Memnison Journal

Not-Surprise: Democratic leaders (such as Sen. Reid) reportedly pushed Blago not to pick a candidate for Senate (this was before the phone calls came out) that couldn’t win downstate, which included pretty much any of the main black players in Illinois Democratic politics.    Obama suggested others, including two of the same group: Illinois Veterans Affairs [...]

When Stalin looks good to the Russians and Emperor Bokassa looks good to the Central African Republic, you know things are bad….now, I’m waiting for a musical about Robert Mugabe with singing, dancing terrorists swinging around AK-47s.  Madame Mao’s dead, so they’ll need to hustle up a new choreographer for that one.

I’m just so looking forward to a grownup in the White House.  I think most of us are.

..of the Bush administration, a casualty of the war on terror, troubled and victimized soul that he is.

…now thinks that the nomination of Burris to the Senate is of vital importance To All African Americans everywhere, and he Just Got Over His Outrage at Blago.  I agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates on this; this is ridiculous.

Blago’s selection of Roland Burris as the new Senator from Illinois is an interesting pick, mostly from the direction of Blago deciding to stir the pot in a reaction against the Feds and everyone railing in the press and whatnot against him.

Roland Burris until this weekend had become a has-been in Illinois politics; he got [...]

Under Bush, OSHA backed off regulating business in a major way, because business might not like for them to support worker safety…and OSHA paid more  GOP-related consultants for doing little.
In 2006, Henshaw was replaced by Edwin G. Foulke Jr., a South Carolina lawyer and former Bush fundraiser who spent years defending companies cited by OSHA [...]

From Dick Meyer at NPR on Blago and Made-off:
As audacious as Blagojevich’s political gluttony is, it is easy to find far worse political corruption, much of it perfectly legal: Distorting intelligence to invade Iraq, torturing prisoners, failure to regulate Wall Street, and systematic pork-barrel boondoggling come quickly to mind. If you’re feeling expansive, how about [...]

Hedge Fund founder who lost a serious bundle in the Madoff ponzi scheme commits suicide, and no, he didn’t jump out a window.
The radical Israeli settlers in the West Bank are a political nightmare that any government will have serious problems with and neither main party coalition wants to deal with.  Of course, government policies [...]

Lobbyists are gnashing their teeth and rending their garments; what are they to do without having a ready-made place to grease palms now that Ted Stevens is leaving the Senate?

To maintain an open line to Mr. Stevens, the association hired Ms. Sutherland, who left Mr. Stevens not long after delivering those warnings to open her [...]

Craft stores and online stores that sell handmade stuff are doing well as cheap gift-things with the recession.  Me, I’m worthless at handmade gifts, unless you make ‘em on a computer.
People (and primates) will believe lies and deceive each other far more than dolphins will. I say we elect dolphins.
Yes, the non-US based [...]

A commercial real estate attorney speaks up:
Suddenly, and coinciding with the Lehman/Goldman fiasco, the commercial lending markets completely disappeared. Not just a slow down, but a complete and total shut down. Loans for which there were commitments were suddenly pulled. Term loans (most in the development world are for 1-2 years at a time) were [...]

Dayton officials say that an entry they put in a pile of stuff for a possible Obama-signable economic stimulus package for local jobs wasn’t supposed to be there - an initiative to get hookers off Dayton streets.  I can’t imagine the sort of jobs something like *that* would generate locally.
Wait, maybe I could.  *shudder*

W. Mark Felt obituary in the Washington Post.
“As Deep Throat, Felt helped establish the principle that our highest government officials are subject to the Constitution and the laws of the land,” the prosecutor, John W. Nields, wrote in The Washington Post in 2005. “Yet when it came to the Weather Underground bag jobs, he seems [...]

HBO production and presently running on that network.  My take on it is that it’s a once-funny;  I have a hard time watching gangster movies because I really don’t get off on people beating and killing each other, especially if the people involved doing the beating are serious scum.   This is SOPRANOS GO BAGHDAD; [...]