But, then, you-all suspected that, with my links to Times articles.
This week, Gail Collins has written two columns that lead me to believe that she has reached the "sometimes you just have to laugh" stage. I'll sample each one and give links.
after the break...

The Supreme Court of the United States will soon announce a major decision on our lightly controlled system of campaign funding. Will it retain some limitations on corporate influence or will the court blow the lid off and cause a perpetual flood of unrestricted corporate contributions?

An additional outcome may surprise and shock the public.

If the Supreme Court overturns the lower court's decision, foreign nationals, corporations, and governments with partial ownership of U.S. corporations will, in effect, end up contributing to and influencing U.S. candidates in federal elections.

James Rosen | Washington | Nov 5

McClatchy - After an emotional debate over how to keep Americans safe, the Senate Thursday narrowly defeated an effort to prevent civilian trials in U.S. courts for the accused planners of the 9/11 attacks.

The Senate's 54-45 vote to reject the measure by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., opens the door for President Barack Obama to bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to trial in federal court, rather than the military commissions Graham helped create.

Obama has pledged to shutter the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by January and transfer some of its 220 detainees to the U.S. for trials in civilian courts.

Three Democrats — Jim Webb of Virginia and Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor — and independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut joined all 40 Senate Republicans in voting for the measure.

Speaking of irony, this is a classic.

It's a conversation I have all to frequently. And one I had just the other day.

"How much do you make a year?"

"About $35-40k."

"You work hard for your money?"

"Hell yeah, I'm in the landscaping business. But my taxes are too high. The government takes too much of my money to pay for welfare and gives it to immigrants."

"Who are your best customers?"

"Mostly people who live in Westlake and Tarrytown. (The wealthy areas of Austin.~spk)

"Do you have a retirement plan?"

"Social Security but that needs to be privatized so I can get better returns. Just look at the markets! I had a 401(k) but it got creamed after I got laid off."

"And you're business has a good health care plan?"

"No, I'm self-employed. But I'm going to get a health care plan soon. I don't want socialized medicine. I don't want to wait in line to see a doctor."

More after the jump.

November 3

BBC - US Democrats have lost ground in two key elections for governor, according to unofficial results.

Republican candidate Bob McDonnell has won in Virginia, while the race in the Democrat heartland of New Jersey is said to be too close to call.

USC religious studies professor Kevin Lewis has been thinking about the meaning of being lonesome in American culture. He’s written a new book that explores the theme of loneliness and lonesomeness that is pervasive in American art, from Emily Dickinson’s poems to country music lyrics, and analyzes why solitude is sometimes good.

The State/SC - To be an American is to have buried, deep within our collective DNA, a profound sense of the lonesome.

At least that is what USC religious studies professor Kevin Lewis has speculated during a long - and perhaps lonesome - intellectual trek through the landscape of American music, fiction, art and religion.

For all the cultural reflection on the meaning of e pluribus unum, he believes Americans are a people who understand the solitary ache in the heart, the twist in the gut. After all, he noted, who among us has not walked through "that lonesome valley" or traveled down an open highway with the wail of Hank Williams in our ears?

"That word lonesome seems to do so much more work in our vocabulary than in any other anglophone culture," he said. "Americans like lonesome."

His ruminations have borne fruit in a newly published book titled, simply, "Lonesome: The Spiritual Meanings of American Solitude." In this scholarly work, he explains how we are a people hard-wired to perceive and experience lonesomeness in a way that is far different from that of our counterparts on other continents.

William Fisher | New york | Nov 2

IPS - The state board responsible for licensing - and disciplining - psychologists in Louisiana is accused of turning a blind eye to serious allegations of abuse against one of its members, including complicity in beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions during his service as a senior advisor on interrogations for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

Nov 3

The Independent - In 2007, a Chicago estate agent stumbled across an astonishing visual archive of mid-century America. So began one man's mission to rediscover Vivian Maier: nanny, eccentric and 'photographer extraordinaire'

The timing, composition and realisation grab you. But it's the anonymous drama of the subjects that keeps you looking: who are the two men talking in earnest on the pier? What is running through the mind of the young black man caught in the mirror on a street corner? Yet in the case of the photos presented here, that mystery extends to the photographer herself. We know she was called Vivian Maier, that she took at least 30,000 shots in Chicago and New York in the 1950s and 1960s. For these few facts, we can thank a young Chicago estate agent called John Maloof, whose chance discovery of the Maier archive has brought publishing offers, invitations to exhibit Maier's work all over the world, and the hope, from some, that a new star of mid-century American photography may have been unearthed.

