The Heart of Our Deficit and Debt Problems is......Us!
There is no doubt that neither party in Washington is fiscally responsible. But how can they be when their voters aren't either? Republicans who don't vote for every tax cut proposed don't last long. Democrats who don't vote for their constituents priorities don't last long either? Anyone who suggests that we should all pay higher taxes and get less services for them is a goner, too.

Everyone can agree that we need to make cuts. But when you look at the details, and the devil is always in the details, people can't come up with things to cut, and that translates very easily to lawmakers not taking action.

Take cutting funds for K-12 education. A whopping 73 percent were opposed to states cutting money for schools.

How about cuts to money going to police, fire departments or other public safety officials? Nope. Seventy-one percent oppose that.

How about cutting healthcare services? Sorry, 65 percent oppose that.

Everyone seems to think that THEY should not have to sacrifice anything and that someone ELSE should pay more and get less. I don't have any expectations of our debt picture getting any better, regardless of which party wins elections. The problem is not the two parties - it is the voters. US...Melman hits it on the head:

• Since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have made electoral hay out of stigmatizing federal spending as going to “welfare queens.” “Waste, fraud and abuse” was their mantra. Gov. Schwarzenegger, now suffering through his own personal budget hell, is perhaps being forced to do penance for the absurd claim, made repeatedly in his winning campaign ads, that the way to get control of California’s budget was simply to audit the state’s books, implying that once the waste, fraud anId abuse were eliminated, budget problems would disappear too.
  

  The left is no less culpable. For decades, Ralph Nader raised money (and consciousness) by telling us that government spending was all perks and corporate welfare, while Sen. William Proxmire ridiculed science spending.

It ain't possible to get fiscally healthy without taking a lot of short and mid-term political and economic pain. Americans are not going to vote for that. We will continue to spend ourselves out of global economic and political relevance. Our system and society don't deal well with hard choices unless they are forced on us by really dire circumstances. They aren't dire enough yet to make us change. And that's is sad.
- posted by john @ 12:48 PM

 
An "Actual" 1999 BP Ad...


- posted by john @ 6:17 PM

 
Republicans attack Elana Kagan by shitting on Thurgood Marshall...

That seems like a reasonable line of attack. Justice Marshall isn't a hero to many in this country or anything.

On a side note, isn't it interesting to see a white Republican Senator from Alabama named Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III paint the first African-American Supreme Court Justice as a bad guy?

The GOP really seems to be serious about minority outreach, don't you think?
- posted by Brian @ 8:57 AM

 
Various

• Michael Vick is still on probation and is not supposed to be hanging out with hefelons, particularly his dogfighting buddies. He does not seem to get it. He still acts as though he feels entitled and seems immature.
  
• I'm glad that Democrats got a financial reform bill passed. They would not have had much chance of doing it after the mid-term elections. Of the 35 races that are currently considered toss-ups, all but one are currently Democratic seats.
  
• If Republicans pick up a net of 41 seats and take back the House of Representatives in November, it could have a silver lining for Obama, though not his immediate agenda. The 2012 presidential race will be a different sort of race if Republicans take back the House.
  
• I hope the Democrats can use the oil spill to shame a few Senate Republicans into voting for the "spill bill."
  

- posted by john @ 7:04 PM

 
I love this song...

Since it wasn't a big hit, I'm curious to see how many of you have heard it.

"Only a Memory" by The Smithereens



Have a great weekend, everybody...
- posted by Brian @ 2:48 PM

 
"...the NFL's record book is nearly worthless right now."

That's the best point made in the linked article about the effect of switching to an 18-game season. I tend to roll my eyes a bit whenever people start blathering on about how this or that NFL players was the "all-time" best. Comparing very different eras invalidates the notion of "best-ever."

• You've had the squeezing of the hash marks closer to the center of the field in 1972. You've had the moving of the goalposts from the goal line to the end line two years after that. You've had the endless rules to favor offensive linemen along with offenses in general. You've had the penalization of defenders just for breathing on quarterbacks.

