Friday + Weekend Open Thread

Or more accurately, EPA cheif Stephen Johnson? Today we are greeted with a new "rule" that doesn't have to pass through Congress (gee, what a surprise) that is going to change the way pollution is monitored from the most sensitive sites. Rather than track the actual pollution/timeframe as it is now (to understand and see pollution peaks & peak pollution times of day) they are going to average everything over the course of a whole year.

I know when bush43 left Texas he left a legacy as the govenor who opened his state up to the nations worst pollution controls. He didn't have any controls. All his regulations issued were "voluntary"! Guess what? Industry thanked him with big dollars to his Presidential campaign and never lifted a finger to control pollution. It wasn't until the next poor SOB govenor took over (a republican) where the charade of pollution control caught up to the state of Texas and they finally issued actual regulations.

I'd say bush43 is trying to do the same thing on a national scale.

I sure hope this one gets thrown out by the courts as well. it isn't in the countries best interests, only industries bigger profit margins.

on high-stakes campaigns, senatorials votes and politics .

Media guru David Broder is the unsuspecting exposeur

once again try to use queer bashing as an electoral strategy. This is probably the last election where it'll buy them anything outside of the Ozarks.

I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.

See the story here .

Ohio has effectively shut the door on payday lending. The state legislature -- a bunch of nanny do-gooders -- recognized the seen: the closing of 1,600 payday stores and the loss of some 6,000 jobs. But these same folks missed the unseen: the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars invested in these businesses; with investment losses to be suffered by many, unknown Ohioans.

Of course, these losses are bound to ripple through Ohio's rust belt economy, creating unpredictable effects.

I would also add the inconvenience that the outlawing of this service will put on lower income Ohioans in cases when timing is crucial and the service is most useful.

Balloon Juice today talks about John McCains speech yesterday:

"Sullivan asks: “And did Bush’s Nazi silliness unwittingly stomp on McCain’s big speech today?”

To which I respond, if McCain is lucky...There is no answer. The whole speech is made up. It is all, every last word of it, pure fantasy. There was no outlining of plans, no presentation of facts that would lead you to believe all of the things he “sees” in his “vision” will come to pass- it was nothing but pure nonsense. Here is a partial list of things he sees in his “vision”:

We “win” in Iraq. No mention of what “winning” actually means.

The Taliban is “defeated.” How? Who knows?

We have a bigger Army and bigger Marine corps, and they are “better” trained and “better” equipped.

Bin Laden will be dead.

The economy will be “growing.”

New trade agreements leading to increased exports. Who are the agreements with? Who knows? What are we exporting? Who cares?

Health care will be “affordable.” How? FORCE OF WILL, BABY. Don’t you know John McCain is a veteran!

And on and on and on it goes. He might as well have also promised to cure AIDS, give everyone a PONY, and promised time travel.

And what is so amazing about it is that most of the press seems to have taken this… seriously. Why was he not laughed off the stage? Why, after eight years of an administration making their own reality, is this buffoon offering us visions and people are not throwing tomatoes at him? This is insanity, plain and simple."

Amen brother, amen.

Obama's response to John McCain's allegation that Obama is soft on our enemies, speech at the NRA.

What's reckless is continuing the Bush-McCain foreign policy that has cost us thousands of lives and a trillion dollars in Iraq, strengthened Iran, enabled Hamas to take Gaza, took our eye off al Qaeda, failed to capture Osama bin Laden, failed to finish the job in Afghanistan, and left us less safe and less respected in the world. No amount of utterly predictable fear-mongering and tough talk can change the fact that John McCain is running to continue the most disastrous foreign policy in recent American history.

Delicious.

Running against Hillary made it more difficult for him to come on strong as her supporters are hypersensitive due to the gender 'issue'. He is free from those constraints when he responds to McCain.

I look forward to a rigorous debate between McCain and Obama. In fact, I can't wait!

It is the economy, stupid.

Taking a too-brief break from dissertation revisions. What'd I miss?

I'm curious what people think about the California marriage decision. What's interesting is that all the justices seemed to think that the 2000 ban didn't meet CA standards for strict scrutiny, so the real reasons for the split decision dealt with how to handle that: 4 believed that the implications required extending marriage to same-sex couples, and 3 did not. Even more promising, the Republican justices seemed to agree that a ban was against the spirit of the CA constitution, and now the governor is coming out against the proposed November ban. If the Democratic presidential nominee can rally voters against the ban, there's a real chance it won't pass.

If I can be completely self-centered for a moment: it's hard for me to read the decision with a clear head, because it means something very specific for me: I'm getting married in a few months. Sweet! No time to plan anything, because we expect a serious possibility of its being reversed in November, but we'll be signing the documents before then. Who knows, they might still be worth something down the road. Legal documents don't burn.

In the meantime, I'll be done with all this work in the next couple days, so expect to see more of me around. Cheers!

Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce