FWDAJ Extra 2009-09-30

Donald Han, an accountant from Queens, sounded unmoved. “Why now?” he asked the woman, rather curtly, once she had finished her patter. “How come you’ve got to nearly go bankrupt before you come out with a car like this?”

via NYT: Glamour dims as hecklers hit auto shows – The New York Times- msnbc.com.

Let’s get something straight: the employee at the drive-through window cannot productively respond to your complaints about the fat content of your Extra Value Meal, that ninety year-old Walmart greeter cannot address your concerns about fair labor practices, and a random blond hired to read a script while standing on a rotating dais at the auto show does not have any particular influence on which cars are developed at which times.

In  other words, don’t use the financial shitstorm as an opportunity to chew out the clueless and the powerless just to make yourself feel better. It’s hollow, rude, and just plain idiotic.

The government is effectively arguing that it can act with impunity because the evidence that the government has misbehaved is a secret that can’t be used to seek to demonstrate violations of the law or the Constitution and to seek redress.

Did the feds abuse your rights? Too bad, they say, because you won’t be allowed to prove it in court.

via Civil Liberties Examiner: Obama administration says government abuses are ‘state secrets’ beyond judicial scrutiny.

I know I’m picking on Barack a bit right now, especially given that I haven’t posted a damned thing applauding him for the stuff he’s done that I appreciate. But c’mon…

The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.

via U.S. aims to help firms sidestep bailout rules – Washington Post- msnbc.com.

First Clinton fought to keep the line item veto, then GWB went on a mad rush to consolidate as much power as possible for the Executive, and now your people are actively seeking to screw Congress and the people they represent by creating loopholes. That’s bullshit, man. That particular buck has got to stop right here, right now. With you, Barack.

The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.

via U.S. aims to help firms sidestep bailout rules – Washington Post- msnbc.com.

First Clinton fought to keep the line item veto, then GWB went on a mad rush to consolidate as much power as possible for the Executive, and now your people are actively seeking to screw Congress and the people they represent by creating loopholes. That’s bullshit, man. That particular buck has got to stop right here, right now. With you, Barack.

What sucks is that it appears that lots of extraneous crap is being inserted into the agenda of the parties by the group that has appointed itself leader of the “movement”. Check out these items that are supposed to be part of the protest, from the TEA Party homepage:

• want to take away the right to vote with a secret ballot in union elections?
• refuse to stop the flow of millions of illegal immigrants into our country?
• appoint a defender of child pornography to the Number 2 position in the Justice Department?
• want to force doctors and other medical workers to perform abortions against their will?

What this suggests is that this isn’t a populist uprising against taxation and government spending… it’s just one more skirmish in the Republican Culture War. How underwhelming.

What sucks is that it appears that lots of extraneous crap is being inserted into the agenda of the parties by the group that has appointed itself leader of the “movement”. Check out these items that are supposed to be part of the protest, from the TEA Party homepage:

• want to take away the right to vote with a secret ballot in union elections?
• refuse to stop the flow of millions of illegal immigrants into our country?
• appoint a defender of child pornography to the Number 2 position in the Justice Department?
• want to force doctors and other medical workers to perform abortions against their will?

What this suggests is that this isn’t a populist uprising against taxation and government spending… it’s just one more skirmish in the Republican Culture War. How underwhelming.

No, I’m talking about people making baseless, stupid arguments that they would make again in the same way if given a chance. All suggestions welcome.

Here’s my first nomination to the Hall of Shame, Rep. John Shimkus:

“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. “It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not.”

via Steele to Rush: I’m sorry.

On the one hand, it sucks to have to run around apologizing for every frakkin’ word out of your mouth, so Steele has my sympathy. (It’s that incredibly shitty, depressing part of a politician’s job that explains why even the best of ‘em are at least a little sleazy.) On the other hand, sheesh Michael… grovelling before Rush? Don’t demean youself like that, dude.

For each of the near term reporting requirements major communications, formula block grant allocations, weekly reports agencies are required to provide a feed preferred: Atom 1.0, acceptable: RSS of the information so that content can be delivered via subscription.

from the Initial Implementing Guidance for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

Each agency has the freedom to either stuff the feeds with raw data or just link to static HTML, so it isn’t a perfect system yet… but wowza! Talk about making life easier for amateur journalists and watchdogs!

(hat tip to Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought)