seem more potent: If everyone truly understood real socialism, nearly everyone in America would be all for it.

For the first few months I was haunted by a number: 52. It reverberated in my head; I felt myself a prisoner trying to escape its bars. For it represents the rate at which the income I earn, as a writer and as the director of an institute, is to be taxed. To be plain: more than half of my modest haul, I learned on arrival, was to be swallowed by the Dutch welfare state. Nothing in my time here has made me feel so much like an American as my reaction to this number.
[snip]
And yet as the months rolled along, I found the defiant anger softening by intervals, thanks to a succession of little events and awarenesses. One came not long ago. Logging into my bank account, I noted with fleeting but pleasant confusion the arrival of two mysterious payments of 316 euros (about $410) each. The remarks line said “accommodation schoolbooks.” My confusion was not total. On looking at the payor — the Sociale Verzekeringsbank, or Social Insurance Bank — I nodded with sage if partial understanding. Our paths had crossed several times before. I have two daughters, you see. Every quarter, the SVB quietly drops $665 into my account with the one-word explanation kinderbijslag, or child benefit. As the SVB’s Web site cheerily informed me when I went there in bewilderment after the first deposit: “Babies are expensive. Nappies, clothes, the pram . . . all these things cost money. The Dutch government provides for child benefit to help you with the costs of bringing up your child.” Any parents living in the country receive quarterly payments until their children turn 18. And thanks to a recently passed law, the state now gives parents a hand in paying for school materials.
Payments arrive from other sources too. Friends who have small children report that the government can reimburse as much as 70 percent of the cost of day care, which totals around $14,000 per child per year. In late May of last year an unexpected $4,265 arrived in my account: vakantiegeld. Vacation money. This money materializes in the bank accounts of virtually everyone in the country just before the summer holidays; you get from your employer an amount totaling 8 percent of your annual salary, which is meant to cover plane tickets, surfing lessons, tapas: vacations. And we aren’t talking about a mere “paid vacation” — this is on top of the salary you continue to receive during the weeks you’re off skydiving or snorkeling. And by law every employer is required to give a minimum of four weeks’ vacation. For that matter, even if you are unemployed you still receive a base amount of vakantiegeld from the government, the reasoning being that if you can’t go on vacation, you’ll get depressed and despondent and you’ll never get a job.
Such things are easy for an American to ridicule; you don’t have to be a Fox News commentator to sneer at what, in the midst of a global financial crisis, seems like Socialism Gone Wild. And stating it as I’ve done above — we’ll consume half your salary and every once in a while toss you a few euros in return — it seems like a pretty raw deal.
But there’s more to it. First, as in the United States, income tax in the Netherlands is a bendy concept: with a good accountant, you can rack up deductions and exploit loopholes. And while the top income-tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, the numbers are a bit misleading. “People coming from the U.S. to the Netherlands focus on that difference, and on that 52 percent,” said Constanze Woelfle, an American accountant based in the Netherlands whose clients are mostly American expats. “But consider that the Dutch rate includes social security, which in the U.S. is an additional 6.2 percent. Then in the U.S. you have state and local taxes, and much higher real estate taxes. If you were to add all those up, you would get close to the 52 percent.”

Where's The Beef?! GOP Budget Plan Lacks Details

So, the Republicans were called out by the President on Tuesday for criticizing his budget plan without having an alternative. Today, House Minority Leader John Boehner tried to announce their budget plan. According to The Huffington Post, Rep. Boehner had a hard time backing up the 19-page proposal:

Reporters -- mainstream, liberal and conservative -- greeted the Republican document with a collective scoff.
"Are you going to have any further details on this today?" the first asked.
"On what?" asked Boehner.
"There's no detail in here," noted the reporter.
Answered Boehner: "This is a blueprint for where we're going. Are you asking about some other document?"
A second reporter followed up: "What about some numbers? What about the out-year deficit? What about balancing the budget? How are you going to do it?"
"We'll have the alternative budget details next week," promised Boehner. Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) had wisely departed the room after offering his opening remarks. ("Today's Republican road-to-recovery is the latest in a series of GOP initiatives, solutions and plans," he had offered.)
A third reporter asked Boehner about the Republican goal for deficit reduction, noting President Obama aimed to cut it in half in five years. "What's your goal?"
"To do better," said Boehner.
"How? How much?"
"You'll see next week."
"Wait. Why not today? Because he asked you to present a budget."
"Now, hold on," said Boehner. "The president came to Capitol Hill and laid out his blueprint for his budget during the State of the Union. He didn't offer his details until days later."
"In general, where do you see cuts coming?" the Huffington Post asked.
"We'll wait and see next week," he said.
Another reporter reminded Boehner that he has "criticized Democrats for throwing together a stimulus quickly and nobody knew what they were voting on. Are you saying that your budget will be unveiled on the same day that the House is expected to vote on it?"
"No, I expect it'll be out next week," he said, though the House is expected to vote on the budget next week. "But understand that a budget really is a one-page document. It's just a bunch of numbers."
Though not today, of course.