And before 1960 there were only 12 games to a season. You simply cannot compare a season record for a player who played 12-14 games to those who played 16 or 18. You can make single-game comparisons more fairly, but even there, the rule changes have had serious effects on how the game is played. The record book is not completely worthless. But it is close. It's fun for fans and commentators to talk about records as though they are some objective measure of an accomplishment, but it is largely a bullshit concept.

- posted by john @ 1:08 PM

 
Quite the Sports Record...

The score is 59 games each and counting. In ONE set. The longest match in tennis history is still going.

• The first-round match between 23rd-seeded John Isner of Tampa, Fla., and qualifier Nicolas Mahut of France already had been suspended because of fading light Tuesday night after the fourth set.
• ...the numbers [are] truly astounding: They played 881 points, 612 in the fifth set. Isner hit 98 aces, Mahut 95 -- both eclipsing the previous high for a match at any tournament, 78. And this cannot be emphasized enough: They are not finished. No one won. The match will continue, stretching into a third day.

Holy fucking shit.
- posted by john @ 6:28 PM

 
Wow...That's a pretty great story...

The U.S. soccer team advances to the round of 16 in the World Cup, thanks to a goal in injury time by captain Landon Donovan.

Very cool...
- posted by Brian @ 12:57 PM

 
Is It Hypocrisy or Just Ignorance?

When coaches, GM's and fans of the NFL bitch about players who are "under contract" (!) and hold out for more money? Those "contracts" allow the team to cut a player whenever the team wants to - so where is the outcry about teams violating their end of the contract? There is none. A player holding out is just as legal as a team cutting an expensive veteran who still has a contract. So is it hypocrisy or ignorance? For the coaches and GM it is hypocrisy and a good way to fight the PR battle by whining about a player "under contract"(!) who holds out. For fans it is mostly ignorance. Some fans understand this, but I hear many get indignant when any player holds.
- posted by john @ 9:05 AM

 
He Shall Be Lemon

Lemon sells cartoon balloons in town..
- posted by john @ 8:12 PM

 
When You Need To Trade Bad, You End Up Trading Bad

• They are probably going to eat a large part of his contract, and it's going to taste like dog food.

They already have paid him tens of millions this year...who is going to give them more than a 4th or 5th rounder? Some team(s) may want him but will wait until he is released. Dan Snyder, I applaud your decision-making as always and pray that you shall reign over the foreskins of DC as long as you shall live. any may you live more years than al davis, whom you emulate so well so early in your life...
- posted by john @ 7:50 PM

 
RIP

• Norman [McCrae] was one of the intellectual giants of post-war Britain: one of the very few journalists who could bear comparison with the best brains of his time.

In his late years, he

• .... "predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, at a time when the CIA was obsessed by Russia’s growing strength, and foresaw the privatisation of industry, when other intellectuals were celebrating the triumph of the “mixed economy”.

- posted by john @ 6:31 PM

 
Dan Snyder, the Redskin's owner Dallas fans have learned to love:

• the Redskins have little or no chance of recovering any of Haynesworth's bonus money.....Haynesworth and the NFLPA are right on this one. He gets to keep his money, even if he doesn't really deserve to do so.

If this was baseball and the foreskins were the Yankees, then no big deal...it's just the owners money. but with a real salary cap overpaying hurts the overall team effort.
- posted by john @ 7:03 PM

 
The "Abortion" Issue is Fading

Soon there will be only a rare need for an "abortion" doctor. The after-sex pills will continue to get better and be effective longer after sex/conception.
- posted by john @ 6:57 PM

 
A lowlife Republican from Texas...

Seriously, who would've thought that such a thing existed???

Rep. Joe Barton is a hayseed shill and he's got Big Oil's johnson so far up his ass, he actually APOLOGIZED TO BP's CEO for having to pony up $20 billion to pay for destroying the Gulf of Mexico...



By the way, he's not the only Republican backing a British company against an American president.

