They want to do away with the legislative branch and just make laws right from the White House. Saves money too!

Speaking of saving money, Tim. I hate to bring this up right now but:

According to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) report released on Wednesday, roughly 13 million Latin American immigrants living in the United States will send home a total of around 45 billion U.S. dollars this year, up from some 30 billion dollars in 2004.

One report compares this figure to the amount of money given as official development assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean: Five times as much is leaving the United States in small and frequent wire transfers as we are giving in foreign aid.

According to the IDB, "The percentage of immigrants sending money on a regular basis has increased from 61 percent in 2004 to 73 percent in 2006, said the bank, and the average amount of each remittance also grew, from 240 dollars to 300 dollars.

I know, I know, Tim. This is OT. But it's my pet peeve and I need a forum for this startling news.

Forty five billion ain't chump change. It's an unseen subsidy for mostly the Mexican government. It means that it is billions of dollars that the ruling class of Mexico will not have to spend on providing basic care for their poverty-stricken people.

Why should they? The generousity of America is now taken for granted. They export people they can't afford to feed and find jobs for. Those people come to America and send a part of their paycheck home each week. The money goes out of our economy and into theirs.

What a deal!

I wouldn't have thought it possible that any politician or elected body could fall below Ohio Gov. Bob Taft's 19% approval rating. His lowest-in-the-nation rating among the 50 governors seemed to be about as low as you could go. After all, you'd think that at least 20% of the public never pays attention to the news at all, and to them, ignorance might literally be bliss!

Makes one wonder if 16% approval is rock-bottom -- could it go even lower? We'll see as more revelations about the page program, plus other instances of corruption and mismanagement trickle out.

I have better numbers

is that more people believe that George Bush is telling them the truth than the number that believe they can speak to the dead...

Lordie, those are comforting poll numbers--in terms of Americans finally getting a grasp of the realities of our current situation.

But everyone please remember that we need to get a large number of the 84% to the polls on November 7, and then we need to make sure their votes get counted accurately.

It's not over 'til it's over, and amoral power-hungry SOBs cannot be expected to go down without a nasty fight.

They willingly elect Republicans who flaunt their contempt for "big government" and then turn around and get angry when these big-government-hating Republicans have no idea how to run a big government.

What do people expect?!

Don't have a hissy fit, America, if your overlords decide to backburner that one for now. Or barring that, what makes you think Bush won't just suspend the Congress? It worked for King Charles.

runs something like "What's your opinion of _your_ congressional rep?" and that's where you typically see a dissonance. People will hate congress in general, but their own rep is a swell guy (and usually is a guy).