This is our fault, of course. We, the non-politicians, think that a budget plan should have budget details. You know, numbers and dates and whatnot. Silly us. What the republicans did was offer a plan to eventually show us a budget. That was the idea all along, I'm sure. It's nice that they have the time for wordplay. So cute.

Earmark Education

It turns out I never truly understood the earmark debate. I thought I did but I just read a piece by Stan Collender that schooled me (for which I am thankful). h/t Matthew Yglesias

Second, the talk that you can reduce federal spending by eliminating earmarks is flat wrong.For years, lawyers and analysts have tried and failed to come up with a standard definition for “earmark.” But there is no dispute about one thing: All an earmark does is allocate part of the funds being appropriated. That means that eliminating an earmark only eliminates the allocation and not the spending. The appropriation, the law that actually provides the funds for the government to spend stays at the original level regardless of whether the earmark stays in place. The only thing that changes is that the decision about how and where to spend the funds shifts from Congress to the executive branch agency that administers the funds. And that, rather than lower spending, is what the earmark debate really is about. Regardless of what is said about “fiscal responsibility” and spending the people’s money wisely, the issue is not about how much to spend. The dispute is over who gets to make the decision.

[snip]

Third, eliminating earmarks doesn’t automatically mean that the decisions about how and where to spend the funds will be any less political or more objective. The notion that executive branch departments and agencies make spending decisions solely by applying rigid criteria about which projects are more worthwhile than others is naive.

[snip]

It makes no sense to think that a bureaucracy headed by an appointee who was selected to implement the president’s agenda will do something different than what the administration wants ... or that the White House would allow it. The decision about how and where the funds will be spent will be just as political as if it was made for an individual Member of Congress. Fourth, the ultimate irony of the earmark debate is that the fiscal conservatives who are the biggest supporters of eliminating earmarks are also the ones who typically express the greatest dissatisfaction with the federal bureaucracy. But the bureaucracy making the decisions would be the result if the campaign to end earmarks were successful. Federal departments and agencies would end up having the sole power to decide how to allocate the funds included in appropriations, and the decisions would be every bit as political as the ones made with earmarks.

I wish I knew all of this during the campaign. I wish others knew about it as well. Especially you-know-who.

President Obama Touts Stimulus Success

The full text of the President's Weekly Address here. And here is my favorite part:

Because of what we did, 95 percent of all working families will get a tax cut -- in keeping with a promise I made on the campaign. And I'm pleased to announce that this morning, the Treasury Department began directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks -- meaning that by April 1st, a typical family will begin taking home at least $65 more every month. Never before in our history has a tax cut taken effect faster or gone to so many hardworking Americans.

Look at the President bragging! That's alright, though. He earned it. The weird thing is there are a few Republicans out there bragging about the plan too. The plan they voted against. I guess they assume their constituents are stupid. It's funny because Republicans are always talking about how important tax cuts are; yet they voted "no" on a bill with huge tax cuts! Clueless.

SWJ: Kilcullen's Senate Testimony

Dave Kilcullen's testimony on Afghanistan is compelling. I feel like I understand better the complications and nuisances of the strategy involved in the area. It is worth a full read but here is a small portion regarding our long term options:

We need to do four things – what we might call “essential strategic tasks” – to succeed in Afghanistan. We need to prevent the re-emergence of an Al Qaeda sanctuary that could lead to another 9/11. We need to protect Afghanistan from a range of security threats including the Taliban insurgency, terrorism, narcotics, misrule and corruption. We need to build sustainable and accountable state institutions (at the central, provincial and local level) and a resilient civil society. Then we can begin a phased hand-off to Afghan institutions that can survive without permanent international assistance. We might summarize this approach as “Prevent, Protect, Build, Hand-Off”. Let’s call it “Option A”.

