Obama's plan is to do the bidding of his corporate masters in giving the country away to them, while working hard to erode our civil liberties by legitimizing the behavior of the previous, war criminal administration.

So far he's right on track. Why wouldn't he and the Democrats get re-elected? All the handouts they're giving will ensure adequate campaign funding, after all.

Yep, you pretty much make sense as well.

Free Health Care for ALL.

That is the mark of a civilized society.

If you can let your fellow humans suffer illness and injury and deny them care for greed and love of money and profits then you are a monster.

Too bad this is a nation of monsters.

Meanwhile we can afford war and bailouts and pork.

Strong point. We spend half as much as the entire rest of the world on guns, and still aren't 'safe'.. but we can't provide medicare for everyone. :/

It's probably correct to argue that illegal immigrants ought to receive immunization. It is in the public interest for them to do so.

That does not imply they need to be given access to nationalized healthcare in total, and it weakens the argument of people who think all illegal immigrants ought to be given more access to our society when such obviously bogus arguments are used.

I'm not sure of where I stand on the illegal immigrant issue; one part of me is irritated by people freeloading, another thinks of the kids they've had and wants to at least help them. Still another wishes we would do something about people coming here illegally and then having kids at all. Shrug. That has no bearing on the disingenuous argument made in this article.

I haven't done the kind of macro research necessary to confirm or refute that claim (that the market is overvalued) and you don't link to any references.

I will say, however, that the conventional wisdom that companies are "overvalued" when their P/E sucks in time of recession strikes me as untrue. Earnings always suck in recessions, even more so in prolonged ones like we face now. The questions to be asked are (IMO):

1. What is the company's cash/debt situation like?

2. How are the competitors doing?

3. What are the historical returns of this company vs its market? Vs historical earnings, is the P/E crazy low?

..If you have positive answers to the 3.5 questions above, you buy. Well, unless you expect an imminent stock market meltdown. If you think *that* is coming, you lurk like a vulture, *then* buy.

I guesstimate we have 6-12 months, but I usually take these things too early, so it could be 18. Timing this market is of critical importance to anyone looking to build up security money.. being in cash when everything crashes again will be really profitable.

I suggest TIPS for people who don't want to gamble. If you really think the US government will default on its obligations, I guess buy Euro government debt?

(bystander did point this out, but here is IMO the clearest definition of how this guy thinks of authoritarianism.)

http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/archives/0609/weilera.php

Also in sig.

I tend to disagree with that definition; to me an aversion to change (as opposed to 'difference') and a desire for clear lines of authority are what characterize the term.

There's plenty of room for, uhm, *differences* of opinion on that though ;].

Granted. It's sad, a real discussion on this topic will have to wait until I've read the book; but then it'll be old news ;]. At least my friends & I will have fun talking about it.

and having not read the book (I will, though, it's OTW from Amazon), their thesis seems incomplete.

I speak from anecdotal, personal experience. I know, dangerous. Probably not valid. As a MBTI N-type to the core, I tend to err on the side of the gut though.

I'm extremely liberal, in that I believe we ought to build government to take care of people who are having trouble largely without regard to personal responsibility, that strict observance of civil rights (and considering their expansion regularly) are vital, and that the free market, while necessary, must be seen as a corrosive force on our common social bonds.

And yet.. I'm quite authoritarian, both by their apparent definition (read the Amazon summary as well as the transcript), and my own more nuanced one. I constantly refine my opinions about everything I encounter, but vastly prefer simple problems to complex ones. As an engineer I'd hardly be effective otherwise. As a matter of daily routine, I break complex problems into simple ones, solve them, then recombine. Some problems are not well-posed or solvable, they get marked as such, and kludges or workarounds are designed to fit.

Where is that way of thinking in all this?

With W, I would just shake my head and think "the madness continues..".

With Obama.. he's continued the worst excesses and human rights abuses of the prior administration, and the world has warmed up to him anyway. We run the very real risk of seeing the entire human race downgrade its interest in human rights because our supposed paragon leaders embrace torture and the abandonment of habeas corpus wholeheartedly.

I can't think of anyone -less- deserving of the NPP, if you think about where such a shift will inevitably lead.

CO2 levels have been rising for a long time.. link in sig.

I grant their fundamental thesis, that more CO2 = more plants (in the (geologic) short term, till homeostasis sucks it back out of the air. That doesn't imply there "isn't enough CO2 in the air". That would imply there *really* wasn't enough in say 1600.

Most of the blue states will stay in it and vastly benefit. Then, the red states, jealous of the better QOL afforded the blue states, will either opt back in, or throw out their Repug "representatives", and opt back in. So instead of being a cop-out, it's a master stroke of strategy. I love it!