A couple of years ago, Maloof wasn't even that interested in photography. With real-estate business slow due to the credit crunch, he began to investigate a box of negatives he'd bought for a few hundred dollars at an auction as a possible source of archive photography for a neighbourhood history book. Maloof scanned a few of the negatives, liked what he saw, and bought himself a beginner's SLR camera. "Throughout that time, I'd compare my work to Vivian's and think, 'Wow, this isn't good for me.' She was teaching me photography. I bought some books by street photographers such as Harry Callahan, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lee Friedlander. I thought, she's special – doesn't anybody know?"

Amazing photographs

There is a great deal of truth in Barbara Ehrenreich's new book. Of course village media-folk don't see it that way. After all, it's much easier to compare her to Michael Moore than take her criticism seriously. But no one, in my opinion, is better at shattering dearly held American myths better than she is.

The gist of her criticism is pretty indisputable if you ask me. She writes that we live in a society where we are taught that unemployment is your fault--actually, pretty much every economic ill that befalls you--is your fault. It's not the fault of rogue bankers and criminal executives. It's not the fault of spineless politicians and failing institutions. It's your fault--you, the individual because you didn't pray, wish, or 'visualize' well enough to find a better job, or grow thinner or find a new and improved spouse, soulmate or whatever.

Look, the world is a rough place. And America is certainly a much easier place to live in than say Cambodia or sub-Saharan Africa. But that doesn't mean that economic life here is not cutthroat and brutal. That doesn't mean there isn't an elite in this country that's pillaging the place. Both are very real. And American's passion for the power of positive thinking, as she notes, "has become a potentially deadly weight – obscuring judgment and shielding us from vital information."

It also shields us from making rational decisions, decisions based on our economic self-interest as opposed to some phantom based self-esteem issues. Did you lose your house? Well, it's your fault. Work on your self-esteem and you'll be content with less.

Did your husband leave you because you are too fat? Never mind that an individual may have a genetic predisposition to obesity, or the simple reality that most people in the world don't grow old so gracefully? Well, it's your fault that you don't look like Brad Pitt or Uma Thurman. There's something wrong with you! Think positive and buy this new weight loss pill advertised on TV!

Are you unhappy? Has the stress of having $50,000 in unpayable medical bills got you down? Just lard yourself up with anti-depressants until you're too numb to give a shit.

It's the perfect prescription for elite control of a post-Modern society and the best way to curtail the growth of angry populism.

The Romans called it bread and circuses.

That just about sums up the Agricultural Industrial Complex's effort to take over the Ohio Constitution on Tuesday, so they can self-regulate, because, you know, it worked out so well on Wall Street and with Enron (to name 2 of, oh, a trillion examples)...

In any case, Facebook group here. Video below. Happy Monday all!

Linda Shen | Nov 2

Bloomberg - CIT Group Inc.’s decision to seek court protection probably will keep money flowing to bondholders and 1 million customers of the 101-year-old commercial lender. Shareholders and taxpayers won’t be as fortunate.

CIT’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy may give bondholders new notes at 70 cents on the dollar plus new common stock, and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Peek said clients will be able to get funds. Common stock owners could be mostly wiped out, and the U.S. Treasury Department said it won’t recoup much, if any, of the $2.33 billion of taxpayer money that went into CIT, the largest firm to go bankrupt after getting a federal bailout.

“It doesn’t look too good for the government preferred or any preferred holders,” Brian Charles, a debt analyst at New York-based brokerage RW Pressprich & Co., said yesterday. “It’s unlikely common shareholders realize any value.”

Triumph of the Money Party

Michael Collins

Do you know what the "public option" does or who it covers? If you've had trouble finding out, it's not your fault. Reading corporate media coverage provides little or no clue. It's hardly ever defined. There's a very good reason for the lack of clarity and definition. But first, a brief summary of the public debate that characterizes just about every public debate we have on critical issues.

Monica Davey | Evanston, IL | October 24

NYT - For more than a decade, classes of students at Northwestern University’s journalism school have been scrutinizing the work of prosecutors and the police. The investigations into old crimes, as part of the Medill Innocence Project, have helped lead to the release of 11 inmates, the project’s director says, and an Illinois governor once cited those wrongful convictions as he announced he was commuting the sentences of everyone on death row.

