Here's what the conservative fan-base for Rush Limbaugh simply cannot grasp: Rush doesn't care about conservatism, Rush cares about Rush.

Rush doesn't give a rat's ass about whether Obama or the country succeeds or fails, because Rush is gonna do just fine either way, thank you very much. He's got tons of money, he's famous and now he gets to pretend that he's actually engaging the President of the US of A in a "debate" where Rush chooses the forum, the rules and the outcome.

For a self-indulgent ego-maniac, it really couldn't get any better.

And because of all that, I think it's a good idea to tie the GOP and conservatism to Rush, because Rush doesn't care if it ultimately winds up hurting the cause of conservatism or the Republican party, as long has he's rich and famous.

There is a provision for increased funding to research and develop hi-speed rail lines, including mag-lev, in various high impact corridors. The Fed Railway Authority is in charge of divvying up those funds to worth projects. While the Vegas-LA mag-lev has been touted often by folks in that area, it's not even in the top-ten of FRA's wishlist. What is? A hi-speed line in Congressman Boehner's district.

As Gomer would say: surprise, surprise, surprise.

Robert A Heinlein wrote often about "cusp" events. Moments in history where a minor change resulted in a drastically different future.

As science fiction, it was good stuff. As revisionist sports history? Not so much.

The biggest reason to do something to halt the tidal wave of foreclosures isn't as altruistic as one might think.

Foreclosures are strking across socio-economic lines like never before. They are leaving houses vacant in neighborhoods both fine and fearsome. And an excess of vacant housing hurts everyone. The rest of the neighbors who have an eyesore with overgrown lawn and weedy driveway lose both aestheics and value in their own property. Overall property values decline further with a blight on nearly every block. Those who need to relocate for work, downsize as the kids move out or upsize as the family grows can't sell their own houses. Builders can't sell new housing when there's so much bargain-basement foreclosures on the market, so tradesmen remain out of work, unable to pay their own mortgages, which increases the spiral.

Propping up whatever percentage of those facing foreclosure who might deserve it might not be pleasant, but refusing to do it out of spite is nothing but biting off one's own nose.

Lane, Riehl and Morrisey were also quoted as saying they're still pretty sure that Obama's a muslim who is not a natural US citizen. Lane thinks the jury's still out on the Easter Bunny, and Morrisey wants to waterboard Santa to get the fat man to fess up to his communist agenda.

Two bits of one paragraph stand out:

"I knew that it potentially could be something that perhaps was wrong."

Well isn't that a nice declarative sentence: "potentially" "could" "perhaps" But of course I never checked with anyone and went ahead and did it anyway. As King notes, that was the culture back then.

The other:

"I mean I wouldn't imagine thinking of doing something like that today. It's a different world, it's a different culture." A dfferent world indeed, A-Rod. In this new world, the tests aren't confidential and there are penalties (I suppose I should modify that to read: if you're dumb enough to use something that shows up in tests.) I suppose, thought, that at least the tests are doing SOMETHING if they're at least providing a small measure of deterrent.

I think the point was to argue that the ONLY folks who opposed this bill were the obstructionists in the GOP House and Senate caucuses (along with the disciples of Rush and acolytes of Fox News).

By painting this as something that enjoyed broad support among the folks OUTSIDE of Washington -- which was not inaccurate -- it demonstrates that the republicans in Washington are out of step with mainstream America. A subtle bit of turnabout.

School newspapers are a tricky entity when discussing censorship issues.

Generally, a school newspaper is published by the school and written and edited by the students with help from their advisors. I don't think anyone would argue that a publisher ultimately has the right to control the content of their publication. I think this is particularly true where the publisher is a high school: the school has some responsibility to the students regarding appropriateness of content to which they're exposed, etc., and most of their reporters, editors and readers are minors. If the school nixes something, it's actually self-censorship, and not "censorship" in the traditional sense.

A public school is also a part of local government, however, and thus the 1st Amendment is in play. While I can't cite directly, I seem to recall that there is some jurisprudence as to how far a public school can go in that arena (as well as in regards the 4th Amendment).

One can only hope that the long knives will come out and stay out.

There is much to tell of the machinations behind the Bush White House, and we now have two men who are known to be world-class grudge-holders and back-stabbers about to unleash their evil armies one at the other. This could actually get fun.