Archive for December 2nd, 2008
December 2nd, 2008
 
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University and columnist for The New York Times, said this the other day in an EXCHANGE OF CORRESPONDENCE with The Huffington Post:
“(T)he numbers on the real economy, stuff like retail sales, industrial production, imports, exports, have been coming in even worse than I expected. So right now it looks as if the economy is really falling off a cliff. This makes me less sure than I was that even strong support measures will pull us out of the dive.”
In light of all this, I want you Applesaucers to know that there’s no need to send me gifts this Christmas as expressions of your affection for the genial host of this award-winning blog. Mere seasons greeting will do.
December 2nd, 2008
The ragtag collection of racists, conspiratorialists and knuckledraggers who have fallen victim to the political disease known as Obamaphobia have become even more pathetic over the four weeks since the object of their hatred somehow got himself elected president in an electoral landslide.
The latest manifestation of amentia among these afflicted folk arose just yesterday when one of their favorite sources of misinformation, the Drudge Report, picked up on a story from a British tabloid to the effect that Obama had ordered a $30,000 diamond ring for his wife Michelle.
The story turned out to be untrue, but not before Drudge gave it a big headline, thereby touching off a firestorm of reaction from countless knuckledraggers in the right-wing blogosphere. The gist of their dudgeon, of course, was that this arrogant colored man with his fancy-pants Ivy League degrees and his slick oratory was acting uppity again by buying some ostentatious bling-bling for the missus at a price that most ordinary, everyday, hard-working, God-fearing Caucasian Americans could never afford.
Even liberal MSNBC, the bane of conservatives for its alleged bias in favor of Obama, got the story wrong.
Read more about this matter HERE and HERE and HEREÂ (vulgarity warning).
December 2nd, 2008
 
I have mixed feelings about whether President Bush should commute the prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who was convicted on federal corruption charges in April 2006.
Dick Durbin, the senior U.S. senator from Illinois, has asked Bush to grant clemency to the 74-year-old Ryan because of the failing health of his wife, Lura Lynn. Ryan has served a little more than one year of his six-and-a-half-year sentence.
Durbin has been WIDELY CRITICIZED for his gesture, but I admire his guts. There’s no political upside for him in this matter. He’s a Democrat, and his compassion isn’t likely to win over many members of Ryan’s Republican Party.
Again, I’m conflicted on the issue of clemency for Ryan. But I’ll give Durbin high marks for courage.
December 2nd, 2008
 
The National Rifle Association spent considerable money and effort this year trying to convince Americans that Barack Obama and certain Democratic candidates for Congress were gun-grabbers who would leave us all defenseless against things that go bump in the night.
It didn’t work, as we see HERE.