But as the Medill Innocence Project is raising concerns about another case, that of a man convicted in a murder 31 years ago, a hearing has been scheduled next month in Cook County Circuit Court on an unusual request: Local prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of the journalism students themselves.

The prosecutors, it seems, wish to scrutinize the methods of the students this time. The university is fighting the subpoenas.

Brad Knickerbocker | Augusta, ME | October 31

CSM - “As Maine goes, so goes the nation” is a political cliché long since out of use.

But with Tuesday’s election there, both sides in the fierce debate over same-sex marriage are hoping the outcome not only favors them but sends a clear message to the rest of the United States.

In May, the Maine Legislature passed a law legalizing gay marriage, and after initially opposing it Gov. John Baldacci signed the measure. If approved, “Question 1” on Tuesday’s ballot would overturn the new law.

Walter Pincus | Washington | November 1

WaPo - Number of names on terrorist watch list at 400,000, agency says

Newly released FBI data offer evidence of the broad scope and complexity of the nation's terrorist watch list, documenting a daily flood of names nominated for inclusion to the controversial list.

During a 12-month period ended in March this year, for example, the U.S. intelligence community suggested on a daily basis that 1,600 people qualified for the list because they presented a "reasonable suspicion," according to data provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee by the FBI in September and made public last week.

Frank Clifford | Los Alamos, NM | November 1

LAT - Radioactive debris has been found in canyons that drain into the Rio Grande, but officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory say there's no health risk.

More than 60 years after scientists assembled the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lethal waste is seeping from mountain burial sites and moving toward aquifers, springs and streams that provide water to 250,000 residents of northern New Mexico.

Isolated on a high plateau, the Los Alamos National Laboratory seemed an ideal place to store a bomb factory's deadly debris. But the heavily fractured mountains haven't contained the waste, some of which has trickled down hundreds of feet to the edge of the Rio Grande, one of the most important water sources in the Southwest.

Damn these guys are good. At fucking us over, that is. Remember when the public rose up and rejected the TARP bail-out? Congressmen were flooded with calls, did their duty and voted against the bill. Then the propoganda machine went to work. A few meaningless concessions were made, the bill was repackaged and passed.

Not only are you going to eat shit, you're going to like eating shit. Got it?

Now it appears Ron Paul's audit the fed bill is doomed to similar fate. Congress can't ignore public outcry for tranparency so they're busy removing teeth from the bill. They'll pass some meaningless drivel that allows the powers that be to continue fucking us over and claim victory on behalf of the American public.

Ain't democracy wonderful?

Washington | October 30

CNN - The Senate has formally confirmed Dr. Regina Benjamin [wiki] to be the U.S. surgeon general, making her only the third African American to hold the position as the nation's top doctor.

The Senate nod came by a voice vote Thursday night, an expression of unanimous consent of both parties.

Jeanette Steele | San Diego | Oct 30

San Diego Union Tribune - As rescuers plan to search into the night for nine service members missing after a Thursday aircraft collision off San Clemente Island, aviation officials are looking at how a hulking Coast Guard plane crashed into a Camp Pendleton helicopter in good weather.

“All of our available assets are on the scene searching,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Allyson Conroy of the Coast Guard. Two helicopters and six cutters are scouring a 644-square-mile area around the island, which is about 70 miles west of San Diego.

But the chances of anyone surviving through another night in the 50-to 60-degree ocean looks increasingly dim, and the Pentagon has said it's unlikely anyone survived.

The Coast Guard has found debris, including aircraft wreckage, in a stretch roughly 12 miles long by 5 miles wide. No bodies have been recovered, Conroy said.

Washington | October 29

ACLU - President Obama today signed into law a Homeland Security appropriations bill that grants the Department of Defense (DOD) the authority to continue suppressing photos of prisoner abuse. The amendment, which would allow the DOD to exempt photos from the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA), is aimed at photos ordered released by a federal appeals court as part of an American Civil Liberties Union FOIA lawsuit for photos and other records related to detainee abuse in U.S. custody overseas, although it would apply to other photos in government custody as well. Earlier this month, the ACLU sent a letter to Secretary Robert Gates urging him not to exercise the authority to suppress the photos in their case, stating that the photos "are of critical relevance to an ongoing national debate about accountability."

