Orly Taitz declares war!

-Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.-

Article III

Orly Taitz is calling for armed insurrection against the government of the United States. That's right, the same demented creature who's been thrown out of many courts for trying to prove that Barak Obama wasn't born in the United States is advocating that we take up arms against the government of The United States of America.

"Seeing targeted destruction of our economy, our security, dissipation of American jobs, massive corruption in the Government, Congress Department of Justice and Judiciary, it might be time to start rallies and protests using our second amendment right to bare arms and organise in militias."

Seems to me she her best defense is insanity, since anyone seeing targeted destruction of the economy by those who appear to have saved us from what seemed inevitable destruction wrought by George Bush has a good claim to be a nut job. Illiteracy would be equally as demonstrable (bear Vs. bare) but it's hardly a legal defense.

Sure it's easy to laugh. She makes it so easy, after all, but far less laughable are the millions who essentially agree with her that the damage done by borrow, spend and borrow some more economic policies of the Republicans is proof of Democratic malfeasance. I got another one of those "humorous" tracts this morning: Dems don't pay taxes or work and Republicans have to support them. Right.

No, you can't fix stupid and I fear that you really can't fix insane, particularly when it's pandemic. You can however, begin putting traitors in jail.

HOW CORPORATE AMERICA ENABLES SCAMS, SPAM AND CYBER-CRIME

Love has pitched his mansion in

The place of excrement;

For nothing can be sole or whole

That has not been rent.

- William Butler Yeats -

Your ubiquitous (O)CT(O)PUS is no prude, but I get annoyed when breast and penis enlargement spam invades my e-mail box. Why spam when spammers know nothing about me, least of all my gender, proclivities, or species?

Neither this nor that, I am not a transgender, cross-dressing cephalopod in need of both. I have no interest in privileging one appendage over another and no innate need to preen or primp myself in gaudiness to facilitate naughtiness. In this or that, it seems, human beings are more akin to birds.

Perhaps followers of this forum have noticed: Spam is no longer delivered via e-mail but posted in the comment threads of popular blogs. The logic is simple: Why spam a single reader when you can reach a wider audience; for instance, a forum followed by hundreds or thousands of readers; and spammers have learned to customize their message with charm and inventiveness.

Recently, for instance, I posted this article, A Preoccupation with Rubber Ducks. Last week, one enterprising spammer raised the ante duck for duck and left this comment beneath my post:

While most birds are phallus-free, ducks are oddly endowed - up to 8 inches. Using high-speed video they found that ducks could go from zero to happy in less than half a second … That endowment should give the males an advantage during forced mating but these [editorial note: I eliminated the embedded url address that originally appeared here] free males aren't out of the woods yet … Why Yale decided to study duck penises in the first place I will never know.

The embedded url address links you to an online pharmacy that trades in generic versions of Viagra™, Cialis™, and Levitra™, among other prescription medications. Online pharmacies are illegal in the United States for good reasons.

Generic drugs manufactured offshore violate patents and trademarks, and consumers should be especially wary when purchasing drugs of dubious origin and quality. Furthermore, consumers should never self-administer any prescription drug, especially antibiotics and cardio-vascular drugs, without medical supervision.

Curiously, GeoTrust and McAfee have certified this obviously illegal enterprise as a secure e-commerce site. Furthermore, the horny duck accepts payment from American Express, Diners Club, Visa, MasterCard, and Western Union. American corporations, it seems, employ a double standard. They will litigate any infringements of their own rights yet sell anything to anyone for any purpose with impunity. These days, to make a buck is the most sublime of all virtues ... trumping laws, ethics, even hypocrisy. (O)CT(O)PUS intends to name them and shame them until they clean up their act.

Deja two, Deja three. . .

You probably have heard all about the second nutjob on a plane scare today. Same Amsterdam - Detroit flight, but this time the man did not come out of the toilet with a bomb, but an attitude. Naturally the crew was more than curious as to whether his half hour sojourn suggested criminal intent, but the unnamed man of so far unknown ethnicity became aggressive and abusive when asked and -- once again -- we had a plane sitting on the ground in Detroit while authorities screened all the baggage.

You probably haven't heard about another incident which happened yesterday afternoon at Palm Beach International. Seems someone decided their first class seat wasn't quite classy enough and despite the crew's attempt to make her feel as special as Ivana Trump insists on being made to feel, she launched into a tirade even this old salt would be proud of.