Here are a few more fine patriots...
- posted by Brian @ 12:33 PM

 
To be honest...

Nothing is interesting to me right now, so I won't even fake it.

Anyone have something cool to report?
- posted by Brian @ 12:18 PM

 
Some pics from a second successful gig with Power Play...

We kicked ass and rocked the suburbs to pieces.

Big thanks to my wife, Kerrianne, for putting everything together, to G for flying down from Mass. to hold down the bottom end, and to everyone in the band for making it a great second gig!!! Now, to the pics...

It has been brought to my attention that I hammed it up regularly throughout our 2-hour performance. This is a charge I cannot possibly refute...



I include this shot only because I love the way my guitar looks in it...



As close to a group shot as was possible during the performance...



See my previous comment about hamming it up...



Drumsalad banging the skins and shattering ear drums...



G feeling the groove and shaking the bowels...



The whole group, complete with some of the most vicious sweat stains I've ever seen!!!


- posted by Brian @ 9:27 AM

 
That Voice


I miss the songbird more every year.

- posted by john @ 10:26 PM

 
If Karzai is this Pessimistic, Why are We Doubling Down in Afghanistan?

• The American war strategy rests largely on clearing ground held by the Taliban so that Mr. Karzai’s army and government can move in, allowing the Americans to scale back their involvement in an increasingly unpopular and costly war.
• The Americans and their NATO partners are pouring tens of thousands of additional troops into the country to weaken hard-core Taliban and force the group to the bargaining table. Mr. Karzai appears to believe that the American-led offensive cannot work.

What reason is there to believe that Karzai will really fight the Taliban? Mr. President, please reconsider the US support for this hopeless cause. Afghanistan does not want nor is it able to be a democracy and corruption is too ingrained in the culture. No Afghan leader will further our interests once we are gone, yet we now have around 100,000 troops there. Why?

For those Americans who support the war but also worry about government spending, do you have any idea how much this war costs and how much more troops deployed adds to that cost?
- posted by john @ 4:36 PM

 
Just Slink Away in Shame...

• You lost, you fucked up by backing the wrong side. Now slink away with your tail appropriately tucked between you legs. Once you understand that politics is the art of the possible and not a competition to be more ideological than the next guy, you will become relevant again. Way to spend your members' $10 million, idiots. You are the tea baggers of the left and I detest your naive political outlook just like I do the Tea Baggers.
• And speaking of said baggers, "fresh evidence of the amorphous network's struggle to convert activist anger and energy into winning results. Frustrated and lacking agreement on what to do next, self-identified tea party leaders say the movement is in danger of breaking apart before it ever really comes together."
• As for the GOP in general, too much anger and too few ideas. "The Republicans at the moment are less a party than an ongoing civil war (with, from a centrist point of view, the wrong side usually winning)....Just as the party found after it seized Congress in 1994, voters expect solutions, not just rage. The electorate jumped back into Bill Clinton’s arms in 1996." Party on, teabaggers!
  

- posted by john @ 7:27 PM

 
Two years ago, I would've been devastated...

Before the Phillies won the World Series in 2008, the prospect of the Flyers losing their shot at the Stanley Cup on a cheesy goal in OT of an exciting Game 6 probably would've caused me to skip work today in a fit of utter depression.

Instead, I'm realizing that Bill Simmons' 12th "Rule for being a true fan" needs to be amended to include all teams in your home city:

After your team wins a championship, they immediately get a five-year grace period: You can't complain about anything that happens with your team (trades, draft picks, salary-cap cuts, coaching moves) for five years. There are no exceptions.

The better team skated away with the Cup last night. It's a tough pill to swallow, but I'm too proud of this Flyers team to hang my head this morning...

P.S. To his credit, the talented Rob Ullman called this series from the start and even came up with a brilliant illustration for the occasion...


- posted by Brian @ 8:36 AM

 
Various Sports Stuff...

• Are we headed towards 3 big college football conferences with 16-20 teams each?
  

