On Possibility

"The impossible attracts me, because everything possible has been done and the world didn't change." -- Sun Ra

Palindrone

I'm not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate.

It's a toxic mess, really, on Main Street that's affecting Wall Street.

... there have been so many changes in the conditions of our economy in just even these past weeks that there has been more and more revelation made aware now to Americans about the corruption and the greed on Wall Street.

Well, as the nation's only Arctic state and being the governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state.

You preferenced your whole comment with the Bush administration.

... it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner.

We have got to not allow the greed and corruption on Wall Street anymore. And we have not got to allow the partisanship that has really been entrenched in Washington, D.C., no matter who's been in charge.

Domino Theory (Don't Follow Leaders)

"This is a financial 9/11," writes Thomas Friedman, as one Wall Street institution after another tumbles.

Friedman is the sort of pundit who rarely means his metaphors, in the sense of thinking them through. Where figures of speech are concerned, he's like a running back who never saw a football he couldn't fumble.

In this instance, he puts words into the mouth of George W. Bush, having him say "I was wrong" about a war that Friedman himself supported at the only time it mattered. Of course, in Friedman's view, Bush was "wrong" only in that he "originally launched this war in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction."

There is probably a reason why his own web site uses quotation marks in describing him as a "foreign affairs" columnist.

How hard can it be to develop a metaphor to its obvious implications?

If this is our financial 9/11, pray tell, who brought down the towers?

It was the same leaders who now regard the American taxpayer as the "first responder," duty-bound to rush into the burning building as it collapses.

One and Only

Under Mayor Sarah Palin, Wasilla was the only town in Alaska that forced rape victims to pay for their own forensic tests.

For women in Governor Sarah Palin's Alaska, the likelihood of being raped is greater than in any other state.

The Big Draw Down

Here's a possible explanation for all those empty seats at the Republican convention. According to reports, Ron Paul spoke to 15,000 people at his "counter-convention" Tuesday night.

Did Sarah Palin outdraw Ron Paul? Unlikely.

The Xcel Energy Center holds about 20,000 max. The Republicans have yet to fill it.

Cover Down

A controversial New Yorker Obama=Osama cover has sparked fear that its import may all be too rich for an "irony-challenged" country -- that's one way to look at it. Here's another: what could be more tone-deaf than a cartoonist who has to explain -- to anyone -- that his intent was satirical?

I don't know why the Obama camp bothered to denounce the hapless doodling. I'm not sure anything the New Yorker does is of all that much consequence. I've walked all over Manhattan looking for a newsstand that carried it. A couple of years ago I had to ask five times -- down in the Lower East Side -- before I found a vendor who had even heard of it.

Ducked and Covered

An e-mail from a Vietnam War vet, offered by way of commentary on Our Lady of Incoming's account of sniper fire and "experience" acquired in Bosnia:
When I was in Thailand, whenever the base came under fire, everyone would try to get near the area being attacked so they could get combat pay for that month.

If the Legend of Our Lady is shot down in a hail of lede, she can always take refuge in a cult of her own.

Google-eyed News

The CNN headline is: "Bush calls for quick, temporary tax relief to spur economy."

But Google News clears out the underbrush:

And you thought his poll numbers couldn't go any lower ...

White Man's Burden

After a week in which race became an ugly issue in the presidential campaign, a report by Nedra Picker of the Associated Press identifies former Senator John Edwards as "the only white man among the candidates on stage" at the Democratic debate in Nevada.

Not quite what Edwards had in mind with his new 11-second ads, all ending in the tagline, "John Edwards is the only one."

Clipping Hillary's Hedge

In the midst of an excellent analysis of the Iowa caucuses, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair write that

It's hard to see any future for the Edwards campaign, unless as some kind of Hillary surrogate to siphon votes away from Obama in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Was there ever any other rationale for the Edwards campaign, other than to split the anti-Hillary vote? According to reports, he hasn't bothered to open offices in 22 primary states.