Huckleberries Online

Hump Day Wild Card — 3/11/09

Posted by DFO

March 11, 2009 5:57 p.m. • 65 comments

In the news this evening: Bristol Palin kicks her baby’s father to the curb here (H/T: CYRTS). A King County judge refuses to stop a Washington killer’s scheduled Friday execution here. The richest people in the world have gotten poorer, like the rest of us, here. Obama taps Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske as his next drug czar here. 41% of America thinks that global warming is ‘exaggerated’ here. And the Wild Card remains in play …

65 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

poolman on March 11 at 11:15 a.m.
Seems Demo strategist James Carville said he wanted George Bush to fail, moments before learning of the 9/11 attacks…

What a lame attempt to defuse the - Rush as the current figurehead of the GOP situation. GOPers, like it or not, you are married to that fat ass moron. He will continue to dismantled your party and render you weaker each time he opens his enormous pie-hole. Nice try FOX - Bringing up a Carville quote from 8 years ago isn’t helping your cause one bit. Also – there is a huge difference between making that type of comment BEFORE an event than saying it while people are hanging on by their fingernails.
toadman on March 11 at 11:32 a.m.
Carville is as much of a non-entity as Rush SHOULD be, and he eats road-kill. Also, I think he’s due back on the mothership soon.
toadman on March 11 at 11:34 a.m.
I know it’s not very fair and balanced of me, but I’d be more than happy to see ALL cable news stations become marginalized by people who realize they’re all a bunch of self absorbed ratings whores who are ruining civil discourse and civil society in America with their inanities.
Cabbage Boy on March 11 at 2:02 p.m.
Interesting story about a film director putting a camera in his prosthetic eye.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29637477/wid/11915829?GT1=40006
JohnA on March 11 at 2:40 p.m.
CB: ‘film director putting a camera in his prosthetic eye’

Great story. I was a little curious, however, about this: “His special equipment will consist of a camera originally designed for colonoscopies”

Sounds like a great gift for people who regularly have their heads up their behinds.
Cabbage Boy on March 11 at 2:44 p.m.
JohnA,

I enjoyed that line too. I was thinking, hopefully they sanitized it first. Wouldn’t want him giving anyone the stink-eye.
cantyoureadthesigns on March 11 at 2:46 p.m.
Say it ain’t so, Joe!

“The teen love affair that rocked last year’s presidential race is over.

Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol, has ditched her baby daddy, Levi Johnston!

Now’s Levi’s sister, Mercede is telling all exclusively to Star and the picture she paints of life in Wasilla, Alaska is not a pretty one. Bristol, 18, has virtually cut Levi out of the life of their two-month-old son Tripp.
…
”

http://www.starmagazine.com/bristol_palin_levi_split/news/15341

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2009/03/bristol-palin-levi-johnston-break-off-engagement.php

Well, this IS a gossip blog, right, like the Cavers say…
JohnA on March 11 at 3:00 p.m.
Yeah, CB. I’d keep an eye out for that one. :)
Cabbage Boy on March 11 at 3:10 p.m.
Can’tRead,

Funniest line, Bristol doesn’t want the baby around white trash. So sez the sister of the Levi spilling her story to a pay-to-talk tabloid.

Sounds like Bristol has it right.
JohnA on March 11 at 3:14 p.m.
CB, did you hear what happened to his first camera prototypes?

Yep. Rectum.
Cabbage Boy on March 11 at 3:22 p.m.
JohnA, where the pun is ALWAYS intended. Now stop punning around.

So if the guy has some strange dreams, does he chalk it up to the memory in the camera?
cantyoureadthesigns on March 11 at 3:43 p.m.
“toadman on March 11 at 11:34 a.m.

I know it’s not very fair and balanced of me, but I’d be more than happy to see ALL cable news stations become marginalized by people who realize they’re all a bunch of self absorbed ratings whores who are ruining civil discourse and civil society in America with their inanities.”

Like these inanities?

“News broadcasts just love to talk about Jesus. In a quirky, mocking way! Mostly their coverage is limited to people who find Jesus (and sometimes Mary) in various items. Sandwiches, cats, lampposts, etc. A compilation:”

http://gawker.com/5167568/finally-jesus
toadman on March 11 at 3:51 p.m.
wow Cant.. yeah. exactly.

I remember the time I saw Jesus in the taped up tail light of a 1988 Lincoln Continental. It was majestic.

Also.. remind me sometime and I’ll tell you a funny Texas story about a guy named Jesus who called my elementary school when I was a kid.

;-)
cantyoureadthesigns on March 11 at 4:14 p.m.
Latest smear on Rush by Carville:

“Remarkably, voters view Limbaugh negatively by a two-to-one ratio (53 to 26 percent), with nearly half the country, 45 percent, viewing him very, very negatively. Among independents, the ratio rises to three-to-one. More important are the values that Limbaugh espouses. By a nearly two-to-one ratio (57 to 32 percent) a majority of voters – and independents – say Limbaugh does not “share their values,” but Republicans are in a different world where, by two-to-one, they believe he shares them.”

http://www.democracycorps.com/strategy/2009/03/rush-limbaugh-weighs-down-heavily-on-republicans/

Rush supporters counter with Leave Rush Alone!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUFNgheTMZ0
hmoffsuite on March 11 at 4:37 p.m.
Glad to see that MY stimulus tax dollars are going to a good democrat cause …

“BOSTON – More than one out of every five dollars of the $126 million Massachusetts is receiving in earmarks from a $410 billion federal spending package is going to help preserve the legacy of the Kennedys.

The bill includes $5.8 million for the planning and design of a building to house a new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate. The funding may also help support an endowment for the institute.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090311/ap_on_re_us/spending_kennedy_legacy
Phaedrus on March 11 at 5:46 p.m.
According to the article you quote the money IS NOT coming from the Economic Recovery Act, but from the Omnibus spending bill. I imagine if one were to read through all the reported 8500 earmarks they would discover quite a few that favor the other political party too.
zelda on March 11 at 6:33 p.m.
How dare you mock finding Jesus in a grilled-cheese sandwich?! That’s my plan for riding out the recession. I’m buying bags of snack foods looking for ambiguous blobs. I figure whatever doesn’t look like Jesus probably lresembles the Virgin Mary, Elvis or Jim Morrison. You just have to know how to market what you find.
hmoffsuite on March 11 at 7:07 p.m.
Phaedrus. All the spending is what it is. Democrats have complete control, as you know. It’s your ballgame now. Good or bad. I’ll live with it just fine but have concerns about how bad it might really get for folks close to the edge. I happen to think that Obama has been very irresponsible with his spending and hurry up legislation.
Stickman on March 11 at 7:21 p.m.
Toad, come by sometime, I want to hear the story.
idawa on March 11 at 7:29 p.m.
“richest people in the world have gotten poorer, like the rest of us” - duh.

Sad to see that all this wealth creation is disappearing - a big question is if it will ever return. I listened to a lecture the other day where the professor was presenting some interesting statistics. At the start of the great depression, the top 1% of American held about 40% of her wealth, over the next 60 years of progressive politics from FDR to Carter, that number shrunk such that the top 1% only had 10-15% of her wealth. After the conservative revolution, that pendulum swung again such that recent number have put the top 1% at over 25-28% of the nation’s wealth. Clearly, those number are rapidly eroding. Unfortunately, as the top people loose their wealth it isn’t redistributed among the rest of us - it is just gone. (and yes, I’ve seen the CATO institute refutations of these numbers,and we all know what an unbiased org that is…) I think, invariably, whenever we get such asymmetrical wealth generation, it bodes ill for democracy and the nation. On the upside, perhaps this might be a resetting period…
hmoffsuite on March 11 at 7:44 p.m.
The way to make wealth distribution more equal isn’t by taking from the wealthy. It should be done by increasing the holdings of the less wealthy. If one guy has two horses and the other has one, you don’t kill one of the guys 2 horses to make them equal. You get the one horse man another horse so the both have two. Obama has so drastically changed the fabric of our Country, we will never be the same. Incentive, innovation and entrepeneurship have been severly compromised.
Cindy_H on March 11 at 8:06 p.m.
Here’s my two cents. Commenters should have one or two word names. CYRTS is just too darn long for my poor tired fingers :-)
idawa on March 11 at 8:20 p.m.
“Obama has so drastically changed the fabric of our Country, we will never be the same.” - hopefully. :)
hmoffsuite on March 11 at 8:23 p.m.
idawa >>> ““Obama has so drastically changed the fabric of our Country, we will never be the same.” - hopefully. :)

Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.
Phaedrus on March 11 at 9:02 p.m.
Obama has so drastically changed the fabric of our Country

In 50 days? Must not have been very good fabric.
hmoffsuite on March 11 at 9:05 p.m.
Phaedrus >> ” Must not have been very good fabric”

You tell me. It was the fabric that made this country what it is.
cantyoureadthesigns on March 11 at 9:38 p.m.
Cindy, CYRTS, or cyrts works fine for me. It’s two, two, two mints in one!

(Not to be confused with New Shimmer, that’s a floor wax. AND a dessert topping.)
hhuseland on March 11 at 9:38 p.m.
As I stagger toward bed, I would like to leave you all with a thought.

It seems that those of us that disagree with comments that applies to the opposite of our beliefs, believe they should be eliminated, are equally upset when the same is applied to them. Perhaps, just enforcing the freedom of speech part of the constitution would cover it all. You can’t rely on the law to strangle thought that differs from yours, nor should the law conversely deny yours.
Bent on March 11 at 10:13 p.m.
” Democrats have complete control, as you know…” —Hmoff

I’d like to come to your defense on this statement, Hmoff, but that just hasn’t been the case so far in this Congress. In fact, to pass the bill you cite above ( which Phaedrus correctly pointed out was the FY 2009 budget), it took 8 republican Senators (who insisted on specfic amendments) because a couple of democrats opposed the bill… This follows with all of the other major congressional movements, so far this session.

Think back Hmoff, the GOP isn’t driving the ship, but all of the big moves have been largely GOP dependent.

I agree with your statement that “it is what it is,” but you would do yourself some good by opening your mind a bit on this subject (big picture appropriations) and educating yourself.

That’s not meant to be a slight. I’m just saying if you’re going to spend this kind of energy on these subjects, you should get the benefit of being accurate once in awhile.

Plus, this is the most facinating Congress I have witnessed in years. If you watch it play out in traditional partisan glasses, you’re going to miss the show…

P.S. I want in that beer when you get back…
cantyoureadthesigns on March 11 at 11:13 p.m.
Very good analysis, Bent.

And when Frankin is seated, there will be fewer trade-offs the Dems with have to do to get a Republican senator’s vote, as they’ll have another solid Dem vote.
Phaedrus on March 12 at 7:46 a.m.
Senator Crapo voted against the Omnibus spending bill even though he had inserted his own earmarks into this legislation. Will he claim credit for voting against this “wasteful spending” and credit for bringing money to Idaho?
hmoffsuite on March 12 at 7:51 a.m.
Phaedrus >>> “Will he claim credit for voting against this “wasteful spending” and credit for bringing money to Idaho?”

Thats pretty much how it works, doesn’t it.
Whippersnapper on March 12 at 8:04 a.m.
Idawa: “…over the next 60 years of progressive politics from FDR to Carter, that number shrunk such that the top 1% only had 10-15% of her wealth…After the conservative revolution, that pendulum swung again such that recent number have put the top 1% at over 25-28% of the nation’s wealth…”

What? You give “progressive politics” all the credit for the rise of the middle class and you give the Republicans in the recent past all the credit for making the rich richer? What load of steaming crap.
It was the rise of labor-intensive heavy manufacturing in the war and post-war years that created the middle class we see (eroding) today and it was the flight of those jobs to Mexico/China/Taiwan that created a retail ownership class that is at the top of the wealth table.
And it’s the current green-crazy Democrats that will put the final nail in the coffin of manufacturing in the USA.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.