Which they have been, but now that they're awake, they're a good deal smarter than our rightwing friends might wish they were. All the old tactics: endlessly repeated B.S., unsubstantiated false attacks, trying to label the Democrats as "big spenders" and complaining about earmarks when there's no way the Democrats can even come close to the spending increases of the Republicans, NONE of these tactics work now that the public is awake (except, of course for the always-sleepwalking right wing loyalists and their mouthpieces).

But they're the only thing the Republicans have actually had since the days they used them to get Reagan elected, so look forward to more of the same. It will likely take a generation in the wilderness and the death of a few key loud mouths before a new generation of conservatives will begin to build a fact and reason based counterpoint to the traditional Democratic approach (if that's even possible).

Meanwhile, President Obama, thankfully, still has the political capital to do what's unpopular but necessary: prop up the institutions whose leaders demanded the changes that resulted in this mess enough to prevent a collapse (which will take a breathtakingly amazing amount of public funding - this hole is still much larger than we really comprehend), after which he and congress will rebuild the regulatory laws and enforcement mechanisms that our investment and financial sector so clearly need in very logical ways.

The Wall Street and financial CEOs will scream about the destruction of the "free market," but the public finally recognizes that B.S. for what it always was. The Street will be so in debt to the public by then (they already are) that, when the new regulations come down, the public will be solidly behind them.

Finally, the world will begin to shift, and we'll move back in the direction of operating our economy on sounder footings featuring more equal compensation for those who work (because unions will have been re-empowered as a counterbalance to the tyrannical rule that much of management, as required by Wall Street, has recently demonstrated), and ways which support the production of actual, physical objects and profiting from inventing innovative ideas and developing them into attractive and useful products.

In other words we will no longer be paying our society's highest rewards to those who produced nothing but were only selling investments made of magical "fairy dust" which were not even that, but, once you laid down your money, were revealed to be toxic waste.

Michael Moore to begin gathering information for a movie on BillieBoy. For each time, Little Billie's crew ambushes someone, Moore's crew ambushes Little Billie. Of course they should also ambush the members of Little Billie's ambush crew... repeatedly, mercilessly.

People like Little Billie and his posse are nothing but overgrown, underdeveloped, over-empowered playground bullies who will only learn by having their own tactics used on themselves.

It seems as if China must be just about due for a new "Cultural Revolution." I'm sure Rubaugh could set just the right tone, even through a translator. He could jawbone those wayward, disappointed, depressed Chinese workers back into shape in no time! I wonder how you say, "PULL YOURSELF UP BY YOUR OWN BOOTSTRAPS!" in Chinese.

you know... all the bloviating experts that were telling us, right along with John McCain and Buscho that the "fundamentals of the economy are strong," right up until we struck the iceberg...

The new captain of the ship is busy finding out what's really going on, finding out where the leaks are, rescuing those who can be rescued, sealing off areas that can't be salvaged, throwing over the side whatever can be tossed, in order to lighten the weight of the ship, steering the ship between or around additional icebergs while those on the port and starboard side scream about what THEY'RE seeing (and refuse to consider or trust what those on the other side see)...

Once the ship is stabilized (at least we hope it's not the Titanic) and still afloat, he and his crew (if they're ever confirmed by congress) will begin to clean up the mess left by the previous captain and his crew (even the stinking rotten mess down in that secret hold that the previous captain and his crew were keeping hidden - the part we don't know about, yet).

After the expension of a great deal of time, expert effort, and treasure we will hopefully find ourselves still afloat, and moving ahead under our own power. Until then most of us, including the media and the punditry, aren't really going to know what's going on. Admittedly it's hard for us to trust a new captain after the previous one almost took us under while, all the while, telling us to "party on dudes (and dudettes)!"

We can only hope this new captain really does turn out to be closer to Sullenberger than to Edward John Smith.

But folks, you have to realize a couple of things... First, if you want to know where Micky's ideas are coming from, you need to interview her husband. She's part of the branch of Fundamentalist Christian Conservatism which requires her to be his servant. She's nothing but his mouthpiece. Part of the reason why what she says makes no sense is because she's repeating things her husband has said and she doesn't really understand them herself.

Second, I understand Micky's husband is starting a new planned community in Central Minnesota (not far from where I live, unfortunately), out in the middle of nowhere. He's calling it...

Stepford.