The bond markets

Really? The "If only for the sake of the bond markets?"

“I would like to get something done. I don’t want to have two years of nothing,” said Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin and the new chairman of the House Budget Committee. “It would be nice to get some achievements, if only for the bond markets — to keep them at bay for the time being.”

That really sums it up, doesn't it. All this optical illusion, where the only spending cuts will come on the backs of the historically disenfranchised or to enhance nuclear weapons security, for no other reason than to keep some mythical bond wolves at bay.

Wikileaks all over Iran

I haven't a clue what the latest Wikileaks data dump was intended to do or prove. There isn't much in there that wasn't already pretty well known, such as Karzai's brother being a rat. We knew that the other Arab states don't much care for or trust Iran. And as for whomever leaked the documents to Wikileaks, if he or she thought this was the second coming of Daniel Ellsberg, he or she is very wrong. This isn't the Pentagon Papers; it isn't evidence that the American government is lying any more than using diplomatic language could be called "lying."

But, Kevin Drum is right, from what little I've admittedly read, if the intent was to make the case for an attack on Iran just a little bit easier, then, we might very well be able to say, "mission accomplished."

Drill here. Drill now. Pay more.

The leading intellectual light of American conservatism.

Not all hope has to be sworn off. We can wish that “drill, baby, drill” will be retired as a slogan and as the energy policy of one party. When crowds of mindless zealots shouted those three words at campaign rallies headed by Sarah Palin — whose husband was once a real fisherman in Alaska — I thought of Homer Simpson calling for more beer while thinking it was a good way to lose weight.

Here was a chant, inspired by arsonists and rioters in the 1960s, posing as a political solution. The only thing more mindless than “drill, baby, drill” was the latest self-serving distraction to spill from Newt Gingrich’s bag of cynical ideas. He called his movement: Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less. Because, of course, it’s all pain-free, and very uncomplicated.

If you go on Gingrich’s Web site, you can still sign a petition demanding more drilling — now! — and through links, buy a t-shirt with the same brain-dead slogan. And then there’s also a curious last-minute call by Gingrich for, um, an independent investigation into the, uh . . . tragic oil spill in the gulf.

He’s right on two points. We can drill here. We can drill now. But pay less? No, we always pay more, though the full tab takes a while to show.

And yes, that is a screen shot of what's on Gingrich's site right now. It's not cached. True, he calls for Congressional hearings on the spill, but he can't wait for the results of that before demanding we drill, drill, drill.

The long goodbye

I could not agree more with Andrew Lahde.