• "Big Ten can continue to blitzkrieg its way to the Atlantic Ocean by taking in the likes of Pittsburgh, West Virginia and Virginia Tech...SEC realizes it better get moving – and fast. I would not be a bit surprised to see them make sweetheart deals to Miami, Florida State and Georgia Tech."

• Do any of you reading this think there will really be a 2011 NFL season?

• Anyone watch the NCAA Duke Lacrosse Championship win? Shortest overtime period ever in all of sports? Duke scored 5 SECONDS into OT. Nice to see after the false charges levied against the program by a lying bitch just a few years back.
• 
  
• Favre is a prima donna puss who is too special to have to attend camp. What a dick. Vuck the Fikings.
  
• It's nice to see that TO is still without a team.

- posted by john @ 9:12 PM

 
This constitutes "front page news" on ESPN.com???

A kid grabs his old man's beer and takes a pull off it at a Phillies game, and the story makes it to the front page of ESPN.com while the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Finals are ongoing?

Somehow, I doubt this would be considered even remotely newsworthy if it happened in St. Louis, Kansas City or some other town in flyover country...

P.S. Jamz, before you pull out your "typical Philly fan" schtick, go ahead and fuck yourself instead...
- posted by Brian @ 12:41 PM

 
A very odd tune that I find extremely catchy...

Seriously, what could rock more than a tune featuring Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking???


- posted by Brian @ 1:14 PM

 
Oh, she'll be a U.S. Senator really soon...

Linda McMahon, wife of the WWE's Vince McMahon and the Republican nominee for Senate in Connecticut, had this to say about steroids...

"So I still don't think we know the long-term effects of steroids. They are continuing to study it more and more, but I don't believe there are a lot of studies out there today that are conclusive."

Chris Benoit...Brian Pillman...Eddie Guerrero...Bam Bam Bigelow...Big Boss Man...Test...Curt Hennig...

The list goes on...

A woman who's family business has this much blood on its hands really shouldn't be downplaying the negative effects of steroids, should she?
- posted by Brian @ 11:50 AM

 
"Batting 9th and pitching for the Philadelphia Phillies..."


- posted by Brian @ 2:48 PM

 
South Carolina: Getting crazier by the day...

I know that's saying a lot when it comes to the only state to ever start a war against the other states, but their political climate is getting downright creepy...
- posted by Brian @ 12:39 PM

 
GOP candidate for Senate busted for embellishing his military record...

...strangely, Jamz hasn't brought this to my attention.

Get a load of Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL)'s positively Bushian explanation for multiple misstatements he's made about his military record:

"I simply misremembered it wrong."

I just got douche chills...
- posted by Brian @ 9:23 AM

 
Do the right thing, Selig...

This kid got fucked out of a perfect game last night, and you have the power to fix it. I don't care if you're afraid of "setting a precedent". You weren't worried about that when you let the All-Star game end in a tie a few years ago.

Do the right thing for once in your life, you douche...

UPDATE: Selig isn't reversing the call. At some point, I'd love to see him clutch his chest and fall face-first into a urinal. That would be a fitting end for this moron...
- posted by Brian @ 9:37 AM

 
The weekend in sports...

Let me preface this story by saying that I'm not making this up. After Roy Halladay got shelled last week by the Red Sox, I knew he would do something special to make up for it.

I thought he'd come out and throw a no-hitter. No bullshit.

That being said, I had NO IDEA he'd throw the 20th perfect game in major league history against a tough Florida Marlins club.

I learned of the perfect game on my new iPod (thanks again, Kerri!) during the intermission of The Color Purple at DPAC and literally felt a jolt of electricity run through my body. How can someone get so excited about a game they didn't even see!

Amazing achievement, Doc.

On the hockey front, the Flyers are down 2-0 in the Stanley Cup Finals and I'm not even close to hitting the panic button. They are tough as friggin' nails and the next 2 games are in Philly.

I still like their chances...

UPDATE: Check out the story of a Phillies fan who was in the stadium for Halladay's perfect game on his birthday...
- posted by Brian @ 8:51 AM