The Business President?

Nate does a fun piece breaking down Obama's word usage in last night's SOTU address. It doesn't necessarily means a whole lot, but it is interesting to see what he was trying to hammer home:

- work(ing)/worker(s): 34 times
- business(es): 29 times
- job(s): 29 times
- tax(es): 21 times
- family(ies): 20 times
- invest(ing)/investment(s): 18 times
- economy/economic: 17 times*
- strong(er)/strength(en): 16 times
- energy: 15 times
- deficit(s): 14 times

This was a speech focused almost primarily on convincing voters that Obama can get the economy moving forward again. Pro-business, pro-jobs, pro-family, pro-getting back to work. The tax talk was either of the "I cut yours" variety, or the pro-tax incentive variety.

You can't say he doesn't know what people really care about at the moment, at any rate.

For funzies, let's compare that to Reagan's '82 SOTU:

- government: 28 times
- tax(es): 23 times
- together: 15 times
- congress: 13 times
- strong(er)/strength(en): 13 times
- deficit(s): 12 times
- free(dom): 11 times
- peace(ful): 11 times
- inflation: 10 times
- world(wide): 10 times

* - Nate seems to have missed two instances of the word 'economic', or at least didn't fold them in with 'economy' in his analysis.

Where'd I Put My +3 Shiv?

Just when you think judges might have run out of stupid decisions to make...

Prisons can restrict the rights of inmates to nerd out, a federal appeals court has found.

In an opinion issued on Monday , a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected the claims in a lawsuit challenging a ban on the game Dungeons & Dragons by the Waupun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin.

The suit was brought by a prisoner, Kevin T. Singer, who argued that his First Amendment and 14th Amendment rights were violated by the prison’s decision to ban the game and confiscate his books and other materials, including a 96-page handwritten manuscript he had created for the game.

This my favorite line though:

Prison officials said they had banned the game at the recommendation of the prison’s specialist on gangs, who said it could lead to gang behavior and fantasies about escape.

Yup, playing dice-and-pencil RPGs is just a gateway to gang behavior. I think there are some deleted scenes on the Menace II Society DVD to that effect.

Waiting For That Apology

A while ago, Christiane Amanpour got into it with former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen over our use of torture:





One of Thiessen's big "points" was his citing of CIA interrogators who claimed Abu Zubaydah cracked quickly, and thanked his interrogators afterwards (that section starts at about 4:50 of the first video).

In a development that should shock no one, Thiessen's point turns out to be nonsense:

On the next-to-last page of a new memoir, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror (written with Michael Ruby), Kiriakou now rather off handedly admits that he basically made it all up.

"What I told Brian Ross in late 2007 was wrong on a couple counts," he writes. "I suggested that Abu Zubaydah had lasted only thirty or thirty-five seconds during his waterboarding before he begged his interrogators to stop; after that, I said he opened up and gave the agency actionable intelligence."

But never mind, he says now.

"I wasn't there when the interrogation took place; instead, I relied on what I'd heard and read inside the agency at the time."

So... when do you think Thiessen is going to apologize to Amanpour? For that matter, when are all these right-wing blogs who proudly proclaimed that Thiessen had "destroyed", "ripped" and (my fave) "bitch-slapped" Amanpour going to post retractions for their readers?

Oh, wait, that would require morality and honesty on their part. Never mind.

Sweet, Sweet Satire

The best satire dances so close to the truth you can taste it. And this tastes like a well-made chocolate milkshake on a hot summer day.

The Great Orange Diaspora

So bonddad is now posting an economics column over at 538, at the same time that dengre has joined the roster at Balloon Juice.

Now, I'm not proclaiming the death of Daily Kos. But I do think a brain drain at the Democrat's best online site is not a good sign for the party, or its chances in 2010/2012. What Obama needed was for the grassroots to transition into something like a sane version of what the right has going for it. Erick the Rediculous snaps his fingers and Olympia Snowe wakes up with a pile of rock salt on her porch. The left has no similar infrastructure with which to apply populist pressure to weak-willed Congresscritters.

The 'firebaggers' epithet that JC and others have started using is looking more and more appropriate.

Manzi Makes a Funny

The punchline to this piece is awesome:

I assume Republicans will see that they have a clear political incentive to go along, rather than standing up for such a situation. Hopefully, this will create the political dynamic that will allow real, positive reform.

Hee hee! Republicans working with Democrats to effect real Wall Street reform. Working with them! LOLERZ. Tell us another one, Jimmy!

A Reckoning

I feel ill. Numb and ill.


Salah Ahmed Al-Salami

Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi

Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani



Those are the names of the men I am complicit in killing.

Those are the names of the men who were murdered in my name.

Those are the names of men still awaiting justice.

Get Ready To Fire It Up

Angus Reid finds that a majority of Americans (53%) support the legalization of marijuana. 68% think the "War On (Some) Drugs" has been a failure.

Those numbers aren't even particularly split down party lines. 61& of Dems, 55% on Indies and (surprisingly) 43% of Pubs support legalization.

With the entire Left Coast looking at legislation and/or ballot measures to decriminalize the devil weed (and, hopefully, start making some tax revenue off the sale of it) it seems like it's just a matter of time before more states follow suit.

Next step will be to empty the prisons of all those locked up on pot charges.

Are There No Prisons? Are There No Workhouses?

It's a few weeks late, but Rep. Steve King does his best Scrooge impression anyway:

The Obama administration said today that tens of thousands of illegal Haitian immigrants can remain temporarily in the U.S. while their country rebuilds after Tuesday's devastating earthquake.

The announcement to grant "temporary protective status," or TPS, to Haitian nationals allows immigrants already in the U.S. to live and work freely here until conditions in Haiti improve. After 18 months the status could be revoked.

...

While several liberal groups and members of Congress had urged the administration to declare TPS for Haitians, conservative immigration groups, as well as a Republican congressman, had said such a move would amount to a slippery slope to "amnesty."

"This sounds to me like open borders advocates exercising the Rahm Emanuel axiom: 'Never let a crisis go to waste,'" Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said in an e-mail message to ABCNews. "Illegal immigrants from Haiti have no reason to fear deportation, but if they are deported, Haiti is in great need of relief workers, and many of them could be a big help to their fellow Haitians."

Funny. With Haiti in such desperate need of relief workers, I don't see King hopping on an airplane and heading down to pitch in...

Every Little Bit

I'm going to donate half my poker winnings for the next little while to Haitian relief efforts.

As it turns out, my luck broke on FTP yesterday, and in the last two $3 90-seat KOs I've played I've notched two cashes, a 6th and a 2nd (one hand head's up when I was at a 3:1 chip disadvantage -- A4 vs A5, and the A5 held up... ah well.)

Clearly I have the Satanic powers of the Haitians to thank for that, since otherwise that's $27 bucks they wouldn't have collected. Right, Pat?