Nifty interactive chart at the NYT showing the economic cycles of the past four decades. You gotta go through all the pages - the last one is particularly cool, and at least a little bit hopeful.

h/t: Andrew Sullivan

being charged or having a trial.  It did this because King George routinely held people without charge or trial till they died in jail. 

One of the things that fried my ass about Darth & dubya's America was that they routinely ignored the Constitution for what they claimed was 'the greater good'.  But it wasn't.  It was never greater and it was never good as far as repecting the words and spirit of our laws and our Constitution.

Now I see Obama doing the very same thing and I can't tell you how sad, disappointed and angry I am with them to be equally willing to sacrifice our Constitution for their own purposes.  Just today some yahoo made the case that if one of the Guantanamo detainees was tried in a court of law and aquitted, the President would have it within his rights to continue to hold that person in military detention for as long as 'the President sees fit'.  How is that constitutional?  How is that upholding the laws rights and spirit of America?  How is that any different from King George?

I wish I was standing here pointing out the paradox of the right who claim to love America more than any 'other' Americans and they love it so much they can flout the laws as they see fit to uphold 'their' America.  But I can't do that today.  I can't do that because some yahoo, the AG & the President think they can still carry on with the worst of George Bush's unconstitutional actions.

I wish this very situation would allow the righties, who love nothing better than to stick it to a successful Democrat, in this case President Obama, and the libertarians & liberals who don't trust the government to be run like a monarchy, but to actually uphold and live by the laes and spirit that made us what we are and pass a law limiting Presidential power.  Hell, pass a Constitutional Amendment stating that no one can dis-obey the Constitution in the name of expediency or in the name of America.  But I don't think the right would support it.  Most of them really believe it's OK to torture for a reason.  Most of them think it's OK to hold people without charging them for ever.  Sadly, as recent events have shown, there are some crazy Democrats that think doing exactly what George Bush did is now OK.  Like it only matters when the other team is running the show.  That's the way they think.  That isn't good enough for this liberal.

President Barack Obama promised Pope Benedict on Friday that he would do everything possible to reduce the number of abortions in the United States, the Vatican said.

...oh, I'm sure he did...pffsst...I'm sure he did.