[snip]

Is there an alternative? Some have recently argued for “Option B”, where we would focus solely on the Prevent task, putting Protect, Build and Hand-Off on hold. We would conduct counterterrorism operations against Al Qaeda, while doing the minimum development and population protection needed to enable those operations, and shelving long-term nation-building aspirations. After all, we might say, we went into Afghanistan to defeat Al Qa’ida, not to build a model state in the Hindu Kush.
The problem with Option A is that we may not be able to afford it. The trouble with Option B is much simpler: it just won’t work.

And on the Pakistan part of the equation:

The critical problem is that Pakistan has so far been both unable to control its own territory and population, and unwilling to accept international assistance on the scale, or of the type, needed to do so. Meanwhile we have tended to focus what little attention we give to the region on Afghanistan, a problem that is far easier to understand although extremely difficult to address.
Because of Pakistan’s size (173 million people) and military capacity (a defense establishment that includes 100 nuclear weapons and a well-equipped army larger than that of the United States) the notion that we could or should force an unwilling Pakistan to do our bidding is both unrealistic and extremely risky.

I wonder if this testimony was the reason for President Obama to commit 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

h/t to Rachel Maddow for the link on Twitter

Rachel Maddow Explains Economic Stimulus

Video clip titled "Reality Check" from The Rachel Maddow Show on February 5, 2009

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Transcript:
The economy is in crisis because people aren‘t buying enough stuff. There is supply, right? People make stuff that is to be sold and then there‘s demand. Demand is buying.
Right now, there‘s not enough buying. So, what they teach you in the very easiest semester of the very easiest economics class, because it‘s really easy to understand even if you are a total dunderhead about more completed macroeconomics stuff, what they teach is that the government can turn around an economic crisis that‘s caused by not enough demand—by making demand. Stimulating demand, they call it—economic stimulus.
[...snip...]
It is reality check time here. Economic stimulus, most efficiently, is government spending. The most purely stimulative spending would probably be just to give envelopes full of cash to the poorest people in the country. Statistically, they‘d be the most likely to spend it.
In the absence of a political reality, that would make something like that possible, an almost ideal strategy is government spending, say, on infrastructure of which the American Society of Civil Engineers just said we could use $2.2 trillion worth. It‘s good jobs that can‘t be outsourced, immediately, that have the long-term benefit of dragging our country into the 21st century in terms of our ability to compete economically with the rest of the world.

President Obama's WaPo Op-Ed

President Barack Obama has an op-ed piece in The Washington Post today.


In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.
I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.
Every day, our economy gets sicker -- and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now.

The President said much of the same yesterday. It was in a tone that, frankly, I would like to have seen a week earlier when the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against a quick economic stimulus package for political bravado. I have a hard time believing that their constituents are against government spending on infrastructure when many of them are without power during a basic winter storm. Or, that they are against government spending on green technology and rebuilding bridges when so many people are without a job. The Republicans in Congress are performing fantastic political theater at the worst time. Hopefully, our senators will come together this week and put a stop to it. 626,000 people filed unemployment claims last week. Enough is enough.

Read the whole piece here.

ASCE 2009 Report Card For America's Infrastructure

The American Society of Civil Engineers have released a new report card for America's infrastructure and - no surprise - it is still bad. Horribly bad. Frighteningly bad. It's like we are a third world country. Furthermore, if you compare this new report card with the previous one in 2005, our infrastructure has maintained a solid "D" G.P.A. with our aviation services, roads, and transit systems functioning at a lower level than before. Everything else stayed the same - solid C's and D's all around. Oh, and infrastructure investment is only about 18% of the proposed economic stimulus plan. Unbelievable.

NYT Op-Ed: The Same Old Song

The New York Times has a great op-ed piece by Bob Herbert today. The question of the day: why does anyone still listen to the GOP?

What’s up with the Republicans? Have they no sense that their policies have sent the country hurtling down the road to ruin? Are they so divorced from reality that in their delusionary state they honestly believe we need more of their tax cuts for the rich and their other forms of plutocratic irresponsibility, the very things that got us to this deplorable state?

[..snip..]

Maybe the Republicans don’t think there is an emergency. After all, it was Phil Gramm, John McCain’s economic guru, who told us last summer that the pain was all in our heads, that this was a “mental recession.”
The truth, of course, is that the country is hemorrhaging jobs and Americans are heading to the poorhouse by the millions. The stock markets and the value of the family home have collapsed, and there is virtual across-the-board agreement that the country is caught up in the worst economic disaster since at least World War II.
The Republican answer to this turmoil?
Tax cuts.
They need to go into rehab.