Some small children apparently weren't respectful enough so she started calling them "little fuckers" and yelling "fuck you" at their parents. After the plane was forced to return and the police came aboard, she refused to exit and gave the deputies and all within earshot the same carnal advice.

Of course we have flexible standards for terrorism and so Ms. Trump was deemed only terrible and not sufficiently terroristic for the FBI to be interested. I'm quite sure that if she weren't famous and had been wearing a hijab she'd have spent quite some time in custody, but she wasn't of course. She's just another self-important Palm Beach socialite who in a more just world would be another old woman selling fish from a pushcart.

Behind the veil

Legend has it that when the Nazis occupied Denmark, they ordered all the Jews there to wear yellow stars and that the King himself put one on his own clothing in order to show support. Of course it never happened there or anywhere else to my knowledge. Certainly not in France. I'm wondering though, if the draconian ban on wearing any Islamic garb that covers the face will elicit some French resistance to protest what seems to American eyes to be a violation of civil rights. No, I won't bet on it happening.

Although only some 400 women in France wear a Burqa, according to French intelligence services, the fear that Islamic extremists are a growing threat to peace and security in France and the rest of Europe is ever present. France has already passed a law banning the hijab and all other "conspicuous" religious symbols in state schools and the ruling party are proposing to deny citizenship to couples in which the woman wears a burqa.

"There are principles at stake: Extremists are putting the republic to the test by promoting a practice that they know is contrary to the basic principles of our country,"

says Jean-Francois Cope, the UMP party leader. So is he, I'd have to add, if that old Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité thing still stands taller in French eyes than ethnic purity.


I wouldn't be hard to find sympathy for banning yarmulkes, turbans, or any other religiously unique clothing in the US of A, but as yet, we're still more liberal in that respect than our Gallic brethren. Long may it be so. I make no secret about my distaste for religion and my fear of what happens when religion and government become too close. Yes, I am all too aware that a large number of Muslims hate our country so much that the random slaughter of innocents seems justified in their eyes, but meddling in anyone's right to express themselves by choosing clothing representing an affiliation or a belief is just such a dangerously close relationship and is anathema to me. No, I don't expect to see that happen here any time soon, but if it does, you'll be seeing me wearing anything they're throwing stones at be it monk's robes or djellaba -- and waving the flag.

connecting the dots

When I heard about the failed attempt to blow up an airplane yesterday, my first reaction was "how long will it take the Republicans to blame it on the President and/or Liberals. Congressman Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, as if he'd read my mind, stepped right up to the plate with

“People have got to start connecting the dots here and maybe this is the thing that will connect the dots for the Obama administration.”

Of course he has no way of knowing exactly or even generally what is known by the President, his advisers, the NSA or anyone else for that matter, but by implying that something is obvious and Obama has been oblivious, he wins another point in the fantasy touch football game of insinuational politics. Of course by some rule of the game I've never understood, it's still off-limits to insinuate that the George W. Bush administration ignored the idea that Terrorists could use airplanes and followed some imaginary, if not fraudulent dots straight to Baghdad.

Hoekstra, or Hokey, if you prefer went straight to Twitter and implied to whatever birds of that feather read his bird brained utterances, that the Obama administration had made some sort of outrageous solecism worthy only of an incompetent and coward by calling a failed attempt a failed attempt, which, of course it was.

"Administration says attempted terrorist attack. No. It was a terrorist attack! Just not as successful as they (AQ) planned." tweeted our friend Hokey.

A white House spokesman had been quoted by AP as saying

"We believe this was an attempted act of terrorism."

By that logic, I'd have to say that my tossing a rock in a northerly direction is an actual attack on Atlanta, the importance of which is undiminished by Atlanta being some 500 miles away and my throwing arm no longer what it was.

I'm guessing with some confidence that the correct course of action would, according to Hokey, be to run down Pennsylvania Avenue shrieking "terrorist attack -- terrorist attack" because the panic factor has proved to work in the Republicans' favor often enough to warrant another try.

Unfortunately the determination as to whether we've indeed suffered an official terrorist attack is the job of the Attorney General who may have wanted to take more than 5 minutes to look into the sketchy and ever changing reports coming in from Detroit as to who did it, what was done and with what kind of device.

Of course I continue to assert that if the Republicans can do no more than sift and comb through ever word, action or inaction of the opposition for something that can be twisted, misrepresented or edited into a scandal they can use to bash Obama, they continue to be the worst enemy we have.

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Every year we have all the family in for a Christmas Eve dinner which includes my homemade crab cakes and my husband’s prime rib. And some lovely bottles of wine.

There are all my adult children, parents, even an ex-wife and the grandchildren! The noise and dishes and mess! All is chaos and caphony….It is the best night of the year as all my loved ones are gathered around me.

I’ve said goodnight and Merry Christmas at least a hundred times as one by one, they have filed out the door. Admonished all to be careful and watch for ice and to call when they get home.

The dishes are piled in the sink the trash is full and the dog looks sick; might be all those scraps the kids snuck her under the table.

I still have to make the stuffing for the turkey we’ll have tomorrow and sort all those dishes and maybe a quick mop of the floors. It will be a late night, but we’ve had many late nights on Christmas Eve, my husband and I, wrapping gifts and putting together various toys or bikes. I was younger then.

There will be no little kids jumping on my bed and yelling, “Get up, Santa Claus came!” Those days are long gone but as the kids have grown up, we have developed new traditions.

But as much as things change, there remains enduring love and gratitude that we have each other. I don’t need a special day of the year to recognize that, but I am happy for this season in the dark dreary dead of winter to enjoy good company and all the pretty lights.

And I want to wish all my fellow Zoners and Swash Zone visitors a very Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, if not, I wish you a safe and peaceful evening.

Peace! Rocky

Noam Chomsky: America Is Not a Democracy

This brief lecture, from 2007, seems appropriate to revisit today:



Merry Christmas to all.

The plain sense of things

After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things. It is as if
We had come to an end of the imagination,
Inanimate in an inert savoir.

-Wallace Stevens-
___________________________

Remember when Obama was "the most liberal Senator" in the whole, wide world and we were supposed to tremble at the thought of his limitless liberalness making Capitalism illegal while the Government Printing office was strained to its limit printing little red books? Wasn't long ago.

Now what seems like a majority of those who voted for him are asking what things would be like if he really were a liberal. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi -- they don't seem much like the little red " far left liberal" devils we were warned about. In fact, with a health care bill that seems to have been written by the Health Care corporations and the anti-abortion Religious Right, some are asking if this isn't indeed a country for old men; the same old men whose exclusive country club it's been all along.

No, it's not like the crazy bastards we had for the last 8 years are back and in fact I think we'd have been far worse off had the Republicans won the White House once again, but still. It's like we had come to an end of the imagination -- a fantastic effort has failed, a repetition in a repetitiousness of men and lies.

How The Swash Zone Saved Christmas

Ramona came home today, two days before the doctors originally planned. She's happy and exhausted and getting used to the new "boot" on her leg that replaced the cast this morning. But the best part, the part I need to share with all of you here at THE SWASH ZONE, is that I got to tell her what I found when I checked my PayPal account Sunday night.

Ramona was agape. That complete strangers would reach through the intertubes and lend so much help was...well, it was incomprehensible to her. She doesn't have an internet connection and has never "surfed." Times are hard, and who is she to think the world might return even a tiny portion of what she has earned in sacrifices through the years? Karma is foreign to her Baptist upbringing; goodness was its own reward.

But here was a group of nearly two dozen strangers saving Christmas, and I do not exaggerate.

One of the great ironies of the accident that nearly killed her was that her family was required to recover several unwrapped Christmas presents from the car. She had come to the sad conclusion she would need to return the gifts they had already seen and held -- an even harder task, given they were bought in Chicago. Her mind was running out of things to liquidate and she was trying very hard not to let despair win when suddenly...Christmas was saved.

But by whom? Who were these virtual Santas, she wondered? It just did not calculate. I explained twice, and though she was lucid and used to her medication by now I still don't think she could fully comprehend it.

I have a list of email addresses to give her. Everyone that helped can expect a thank-you note as soon as her wrist is well enough to write one. The denizens of the Zone saved Christmas, and you will never know how deep that joy has reached.

You're all heroes tonight. I love each and every one of you -- God bless and keep you all.

Republicans for rape

I'd say they had some explaining to do, but perhaps it isn't necessary. There's enough in the fact that 30 Republican Senators thought that legalized gang rape was preferable to "government interference" and punishing it is an offense against the sanctity of the employment contract, particularly those of government contractors owned by prominent Republicans.

