What's Up With That?

Check out that riff "renewable resource, yeah". Sweet.

Quote of the Day

"I believe that it's fair to say that we have either saved or created four turkeys."

- President Obama, November 25th, 11:46pm said while performing the traditional Thanksgiving pardon.

Put your money where your mouth is

Do you believe we should work to lower the deficit?
Do you support a troop surge in Afghanistan (estimated at $1M per solider / per year)? Great.

Now pay for it.

Dubbed the “Share the Sacrifice Act,” the six-page bill exempts anyone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan since the 2001 terrorist attacks as well as families who have lost an immediate relative in the fighting. But middle-class households earning between $30,000 and $150,000 would be asked to pay 1% on top of their tax liability today — a more sweeping approach than many Democrats have been willing to embrace.

Hat tip to Matthew Yglesias at ThinkProgress. Read the full post here.

John Mayer - Battle Studies review

Overall, this new album has received some favorable reviews and received some not so favorable. Here's my review below.

If you're looking for John Mayer to completely eclipse his latest release of Continuum, look somewhere else, because you're not going to find it here.

If you're looking for a compilation of well-crafted songs which mix a bit of country, folk, blues R&B and rock all into one, then Battle Studies is as good and strong as any other John Mayer release.

In my opinion, very few artists can describe the intricacies of relationships as well as Mayer can, and his breakup with Jennifer Aniston has provided him plenty of material to work with.

In "Assassin", Mayer is at his most interesting both lyrically and sonically as the song opens with mallet instruments as a constant murmuring backdrop while Mayer adeptly provides his own whisper backup vocals describing the inner fight between his impulse to seduce the girl in the night and leave: "you never leave a trace or show your face/ you get gone" and be seduced by a longer-term loving commitment which is nicely supported by a lovely major chorus of Mayer overdubbing himself. "suddenly I'm in over my head / and I can hardly breathe." Apparently this inner debate is all irrelevant anyway as this "girl" has more tricks up her sleeve than he realizes, John turns up the dial on his fender strat (I'm guessing here) electric guitar to eleven - cue the shredding:

"I was a killer, was the best they'd ever seen /
I'd steal your heart before you ever heard a thing /
I'm an assassin and I had a job to do /
Little did I know, that girl was an assassin too."

An artist or musician's work should reflect the life he's experienced during that period. Battle Studies gives no indication as to who broke the relationship off, but it appears that John met his match in Jennifer.

Key tracks: Half of My Heart (w/Taylor Swift), Assassin, Edge of Desire

Why I support President Obama

Hillary Clinton, explaining the Afghanistan review process to Charlie Rose.



As I've said to friends before, it's not the what that President Obama does in office it's the how.

Would I like to see a healthcare bill with a reasonable public option pass (perhaps in states that only have one or two insurers)? Yes.
Would I like to see some sort of viable carbon tax bill pass? Yes.
Would I like to see the President move more forcefully on repealing the ban on gays in the military? Yes.

Even if he failed on all of these fronts (which there's a strong possibility he might) I would still support him. Why? That's sounds completely illogical.

Because I supported the President not for the decisions he makes but for how he goes about it. He's deliberate and incisive and seeks multiple opinions outside his own, just ask Republicans Olympia Snowe, Chuck Grassley and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

All I ask is that our President, regardless of party, thinks through every decision he or she makes with care and with all of the information and opinions available. There's so much pressure on Obama to make this decision and view it as some sort of insight into his strength or weakness as a leader.

Look guys, we all get it. Democrats are pussies who are afraid to fight wars (although you might want to refer to Presidents Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Kennedy/Johnson). Our soldiers don't deserve a leader who thinks he kicks ass just because he made a quick and final decision. They deserve a leader that puts their safety above his own ego.

Neocons are just weak nerds who wish they were dumb bullies

KRISTOL: I was very struck also by Janet Napolitano’s comment, I hadn’t read it before to see her say that, that the number one priority is to bring him to justice is such a knee-jerk comment and such a stupid comment. He’s going to be brought to justice. He is not going to be innocent of murder. There are a lot of eyewitnesses to that. They should just go ahead and convict him and put him to death.

Here's Bill Kristol advocating that the United States just skip the trial of Nidal Hasan and put him to death already. I find it incredibly interesting that these types of guys find themselves to be so macho. They've advocated the bombing of Iran and further confrontation with North Korea. They find no limits to the use of military power and why should they? They are just weak nerds who would never have the balls to put their own lives on the line. Believe me, if Bill Kristol were in Fort Hood or being held by terrorists he would convert to Islam before you finished this sentence.

