Love Me, I'm a Liberal

Thanks to TPM for this link on the privatization debate.

Standard & Poor's said Personal (privatized) Social Security accounts would "bring more risk than reward to investors".

Ok, well if one of the house organs of the American investment community says so.

And in the Love Me, I'm a Liberal category, this from Scripting News:
So on Saturday night at dinner, when one of our companions, a man who considers himself a conservative, in the mold of Limbaugh, DeLay or Hannity, a death penalty proponent who feels deeply for the parents of Terri Schiavo, used the L-word in an argument, I said "Wait a minute, that's a code-word that means, weak effeminate, etc." I told him if he's going to talk about that, I'm going to expose him for what he is, an emulator of loutish, idiotic talk show hosts who say they're conservatives, but come on, they're not conservative, they're idiots who got a gig that pays them for being idiotic. The stupider they are the more they make.

Andrew Sullivan recommends Bill Buckley

: "SANITY FROM BUCKLEY: Another calm and decent column from William F. Buckley Jr. When you read him - an unimpeachable source for what was once the conservative movement - you begin to realize what a crew of zealots and charlatans now occupy the conservative pedestal. But they will fall soon enough. And the hysteria they are now creating will only accelerate their collapse."

Hopefully the Mujahideen of the American Religious Right are imploding. Or rather, the American public might take a step back and realize what they're being spoon-fed.

Or not. Also found on Sullivan's site is this link to a piece written by Diamond Bill Bennett basically suggesting that the separation of powers is only binding until the mullahs have spoken.

In Marbury vs Madison the Supreme Court first established its supremacy in determining the constitutionality of legislation.

Courts rule, legislators drool.

Opiniatrety.

John has a daily calendar of Forgotten English. Yesterday's word was Opiniatrety. It is defined in the calendar as "Unreasonable attachment to one's own notions".

I can't imagine why that word has fallen from favor.

And while I'm waxing on all things grammatical, should one say "Yesterday's word was ..." or "Yesterday's word is...". Because it refers to an entry on a calendar, the word for March 22 is Opiniatrety, but March 22 was yesterday. Hmmmm.

Music on my mind

Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is a must have. The snippets of other things of hers I've heard haven't drawn me in as much. I may take a plunge and buy some stuff.

Si*Se came to me out of the blue from someone at work who saw my playlists and thought I'd like. I like. Only one album so far, that I know of. You can get a sample here.

My Heros Have Always Been Cowboys

Scripting News: 3/19/2005: "Without heroes, is there any point to Major League Baseball? After all it's just a sport. In some sense we measure ourselves against our past selves through men like Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, Hank Aaron, and the current crop of pretenders, McGwire, Sosa and Bonds. If we apply the test, even though Ruth was surely flawed, and Maris tragic, we lose."

I've never really had the sports Jones. As a kid I sort of followed the Detroit Tigers, but Al Kaline was the last player I really followed. Ok, maybe Denny McClain.

The Sacramento Kings were a client and I once stood this close to Chris Webber. Since I wasn't an idiot about it I was able to do the work and not drool. And you won't find a more cynical group of people than professional sports staff when it comes to the athletes.

And it's not that I'm immune to fan-dom. I yelled at Henry Winkler across an airport lobby once. I was young. I confess. I repent.

But professional sports are so far from their origins that I can't imagine holding any of the current crop of drug addled "atheletes" in any kind of high regard. And, the 'amatuers" don't do much for me either.

The cure for steroid use among young ath-e-letes is to teach them to chose more appropriate heros.