30 Republican Senators voted against Senator Al Franken's "anti-rape" amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act. We have no way of explaining, other than to assume these Senators owe more to KBR than to their constituents or to their sense of morality, because they won't tell us why.

I don't think we need an explanation. I think we can assume that if we allow employees of KBR, for instance, to sue their employers if they are raped on the job, by company employees in company facilities. it might cost the owners of Senators too much money.

Fortunately a majority of us voted for Democrats last year - not that they're all saintly Senators either - but at least they weren't ready to support the validity of employment contracts wherein a 19 year old like Jamie Leigh Jones can inadvertently sign away her body for the recreational use of criminals. Perhaps some of them just have daughters, but in any event, a somewhat watered down version of the amendment was passed and signed into law by President Obama in what will surely be explained, like everything he does, as an act of Kenyan Marxist Fascism worthy of Pol Pot and Adolph Hitler.

The 30 Republicans who want to kidnap and rape your daughters is a group with many familiar names. We've all heard them tell us all about morality and family values and our Christian heritage. If you're a Republican, perhaps that won't puzzle you. If you have however, some basic respect for morality and law and any kind of human values, you'll want to look at the list and remember when it comes time for that grand reconquista in 2010 they're pretending is a sure thing.

Rep. Anthony Weiner Wants To Chat

Or so he says, and you betcha (thanks, Sarah) I'm not going to miss the opportunity. Thought you may want to take advantage of it, too. The man wants to know how I/we feel -- so let's tell him.

Here is his message:

Dear Elizabeth,

I am deeply disappointed with the lost opportunities and capitulation in the health care bill the Senate will vote on later this week. And I know we are all upset with the Senate proposal.

I believe that we have a real chance to curb health care costs and provide affordable coverage to everyone. And we're all frustrated that the Senate has chosen not to act boldly, but to instead bend to the will of a small minority who do not want to see real reform.

As I wrote you last week, it's important to me to hear directly from you during this frustrating time. Please join me for a live online chat on Tuesday, December 22nd, at 7:00 PM EST at countdowntohealthcare.com/chat/.

We can discuss what's happening in the Senate and talk about what the rest of the process will look like, from a full Senate vote, to the conference committee that will reconcile the House and Senate bills.

I want to answer your questions, but I also want to know how you feel. I still believe that we should remain at the table until this process is over, but it's important to me to hear what you think.

I know that many of us are upset that just a few senators have managed to stand in the way of real progress on health care. But now is a time for us to talk, keep the conversation alive, and figure out what we can do to help advance the cause of quality, affordable health care in America.

I look forward to chatting with you on Tuesday, December 22nd at 7:00 PM EST at countdowntohealthcare.com/chat/.

Thanks,
Anthony.

Misinformer Of The Year

Media Matters names Glenn Beck "misinformer of the year:"

Tweet Tweet

In the winter, Florida sees countless twittering things with small brains, perching on power lines and trees, circling overhead and grazing my lawn looking for lizards and bugs. Of course, even a hundred years ago there were so many they would darken the sky, but we've hunted some to extinction, rendered many species endangered by draining the everglades to grow sugar and by poisoning the waters with pesticides, fertilizers, oil and heavy metals. All over the world, nature as we once knew it is in retreat, from the rain forests of the Amazon to the melting tundra and retreating glaciers. Even the birds know it and we all know who's to blame. It's not the birds.

Well, not all of us. Sarah Palin insults the intelligence of most twittering things by claiming that man can't influence or change "nature's ways" and is arrogant to think so. Yes, that's OK, speechlessness is a normal reaction to such idiocy. What can you call it but idiocy and what can you call it but arrogance to assert that the magical powers of God will steadily restore the countless square miles of ocean bottom scraped bare by drag nets, restore the countless miles of coral bleached by growing acidity and reanimate the countless species disappearing at an accelerating rate? And what is arrogance, after all, but making grand statements about nature without any knowledge whatever having to do with atmospheric and oceanographic sciences, geology, physics, chemistry or in fact, any damned thing but talking in tongues and burning witches?

"arrogant&naive2say man overpwers nature" tweets the idiot Palin.

