... but Ogombe would not answer the question, instead he repeatedly tried to insert that, "No, No, No. He was born in the United States!"

Yes, when someone tries to repeatedly correct a mistake that you insist on repeating, that obviously means that you're not making a mistake at all. Or something like that.

And if lots of people try to correct your mistake, then they "have obviously been versed to counter such facts". Because, after all, it's not as though there could have been any mis-communication over intercontinental phone lines and via a third-party translator. That sort of thing is obviously vanishingly unlikely.

What dreck. Clearly some folks are just desperately trying to keep their heads from exploding by pretending that Obama isn't really the President-elect. I guess this approach is marginally less foolish than closing their eyes, covering their ears, and chanting "La la la la ..." when anyone mentions President-elect Obama.

Hmmm. On second thought, it's not less foolish than that.

I don't particularly care if the on-air Rush is only a persona. If so, then the fact that he's perfectly willing to take a lot of money for getting people to take that persona serious, to such a detrimental effect on the body politic, means that whoever he is "in real life" isn't someone I'd want to know either.

It's that the Hummer gave us away. It was what they call a "tell" in a poker game.

The Hummer let slip that we Americans have a secret or not so secret wish for outsized power and invulnerability.

Given our country's behavior of the last several decades -- and especially the last several years -- I'd say that qualifies as a not-so-secret wish. This is a "tell" on the order of ... hell I dunno ... like a "tell" about Timothy McVeigh not liking the federal government very much.

Wow, I'm impressed! You whacked that strawman really really hard!

I think I'll swoon now.

Tracy, are you sure Details didn't just reprint an article from the 70's? "Explaining" the bad behavior of a subset of men on feminism is old hat.

And amen to this:

At some point you have to toss aside the protective posturing and the search for The New Rules, and just start acting like a human being who is still figuring it all out for himself. You'll be in good company.

But first let's get our economy moving, bring our troops home safely, fix health care, end climate change and restore our place in the world.

Huh. With the possible exception of the first issue on that list, those are all causes that "those on the left" have been pushing for.

(And even the first one is a "left" issue, depending on what direction one wants the economy to move. Getting the economy moving closer to the cliff, on the other hand ...)

Also, while it may not be a "time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making", it's a perfectly reasonable time to speculate about those appointments.

The Globe found, though, that "only 12 percent of the money has been spent distributing checks to Romney's fellow Republicans around the country."

Well, it's clear that he's still just as duplicitous as he was when he was governor of Massachusetts. There's no doubt that he fits right in with the modern Republican Party.

It's an easy game to pick things off the list of spending that sound crazy. It's not as easy to go through the list and make decisions based on facts and contexts and careful judgment about which things are really a waste of money.

This game is also often penny-wise and pound-foolish, spending time posturing against million-dollar projects while letting billion-dollar no-bid contracts get handed out with hardly a peep.

That said, what a fucking loser.

I'd be tempted to mock Illinois citizens for electing this bozo, but then again, I live in Massachusetts, one-time stepping-stone of Mitt the Git Romney.

One person it most likely won't affect is Obama himself, who appears to have been inadvertently cleared by Blagojevich.

Of course, with some folks, that's insufficient clearance. Hell, some people will be making not-so-veiled references to Obama's supposed nefarious connection to Rezko until the devil buys ice skates.

Last thought: don't mess with Patrick Fitzgerald.

And a Merry Fitzmas to you too!

(I remember a time when justice seemed possible. Oh, for the good ol' days of 2005.)

If Blagojevich did pull this crap and Rahm Emanuel did have a hand in taking him down, I take back half of the mean things I've ever said about Emanuel.

What's needed is some good methods to reasonably calculate "externalities"- i.e., the long-term costs to health, the environment (like THE OCEANS), the food supply, and future commodity scarcities from NOT recycling and similar resource thrift measures.

Bingo. When people start smugly talking about how oh-so-expensive recycling, shifting to renewable energy sources, and other such green actions are, you can bet that one of two things is true. Either they don't understand that the old approaches benefit hugely from externalizing costs (read: getting other people to pay), or they do understand that ... and profit from it.

Is this Obama's Whitewater???

You mean will Republicans and their media pundits try (and try and try) to connect this to Obama, and get nothing out of it other than a convenient distraction from their own failings?

Well, I wouldn't be at all surprised.