Recycling the Poo Pile

Just got back from an East Coast financial capital only to learn they're doing it all over again! Atrios: "The alchemy continues...turning shitpile into gold!"

No wonder the economy seems to run in cycles of boom and bust. No one on Wall Street learns anything -- except the taxpayers can always be counted on to come to the rescue.

Rock Solid History

It's surprising, and a little disappointing, to find that Plymouth Rock is sunken several feet below ground level behind an iron fence and beneath a stone masonry canopy.

If something hadn't been done, however, it would be sand by now. Tourists simply aren't to be trusted:

The Rock as it exists today is estimated to be only about 1/3 to 1/2 of its original size - the top half has been dragged around town, broken, chipped away at by 18th and 19th century souvenir hunters.

The laugh's on them, nevertheless. Plymouth Rock, it seems, may be nothing more than the delusion of a 95-year old man, some 121 years after the Pilgrims landed.

What's that? you say. Next, you'll be telling us the Puritans weren't really in favor of freedom of religion.

That's right. They weren't.

Births of a Nation

Q: Where are these homes?

(Hint: The only place where two presidential birthplaces can be seen on the same street.)

Cape Cod Hail

Be glad you're on Pensacola Beach. They're having quarter-sized hail on Cape Cod.

Mass Transit Culture

One of the unintended consequences about a really good mass transit system, like the T in Boston, is that almost everyone who uses it becomes a reader. We snagged the above photo off the web because we didn't think to bring a camera with us today, but it sort of illustrates the point. Take it from us, though: in every subway and commuter train car we rode in today, eight out ten passengers had a full-length book with them. The moment they entered and selected a seat, they opened the book and resumed reading.

One serious-looking woman in a corner wasn't reading. She was writing in a spiral notebook the entire time. We asked her what she was working on and she replied, "My novel."

It seems she gets in two pages in the morning on the way to work, and two more at night on the way home.

Beantown Blues

Bostonians tell us it has rained every day, so it seems to them, for an entire month. "Here it is July, a guy on the T said today, "and we haven't even had June yet."

"Where's our summer?" a woman standing nearby grumbled.

The forecast for the next five days? Cool and rainy, every day.

Health Insurance Game

These are the people being paid big bucks to make sure you don't get the health insurance policy you deserve. Click to play the game "Who's Waldo?"

Once More, It's Good News for Republicans

Grover Norquist, stretching to win the Wanker of the Day Award:

"I disagree with the idea that this shows problems for the modern Republican Party. I think instead it shows that sexual attractiveness of limited-government conservatism.”

Here's the "modern" GOP platform.

'Crying in Argentina'

"I've spent the last five days crying in Argentina"
-- Mark Stanford (R-S.C.)

This didn't take long. Someone on YouTube dedicates it to Mark Sanford. As for us, we forgave Madonna for everything after watching her memorable performance in Evita.

Post-Coital Admissions

Nothing is so satisfying to fundamentalist religious types as the confession of a sinner who has learned the error of his ways, even if he's a hypocrite. Heck, especially if he's a hypocrite.

The more loathsome the sins, the more thrilling the confession:

[W]atching Sanford's confession today, I kept thinking about Sen. John Ensign's (R-Nev.) identical confession just last week. The circumstances are surprisingly similar -- during the Lewinsky scandal a decade ago, Ensign voted to remove the president from office, and Sanford voted to remove Clinton from office. When other prominent politicians got caught in sex scandals, Ensign went on the attack, and Sanford went on the attack. Ensign is an evangelical Christian who's promoted the "sanctity" of marriage; Sanford is an evangelical Christian who's promoted the "sanctity" of marriage.

A politician's personal problems are a private matter, but the hypocrisy here is harder to overlook.

These days, it's almost become an early entry requirement for Republican politicians with national ambitions: confess you've been screwing somebody you shouldn't have. Admit you lied. Today, the sheets hadn't even been washed in Argentina before South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford bared his soulful sins.

What's next? Is Mitt Romney going to call a press conference before he's climbed out of his mistress' bed? Will Bobby Jindal leave his wife for a Louisiana nutria, after sending out a press release?

The Funny Farm

It's not just the Republican Party that's acting psycho. The Washington Post has fired its best-read Internet columnist; and Charles Krauthammer is as delusional as ever. He would be; he once was a psychiatrist.

Even so, Krauthammer truly belongs on the funny farm that has become the Washington Post. Where else does anyone take seriously foreign policy advice from Paul Wolfowitz? Or, where else -- other than a rubber room -- would you expect to see a newspaper hosting the certifiably insane Glenn Beck?

Those few times we look at the Washington Post these days, all the sympathy we usually feel for the plight of the traditional, dead-tree press just drains right out of us. Under Fred Hiatt's command, the Post has earned its death sentence.

Charity Begins at Home - Ray Sansom's Home, That Is

If you're looking for someone to give all of your excess money to, Ray Sansom's brother has a charity case he'd like to sell you on. The best part is, he claims you might even get some of your dough back!

Such a deal. Even the Sisters of Mercy can't match that!

Unanswered Question

Childers is free, except he " will have to register as a convicted felon living in the area." It's never been explained how, after serving as a state senator for a salary of less than $30,000 a year, he somehow managed to amass millions.

Obama Tortures A Fly

For all of you autocratic, torture-lovin', Constitution-wrecking Bush-Cheney lovers out there, one question: Can your guys do this?

Oh, sorry. That was just a harmless catch-and-release during the Republican administration of Dwight Eisenhower. We meant this:

Reality Bites

Remember when that nut job of a Minnesota congresswoman took the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to denounce the Obama administration for a Homeland Security report warning against violence from right-wing extremists? Or, when Michael Savage claimed he was filing a lawsuit against the administration to demand the names of any right-wingers who are terrorists? Or, Rush Limbaugh's insane gibberish on the same subject? Pat Robertson... Pensacola's own Joe Scarborough... GOP chairman Michael Steele?

Steve Benen remembers:

The DHS report specifically addressed the possibility of violence from anti-abortion radicals and anti-Semitic extremists. And in the last two weeks, Tiller was assassinated and a white supremacist opened fire at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The Republican hysteria over the DHS report -- which was, by the way, initiated by a Bush administration official -- was always based more on a partisan scheme than reality, but the incessant complaints look especially misguided today.

Reality has a way of undermining these idiots every time they open their mouths.