BDBlue's blog

From Michael J. Smith:

We all of course remember how important it was to elect a Democrat a couple of years ago, for the sake of the Supreme Court. I haven't checked with Dailiy Kos on this one, but no doubt there are Cheerybles there ready to assure us that McCain would have certainly found somebody worse.

Read below the fold...

Nancy Pelosi and the DCCC offered me a framed photo of Obama signing health insurance bailout reform (along with a personalized letter from Barney Frank (D-Wall Street) that I didn't bother to read). Needless to say, the offer didn't inspire me to open up my checkbook for $50. Instead I scrawled "single payer" across it and sent it back. At DCCC expense, of course.

It's the best I've felt when thinking about the Democrats in at least two years. Read below the fold...

I don't have much to say about the underlying issues in this post, but I wanted to share it because it's beautifully written and gives us all much to think about. Not the least of which is that we have no idea what is and isn't true about all kinds of things in our world.

The Crow's Eye has become one of my favorite small blogs. Beautiful, thoughtful writing. Read below the fold...

The depravity appears to be endless. First, children. Now, women:

The Catholic Church in Rome made the extraordinary admission yesterday that it is aware priests from at least 23 countries have been sexually abusing nuns.

Mostly poor women, mostly women of color: Read below the fold...

Digby ponders:

Why the White House doesn't want the Democrats to have even one issue that speaks to the electorate's populist fervor this fall is a question for the age.

Hmmm, let's see if we can come up with some clues:

Lobbying
Top Industries

2009

Industry Total

Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $263,377,975
Business Associations $183,038,730
Oil & Gas $168,282,324
Insurance $163,829,335
Electric Utilities $144,095,503
Computers/Internet $118,921,233
Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $111,573,255
TV/Movies/Music $107,276,953
Hospitals/Nursing Homes $107,106,372
Education $98,591,135
Securities & Investment $92,718,208

Read below the fold...

Our house has a small fenced yard and a brick patio. Along one side the previous owner planted vines in one of the few areas not bricked. In addition, we have vines crawling down the fence from the house next door.

I hate vines. They provide a great place for rats and mosquitos. They put pressure on the fence (which is wood) and destroy mortar between bricks. They're also taking up the space along the sides of the brick patio where I want to grow vegetables and other useful plants.

I'd like to remove them as much as possible without poisoning the land or myself beyond what is necessary. I've tried to pull the ones in our yard out, but they are stubborn little devils. Read below the fold...

You don't say?

To insurance companies, the language of the law is not so clear.

Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions. But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the “availability of coverage” for all until 2014.

Read below the fold...

[Welcome, Ms. Smith -- lambert]

As I mentioned to lambert and Ms. Smith, when I first proposed this discussion I knew two things: 1) that I wanted to encourage as many people as possible to read the book and 2) that I'd want to discuss the book with others. I had no idea the author herself might stop by. No pressure.

The book is definitely worth reading and should be as widely read as possible because, as Ms. Smith notes in the book, "[t]he economy is far too important to all of us to leave to experts" especially when those experts' opinions are built on faulty assumptions and twisted for ideological reasons. And I do have lots of things I'm interested in discussing and I'm sure I'm not alone. Read below the fold...

Via John Caruso (and do read his entire hilarious and depressing post), Greenpeace tries to rally support to urge Barack Obama to step in and save the whales from Barack Obama. I actually feel sorry for them. Betrayal isn't any fun. Plus, it's really bad for whales and other living things.

But, hey, at least now maybe Japan will continue to help finance our bailout of Wall Street and our on-going wars! Read below the fold...

That Mike Lux calls the final push for the health insurance bill a boiler room operation. Read below the fold...

So while there's help in it, while there's a team victory in it, this bill perpetuates both corporate rent-seeking and systemic discrimination against women. Being probably the only bite at the apple we'll get, yes, I'm angry. Having been defined as some wiggy, far left-wing thing, when it's the unholy love child of Romney and McCain's plans, yes, I'm angry.

This was handled badly and the 'center' has been pushed farther towards unapologetic misogyny. So no, I'm not happy.

Read below the fold...

[The discussion is here. Yves is awesome. -- lambert] Read below the fold...

Barry Ritholtz gives a great, user-friendly explanation of not only how low interest rates created the housing bubble, but also their direct connection to Wall Street's decision to securitize crappy mortgages by the boatload and sell them (essentially the low interest rates created demand for the securitized assets). For those, like me, who can't always connect all the dots on the economic crisis, this is incredibly helpful.

Also, Greenspan sucks. Read below the fold...

I cannot think of a single member of Congress that deserves to be returned to office in November. Read below the fold...

In the run up to our March 18 discussion of Yves Smith's ECONned, here is Yves Smith for Dummies. Via, of course, Yves Smith.

Sample:

Yves Smith: The focus initially is on the Economists….and the argument is that the Crisis is actually rooted in bad economic theory.

Read below the fold...