Thank you! Another thing Republican politicians need to do is talk to the American people. Ask us what we want: tax cuts or spending to create jobs. Almost 3 million people lost their jobs in 2008. Hell, 70,000 just found out they will lose their job by Friday. The GOP thinks that tax cuts will solve our economic worries?
President Obama won in November in part because the voters decided his plan for economic recovery was more viable than Sen. McCain's plan. The people have spoken. We want Obama's plan. It would be nice if the Republicans in Congress would accept that reality.

WaPo: Surgical Checklist Reduces Complications

From the Washington Post:



Surgeons, it seems, are discovering what airline pilots learned decades ago: The human brain can't remember everything, so it's best to focus on the complicated challenges and leave the simple reminders to a cheat sheet.
"You take something as complex as surgery, and you think there isn't a lot that can be done to make it better," said Atul Gawande, a Boston physician who led the study being published in the New England Journal of Medicine. "A checklist seems like a no-brainer, but the size of the benefit is dramatic."
The low-cost, low-tech intervention tested in eight hospitals around the globe could have enormous financial implications, as well. If every operating room in the United States adopted the surgical checklist, the nation could save between $15 billion and $25 billion a year on the costs of treating avoidable complications, according to calculations by the authors.
In the one-year pilot study involving 7,600 patients, the hospitals saw the rate of serious complications fall from 11 percent to 7 percent. Inpatient deaths declined by more than 40 percent overall, with the most drastic reductions occurring in hospitals with fewer resources.

Two questions: 1) If your hospital does not implement the checklist before surgery, can the patient request that they do before operation? 2) Can we request the same for Chief Justice John Roberts? He's a smart guy so I'm almost positive he can have the Presidential Oath memorized in four years. But I don't want to take that chance. One index card. Is that too much to ask?

Download the surgical checklist

Letter From A Liberal: Be A Freakin' Liberal

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman has written a long and detailed letter to the President-elect ( 4 days to go) on what he, in Krugman's expert opinion, should do to fix our current financial crisis, repair the institutions that allowed it to happen in the first place, and implement policies to keep it from happening again. He touches on public works programs, banking policies, and the absolute need for, if not Universal, then Universally Accessible Healthcare. It will be in the January 22, 2009 edition of Rolling Stone. His basic theme: If they're not calling you a Marxist, then you're doing something wrong!

National High-Speed Rail Service

I love the idea of high-speed rail service in this country. I have wanted this for years, ever since I saw a tv special about the bullet trains around the world. Also, I was excited to see California Prop 1A was not only placed on the ballot, but also passed. I am not the type of person who jumps up and down with joy, but I did. I jumped. Yes, I am a dork about this stuff, but I can't help it. Last weekend I watched a video about the proposed high-speed rail plan for California and I actually got choked up a bit. I mean, I didn't cry but I did feel an emotional flurry similar to what I feel in the last 15 minutes of Radio Flyer. I'm sure a good part of it is because of the cheesy heart-string-tugging music, but still, I was moved.

Yep. It's official. I am a dork.

Anyway, the original point of this post was not to embarrass myself but too link to a press release today regarding the High-Speed Rail for America Act of 2008. A few quotes:

Sen. John Kerry: “A first-rate rail system would protect our environment, save families time and money, reduce our dependency on foreign oil, and help get our economy moving again."

Sen. Arlen Specter: “We must continue to focus our energies on building and maintaining a strong national passenger rail system in order to ease congestion of air and highway corridors connecting high-growth markets, as well as to meet energy and environmental goals.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg: “Investing in modern infrastructure is vital to the nation’s long-term economic and environmental health - and in the short-term, it would help put more Americans back to work."

Gov. Ed Rendell: “Expanding our nation’s critical rail infrastructure will make our transportation network more efficient, reduce traffic pressure on our already busy interstate highways, and improve the environment.”

Is this not totally awesome?

I am so going to get clowned for this post later.

Trickle Down Theories = Weapons of Mass Depression

Neoconservatives lost this election by 8 million votes. That's only 6% of the vote in this years election cycle. This may be considered a landslide to politicos, but considering what we could have been facing if they won, I call this razor thin. What's really worrisome is that their influence, while currently diminished, could not only make a comeback, but for some, will be felt for a lifetime.