There are no consequences to their rhetoric because they've never had to face a bully or a terrorist and I believe that they live vicariously through their own foreign policy ideology. They get to fight the bully (whatever imagined bully that is) without facing the consequences of their own demise. And to kick it all off, they put in harm's way all the dumb fucks who pushed them around and fucked their girlfriends, because they were busy studying Machiavelli's The Prince.

I've forgiven my bullies, I have no complex about winning wars and putting people to death just so I can feel like a strong man. I want my bullies to be as safe as possible. I don't want these guys dying for something that isn't strategically important to the security and safety of the United States. I don't think Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Hugh Hewitt and the like have gotten over their insecurities of being weak nerds, they should just embrace it and start wearing their helmets when they ride their bikes.

Nidal Hasan should be put to death for his crimes. But we are a nation of laws and we show the strength of our democracy not by carrying out the sentencing of the verdicts juries render, but by the fact that we give every criminal, no matter how depraved their crimes, a full and fair trial with a fully funded defense.

We win the war on terror by not becoming them. We eat bacon cheeseburgers, we smoke pot, we let our girlfriends and wives go to work and make more money than us, we let gays marry, we make fun of our leaders and we make fun of our country but we ALWAYS uphold the Constitution, regardless of how painful it might be.

Chocolate milk is good for you!

Exposed in the New York Times of all places!


If only my Nana Mary-Ann were alive to see this. I was right when I told her at the tender age of 7 that chocolate milk was in-fact good for you because of all that milk part, but it turns out the chocolate helps as well!

The civil rights issue of our time

Here's Dan Savage doing what he does best.

Ok, here's what he does best.

Moderate Republican + Stephen Colbert

= Awesome

Better Know a District - Delaware's Mike Castle

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

Is there a better way?

Interesting and thoughtful article about medical malpractice and tort reform on Slate.

Jony Ive is a genius

Here's a clip from the upcoming movie about industrial design Objectified.

Liz Cheney always says that Waterboarding was legal...

If we really thought waterboarding was legal, would our memos really look like this? This memo is from a series of memos released last Friday, November 6th. Click the image below for a closer look.

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish.

Why the Democratic Healthcare bill is like a trip to Costco

It might cost a bit more upfront, but it will give us more stuff (coverage) and save us more in the long run. And that's not my opinion, it's the Congressional Budget Office's as David M. Herzenhorn of the New York Times writes in this article. Key passage below.

The Republican bill, which has no chance of passage, would extend insurance overage to about 3 million people by 2019, and would leave about 52 million people uninsured, the budget office said, meaning the proportion of non-elderly Americans with coverage would remain about the same as now, at roughly 83 percent.

The budget office has said that the Democrats’ health care proposal would extend coverage to 36 million people, meaning that 96 percent of legal residents would have health benefits. The Democrats’ bill would cost $1.1 trillion, with the costs more than covered by revenues from new taxes or cuts in government spending, particularly on Medicare.

House Republicans, including their leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, have said that they did not intend for their legislation to expand insurance coverage, because they viewed that goal as unaffordable. Instead, they said the bill was tailored narrowly to reduce costs.

According to the report by nonpartisan budget office, the Republican bill would reduce future federal deficits by $68 billion over 10 years, compared to a reduction of $104 billion by the House Democrats’ legislation.

Quote of the Day

Pedro Martinez on today's Game 6 of the World Series:

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all,’’ said a smiling Martinez. “I know they don’t like the Yankees to win, not even in Nintendo games. And knowing that I am part of Boston, I consider myself a Bostonian . . . I’m pretty sure that every Boston fan out there can feel proud that I’m going to try to beat the Yankees, and I’m going to give just the same effort I always did for them. They’re special fans, and they will always have my respect.’’

Vote 'No' on the Gay Marriage Repeal in Maine!

Dear Mainers,

As someone who has spent countless summers in one of the most beautiful places in the country and the world, I know that Mainers believe in civil rights for everybody. Even if many Mainers do not agree with gay marriage, they know that it is extremely unlike them to tell another person how to live his or her life, so long as it does not interfere with their own.

Mainers are all for independent moral living, and a 'No' vote today does nothing to change that, in fact it embraces it.

Come on Maine. Set an example and ensure that it remains the place where 'the way life should be'.