The painful irony of course, is not that man is part of nature and man is changing the world in many, many obvious and quantifiable ways. It's not just that we've disassembled the building blocks of matter, decoded the blueprints for life, unravelled the history of the universe -- the irony is that it may be arrogant to say that we can ever overpower stupidity, cupidity, stone age superstition and the crackpot politics that eats away at America like a cancer.

Worthwhile perspectives on the Senate bill

Professor Jacob Hacker, the "godfather of the public option", and Senator Al Franken explain why they support passage of the Senate bill, even weakened as it is. Both found via Oliver Willis, who has consistently been a good source of blogger coverage and analysis on this issue -- Liberal Values has been another. And don't forget Paul Krugman. Update: The AMA comes out in support too.

Hey, all forty Republicans still voted against the thing -- there must be some good in it!

(Cross-posted from my home blog.)

Health Insurance Reform Winners and Losers

Who wins, who loses in Senate health bill

By Erica Werner, AP

WASHINGTON – The little town of Libby, Mont., isn't mentioned by name in the Senate's mammoth health care bill, but its 2,900 citizens are big winners in the legislation, thanks to the influence of Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.

After pushing for years for help for residents, many of whom suffer from asbestos-related illnesses from a now-closed mineral mining operation, Baucus inserted language in a package of last-minute amendments that grants them access to Medicare benefits.

He didn't advertise the change, and it takes a close read of the bill to find it. It's just one example of how the sweeping legislation designed to remake the U.S. health care system and extend coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans also helps and hurts more narrow interests, often thanks to one lawmaker with influence or bargaining power.

Continue.

====

How outrageous is it that Baucus et al. deemed all citizens of that small town worthy of Medicare benefits, but not the rest of us? Are some people better than others? More deserving of affordable health care than others?

Read the whole piece -- it's pretty disturbing, even though it's only a glimpse of the winners and losers in this debacle. Without a doubt, there are more eyebrow-raising revelations included in the bill. Like insurance coverage for prayer.

It also shows that -- surprise, surprise -- if there is a will, there is a way. If an obstinate senator wants to squeeze favorable provisions for his "special interests," it can be done, even if it flies in the face of decency, equality, and/or common sense.

So why can't the so-called progressives insist on such concessions on behalf of ALL American people?

Is this really too much to ask?

HARASSED WOMEN

There is an insidious and dangerous pattern of harassment against women in the Middle East that is reaching critical proportions, mostly because:

“…that harassment was unchecked across the region because laws don't punish it, women don't report it and the authorities ignore it.”

That is the conclusion from a panel of activists after a 2 day conference in Cairo to discuss this alarming trend. The full article is HERE.

No matter how demurely they are dressed or whether they have children in tow, women who venture into the streets are subjected to sexual harassment, including groping and verbal abuse.

The problem seems to encompass most nations of the Middle East, including Syria, Yemen and Egypt.

“Participants at the conference said men are threatened by an increasingly active female labor force, with conservatives laying the blame for harassment on women's dress and behavior.”

“In Yemen, where nearly all women are covered from head to toe, activist Amal Basha said 90 percent of women in a published study reported harassment, specifically pinching.”

"The religious leaders are always blaming the women, making them live in a constant state of fear because out there, someone is following them," she said.”

“If a harassment case is reported in Yemen, Basha added, traditional leaders interfere to cover it up, remove the evidence or terrorize the victim.”

There is a campaign of systematic terrorizing and unrelenting harassment aimed against Arab women that has largely been ignored or covered up for years.

Women have had no place to turn, no one to help them. But that is changing with the formation of The Alliance For Arab Women which is spearheading projects to change the course of women’s lives in Arab nations.

We need to let these women know we support them and that they will not be forgotten by drawing attention to their plight every chance we get.

Would You Vote For This Bill?

That's the question Bill Moyers poses to Matt Taibbi and Robert Kuttner on his "Journal."

Taibbi answers "No." Kuttner says, "I would hold my nose and pass it."

Watch the video (and weep -- and/or bang your head against the wall).

The Bill

If you haven't seen Keith Olbermann's recent interview with Wendell Potter, discussing the benefits for the medical-insurance industry coming from the current Senate health care bill, here it is.

Informative and worth watching:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Only in America -- or, "I Told You So!"

On PBS News last night, Mr. The-Strangest-Name-Outside-of-Porn-Business Axelrod (and doesn't he look the part, too?) waxed semi-poetic on the virtues of the health care reform bill that is going to be (i.e., may be) voted on before Christmas. Axelrod assured us so.

And he added, causing a massive jaw drop in yours truly, that this is the most progressive piece of legislation -- I'm not sure if he said in a long time, or ever, because at that very moment the downward pull of my jaw created an unbearable pressure in my ears, which resulted in a deafening POP! Thus I missed the Axelrod's qualifer for his self-serving assertion.

As I was picking my jaw off the floor and trying to jump on one foot to restore my hearing (an old Polish folk remedy), I pondered, as it's customary during such complex acrobatics, the sad absurdity of his statement.

Only in America this colossal transfer of the poor, huddled masses to the greedy paws of the private insurance cartel could be called the most progressive piece of legislation, whether in the recent years, or ever.

Only in this world, where rabid capitalism defines who we are and how we treat each other, we can have a presidential adviser state with a straight face that this is something we should all look forward to and be proud of.

Only in this strange country of ours, up is down and black is white. I thought I've seen everything under the communism, where the propagandist double-speak ruled the day and we learned early on to make fun of anything coming out of the politicians' mouths (because whatever it was, it had zero resemblance to reality). That was before I moved to USA where the wonders of absurdity never cease to amaze me. Commies had nothing on the corporatist propaganda -- the pinkos' attempts at shaping the minds and hearts, that was a child's play. This, here, in the US, this is the real mind-boggling (literally) deal.

But back to the miracle at hand, a.k.a. this most progressive piece of propag... I mean, legislation. Let's take a quick stroll down the memory lane.

First, Barack Obama said that a single-payer health care is the best solution to our health care woes. He was right, of course, but that was years ago, before he ran for President and he could afford to both say the truth and be right. Then, as the candidate-Obama, he insisted that a robust public option and drug price controls would be necessary to introduce any meaningful changes to this broken system.

Next, he started to remind us not to get our panties in a bunch over such an insignificant sliver of the health care reform as the public option, and he struck a quiet, behind closed doors deal with PhRMA promising them not to touch their God-given right to super duper profits garnered from the Americans' suffering. That was when he was already President. At the same time, he and his people told us that things will be just fine, not to worry. He said that we will have a uniquely American health care system.

Little we knew then what he meant, but, as I (and others) frantically kept pointing out, the signs of things to come were already there, for all to see (should all wanted to keep their eyes open). One of the sure giveaways about the real scope of this "reform" was the change of language: some time in the summer, the White House talk switched from discussing health care reform to health insurance reform. Yes, we've noticed and we told you so. (I told you so is the phrase my husband uses with abandon when I rant about the "reform." I'm just passing it on, is all. Call it the giving spirit of Christmas, or something.)

(BTW, if you'd like to take a moment to bang your head against the wall at any time, please feel free to do so. It is the only thing any rational person would be expected to do in these circumstances.)

As of today, there is no public option, the Medicare expansion plan was killed (thanks, pouty Joe), no drug price controls in sight, no cost controls to speak of, and, of course, no competition for the private insurance companies who are also exempt from antitrust laws. And as if that was not enough, there is an extra slap in the progressive faces coming in the form of the scrapped abortion provision in the bill. So is this the most progressive piece of legislation or what?

Sorry, Mr. Axelrod, it's not even close -- unless you redefine progressive ASAP (preferably while jumping on one foot and banging your head against the wall; harder, please).

But not all is grim news. There is a bright side: Christmas arrived early for the medical-insurance cartel this year. Can you hear the bells ringing? It's Santa Claus coming to Cigna, Wellpoint, United Healthcare and all the naughty boys and girls from The Outfit, bearing things glittery and nice -- and lots of them, too, something like 30+ million. Oh, and the insurance stocks are soaring.

So rejoice, all ye faithful -- joyful and triumphant, The Outfit will show us the way, first to servitude, and then to bankruptcy, or maybe the other way around, not that it matters.

Merry... whatever.

Cross-posted at The Middle of Nowhere.

ANNOUNCEMENT

(O)CT(O)PUS will be away for the rest of the month … visiting my cephalopod brood and celebrating Fishmas.

Bloggingdino gave me permission to open my presents early, and this is what I got. It means I will be able to keep in touch while away, although posting and comments will be light.

Since I am pressed for time (packing the OctoMobile and getting ready to leave), here is a brief message from MoveOn.Org: