Submitted by shystee on Mon, 01/23/2006 - 7:30pm

Full disclosure: I am not a Kabbalist. No disrespect intended towards those who are. I did spend some time with Madonna, but we weren't exactly meditating, if you know what I mean.
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Although I agree almost completely with Daou's analysis, there are a couple of elements for which I would expand the structure: the influence of corporations and the nature of conventional wisdom.
1. Corporate Influence Read below the fold...
Submitted by MJS on Mon, 01/23/2006 - 5:07pm

AP Photo
My entry here:
Sebastian, the president called to tell us we're a threat to marriage or some-such thing. I told him he was nuts!
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Story from Boston.com
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Submitted by tom on Mon, 01/23/2006 - 3:35pm
They are going to the 9/11 well again. They say that Democrats are sending talking points to Osama and giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Rove says we don't believe that the government should monitor al Qaeda's telephone calls. The next several months will be spent fending off accusations that if we don't let the president do anything he damned well pleases we are all going to die.
Read below the fold...
Submitted by MJS on Mon, 01/23/2006 - 2:48pm
Submitted by lambert on Mon, 01/23/2006 - 12:45pm
AP
Ford Motor Co., the nation's second-largest automaker, said Monday that it will cut 25,000 to 30,000 jobs and idle 14 facilities by 2012 as part of a restructuring designed to reverse a $1.6 billion loss last year in its North American operations.
The cuts represent 20 percent to 25 percent of Ford's North American work force of 122,000 people.
Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Mon, 01/23/2006 - 12:22pm
Submitted by lambert on Sun, 01/22/2006 - 11:27pm
A rash of comment spam broke out tonight--not the Chinese stuff, but a more clever variety that puts a paragraph of superficially relevant content followed by the usual links to viagra, etc.
So, fearing a flood of spam if I didn't do something fast, I reactivated the "Bad Behavior" module. That has killed off the spam in the past, but it has a downside: Occasional false positives for legitimate posters; if you've experienced this, we've probably corresponded--there's an extremely detailed and puzzling error message. Read below the fold...
Submitted by MJS on Sun, 01/22/2006 - 5:35pm

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(Jivester News, Lmtd.) In a strongly-worded rebuke against "those who can be easily rebuked" the White House has issued a statement declaring the Constitution of the United States as being "without warrant and wholly un-actionable" and "frankly, kind of brittle and crackly." Read below the fold...
Submitted by shystee on Sun, 01/22/2006 - 2:47am

Peter Daou,THE TRIANGLE: Limits of Blog Power:
Looking at the political landscape, one proposition seems unambiguous: blog power on both the right and left is a function of the relationship of the netroots to the media and the political establishment. Forming a triangle of blogs, media, and the political establishment is an essential step...
Read below the fold...
Submitted by captain nemo (not verified) on Sun, 01/22/2006 - 12:46am
Sidney Blumenthal that is. And, unsurprisingly, in a British source (OpenDemocracy.net), not an American one.
This is it. The whole story. While citations go back to the Credit Mobilier Congressional-bribery scandal (of 1873) this is not a dry discourse in ancient history. It is in fact the disgusting story of the Republican scandal of the last 12 years. Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Sat, 01/21/2006 - 11:38pm
The normally level-headed Harry Reid apologized to the Republicans for a memo that named names of corrupt Republicans in the Abramoff scandal. [Hey, "corrupt Republicans is not redundant language. Not all Republicans are corrupt. After all, some of them are dead!] So now the Republicans want the staffer who wrote the memo fired. See what you get for apologizing? The Republicans just think you're weak and fuck you harder. Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Sat, 01/21/2006 - 10:56pm
Submitted by leah on Sat, 01/21/2006 - 12:48pm
Not that you didn't know that.
Still, what I watched on MSNBC on Friday is beyond thought, beyond endurance.
Hardball has a new weekly feature - the Hardball All-Stars; Original, no? Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Sat, 01/21/2006 - 8:50am
Submitted by lambert on Fri, 01/20/2006 - 11:55pm
Via Pharyngula, Molly Ivins, who, though a shy person, gets up and does what needs to be done:
AUSTIN, Texas --- I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.
Read below the fold...
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