Americans love to pay lip service to the idea of education. But let's face it, when the rubber hits the pedal to the metal (purposely mixed metaphor) Americans don't give a fuck. Exhibit one is here. And it ain't pretty. The story out of the New York Times magazine documents a public higher educational system that is rapidly being privatized in all but name. It also documents a system that has shifted it's focus to educating the children from lower income families to one that seeks out prosperous out of state students. It further describes a system that is raising prices almost as fast as healthcare and failing in its primary mission of providing an inexpensive education for all Americans. Lastly, it's clearly a system that the separate states have simply abandoned financially.

I'm an absolutist when it comes to education. Higher education should be subsidized, if not completely free to all those who qualify. I have a hard time getting exercised by just about anything these days, but when it comes to education I tend towards the apoplectic. Long the bedrock of our success as a nation education has now become just another overpriced commodity. One thing I don't understand is why students aren't in open rebellion at paying thousands of dollars in fees? Fees! What the hell is a fee at a university? Isn't that what the tuition is for?

As Ian might say, it's just another regressive tax on the middle class that they can no longer afford. Instead students are leveraged to the hilt by the time they graduate. The American dream is rapidly slipping out of reach for all except the wealthy in this country.

But I think the most odious aspect of this article is the description of how the University of Florida is now pushing students away from the flagship state school and steering them to a second class institution: the University of Central Florida. (Before an UCF grads get their panties in a wad please note I graduated from a second class university myself.) It's unreal.

Take Florida. The University of Central Florida, now the state’s largest university, serves roughly the same demographic the University of Florida did 15 years ago. That’s partly because the University of Florida accepts far fewer good students, sticking mostly to great ones. It is attracting students who also apply to Duke and Emory and other expensive private institutions.

The bottom line is that while Americans say education is a high priority it's not. It's not even in the top ten.

Dave Lindorff | Washington | October 26

The Public Record - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold hearings tomorrow and Wednesday in Hawaii on an application by the US Army for a permit to have depleted uranium at its Pohakuloa Training Area, a vast stretch of flat land in what’s called the “saddle” between the sacred mountains of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island, and at the Schofield Barracks on the island of Oahu.

In fact, what the Army is asking for is a permit to leave in place the DU left over from years of test firing of M101 mortar “spotting rounds,” that each contained close to half a pound of depleted uranium (DU). The Army, which originally denied that any DU weapons had been used at either location, now says that as many as 2000 rounds of M101 DU mortars might have been fired at Pohakuloa alone.

But that’s only a small part of the story.

Ellen Nakashima and Paul Kane | Oct 30

WaPo - House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.

The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer.

The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations. Watchdog groups have accused the committee of not actively pursuing inquiries; the newly disclosed document indicates the panel is conducting far more investigations than it had revealed.

Shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday, the committee chairman, Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), interrupted a series of House votes to alert lawmakers about the breach. She cautioned that some of the panel's activities are preliminary and not a conclusive sign of inappropriate behavior.

"No inference should be made as to any member," she said.

Rep. Jo Bonner (Ala.), the committee's ranking Republican, said the breach was an isolated incident.

The 22-page "Committee on Standards Weekly Summary Report" gives brief summaries of ethics panel investigations of the conduct of 19 lawmakers and a few staff members. It also outlines the work of the new Office of Congressional Ethics, a quasi-independent body that initiates investigations and provides recommendations to the ethics committee. The document indicated that the office was reviewing the activities of 14 other lawmakers. Some were under review by both ethics bodies.

Oct 30

BBC - The caskets can be dispatched to buyers within 48 hours

The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, now plans to hold on to customers even after they die - by selling coffins.

Prices range from a "Mom" or "Dad Remembered" steel coffin for $895 (£540), to a bronze model at $2,899.

The retailer is allowing customers to plan ahead by paying for the caskets over 12 months for no interest. They can be dispatched within 48 hours.

Catering for cradle-to-grave needs, Wal-Mart already sells everything from baby wear to engagement rings.

A spokesman for the supermarket giant, Ravi Jariwala, said the new coffin range was "a limited beta test to understand customer response".

The retailer is offering caskets at prices that undercut many funeral homes, say correspondents.

But an industry spokesman said it was not gravely concerned about Wal-Mart's move because he said the firm could not offer bereaved families the human touch.

Pat Lynch, of the National Funeral Home Directors Association, told AP news agency: "There's no question in my mind as a funeral director for nearly 40 years that the most critical element is the human contact."