Something bad happened at a company over the weekend when the vast majority of the management, IT and communications people are off work. All indications are it was a stupid mistake.

But a few hyperactive bloggers, who demand immeadiate gratification start hammering away on their keyboards that Amazon is EVIL. Never mind waiting for evidence. Never mind waiting for a COUPLE OF F*%$&G hours for the company to work out what was going on. No they needed an answer RIGHT NOW!!!!

The company initially releases a perfectly reasonable statement, probably put together on the fly by the B team over the weekend. Within two days of the problem being discovered Amazon releases another statement explaining the situation in clear concise language. But the hyperactive bloggers still demand more.

Get over yourself Kate. A problem occurred and within 48 hours (over the weekend) Amazon fixed it. That's pretty fast service by any RATIONAL standard.

We all bemoan the 24 hour news cycle that manufactures controversy out of nothing to bad hours and blog space. Welcome to the problem.

The whiney little twit waited until Stewart was off the air to have his little rant.

I believe part of Obama's problem in going after people is that he would have to after Democrats as well. Democratic laders in congress almost certainly knew about Bush torture policies (they certainly knew far more than they are willing to admit to now). Bush/Cheney would have kept them at least partially in the loop if only to be able to claim a 'pox on both our houses' if somebody came after them.

Now she (Palin) will actually have to govern. She has never had a good relationship with the legislature. She has no real understanding of how to govern (she hired a city manager in Wasilla to actually handle the day to day operations of the town leaving her only major duty to preside over city council meetings). What happened to Bush is 2005 and 2006 when the public finally caught on to his fundamental idiocy is about to happen to Sarah Palin. I've seen some reporting that the Permanent Fund checks this year will be very low (lower than they've ever been) and its possible there may not even be Permanent Fund checks this year. Add to that the need to make up a billion dollar deficit and Palin's approval ratings will probably drop below 50% within the six months or so. .

Absent some kind of massive turnaround or divine intervention Palin is basically done. She has no chance of winning reelection or of sniping away Lisa Murkowski's Senate seat. Outside the rabid right she has no base in the Republican Party. McCain plucked her out of nowhere as a pure 'hail mary' play. She failed.

Sometime in 2011 she will leave Alaska for a talk show gig at Fox.

This is a tricky situation. Given past history and well documented cases of abuse, there is an argument for western women to steer clear of Saudi Arabia.

We are faced with a similar situation at my company now. We own a factory in Tijuana. We routinely send down engineers and other personnel to support their opperations. However as the violence has increased in Mexico over the last couple of months (they found a severed head one block from the factory a couple of months ago) many of our US personnel do not want to travel to Mexico.

The situation has not yet come to a head since there are currently no 'mission critical' projects in Tijuana that require support and we have been able to fly people up here for training. But at some point we are going to have a situation of needing to send someone down there and having and having the necessary person say no and sights the violence.

That killed Vince Foster.

And all the reporting was about how the banking industry was finally coming back.

Can was please just nationalize the banks already? The longer we drag this out the worse it is going to get for the rest of economy.

In 20+ years of conservative leaning Supreme court decisions. The damage Roberts and Alito will do on the bench staggers the imagination. The most likely vacancies on the bench over the next few years are among the courts liberal wing so all Obama will be able to to is hold the line, not reverse the damage.

The push needs to be on to fill as many vacacies as possible in the federal judiciary over the next 4 years.

The key to the next four years are the policy debates within the Democratic party. Right now the 'center-right' democrats like Bayh, Nelson and now Specter are going to be the ones blocking/obstructing any real progressive legislation from passing in the next 4 years. The Republicans basically exist to say no (having no policy proposals beyond 'stop spending' and 'cut taxes'). Effectively it is the right wing of the Democratic party (what 20 years ago was the left of the Republican party) that holds veto authority over legislation.

This is where having a strong Majority Leader would be welcome. Someone who can actually LEAD the Democrats in the Senate. Unfortunately we are stuck with Harry 'If Mitchell doesn't like it I won't do it' Reid. A man far more obsessed with being liked by the minority party and than passing good legislation.

I'd take Nov 2011. Palin will be out of office by then, having lost her reelection bid and she'll be desperate to boost ratings for her failing show on FOX.