On the cramdown provision, here's what Evan Bayh had to say: "There's been a tendency on the part of some who are advocates for the legislation to overestimate the number of votes in favor,...When I was actively involved at the moment it broke down it was my impression there were no Republicans who were willing to support it and at least a few Democrats have stated openly on the record that they were in opposition. How you get to 60 with those numbers is a mathematical problem."

And Mr. Bayh reiterates his newfound, albiet unconstitutional, belief that a super-majority should always be required to pass legislation in the U.S. Senate--not a majority.

I look forward to the day when a progressive Dem kicks this Daddy boy's ass (yes, Evan Bayh also got elected by riding his famous Daddy's coattails) in his re-election primary.

"House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the Democratic agenda "makes me want to throw up." Classy."

Or maybe it's swine flu.

Steve, did you really have to repeat CNN's sensationalism about the swine flu "nearing widespread human infection"? Phase 5 merely means that there is observed human-to-human transmission in more than one country.

I think that ALL lobbying firms and lobbyists be outlawed. We do NOT need them. They do nothing to represent the American people they only represent greedy corporations.

To add to the panic, local Chicago ABC news is reporting that the WHO has raised the alert to Phase 6. Of course, the WHO's website reports no such thing.

Even worse, apparently Boehner said this not about the Dem agenda in general but about the Matthew Shepard bill.

Interesting. John Boehner makes me want to throw up every time he opens his mouth. I don't usually go public with that sentiment, but since it's now classy to do so, there you have it.

...did you really have to repeat CNN's sensationalism... -Disputo

What is means is that there a more than 1 to 1 transmission rate is likely, which in turn means this could spread geometrically.

It's not sensationalism; some of us take this threat seriously, Senator Collins' asshatery notwithstanding.

The Federal Reserve believes the recession may be easing and that the economic outlook has "improved modestly" since March.

They're just saying that to keep the rabble from stringing up all the bankers-on-welfare who are increasing their bonuses back to 2007 levels.

Re: Boehner's regurgitation...

A quote from the linked article says:

Conservative critics say the bill amounts to a gag rule for preachers and other religious figures who do not support homosexuality.

Whaa?? Do they really say that? My understanding is that the bill would only affect someone who commits a violent crime. So the preachers would only be affected if they assaulted or murdered a gay person, not if they merely said homosexuality was sinful.

What is means is that there a more than 1 to 1 transmission rate is likely, which in turn means this could spread geometrically.

*snicker*

That's not part of the def, but is nevertheless implied by a Phase 4 designation.

Really, folks, ratchet down the panic.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the Democratic agenda "makes me want to throw up."

The big lug simply thinks, correctly, that his public vomiting makes a nice break from his public crying.

Loger Boner: The success of the Democrats and Obama administration's agenda combined with the total failure of the Republican party is driving me to drink. Consuming too much alcohol makes me want to throw up.

Sorry, Longer Boner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLyyrVXTBko

Let me share some flu sanity amongst all the panic:

In four weeks, around 1,700 Americans could be infected with the disease, according to a model programmed by Dirk Brockmann, associate professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics at Northwestern. About 100 of those cases would be in Chicago, Brockmann said.

But Brockmann said his model, based on direct and indirect measures of human mobility, predicts the spread of the disease as if no interventions are put in place to slow its spread.

Given the worldwide attention on the disease by public health organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, he would expect actual numbers to be much lower.
Even the worst case scenario of 1,700 infections is a relatively low number given the media attention, Brockmann said, though he understands the growing fear.

"When people get this information, they immediately see themselves as one of the 1,700, not part of the other 299 million," Brockmann said.

* The House passed a hate-crimes measure this afternoon, but not before some far-right Republicans made some pretty nauseating comments.

That statement from Virgia Foxx is NO different than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proclaiming the holocaust was just a hoax.
I've never seen such an assault on reality. Forget emulating the Taliban, Republicans are trying to emulate Ahmadinejad.

Let in Snowe. Let it Snowe. Let it Snowe...

Olympia Snowe voted with her party only 54% of the time. She's the leader. Arlen at 65% of the time is number four. Even Susan Collins of Maine (59%) beats Specter.

So if Snowe must go...
Then so should Collins.

If the left had a Limbaugh, such a creature would be imploring Dems to add to the blizzard of wingnut emails Olympia is receiving today for her pro-moderate opinion piece. You know as well as I do the purist (hotly emotional) are scorching her for being sensible.

But such a covert campaign might not be necessary. If Fox really is pushing on her lack of purity, she's done as a Republican. Lacking any sort of party leverage to work for the people of Maine, the frost is on the pumpkin.

In other words: Snowe... come on down!

Take a look at this torture tape from the UAE on Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/uae-condemns-royal-sheikh_n_192970.html

The US has to protest the protection of the torturer from prosecution because he is royalty.

North Korea is threatening...

When is someone going to convince China that they have got to put a stop this NK crap if they (China) want to be considered a legitimate player on the world stage?

John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the Democratic agenda "makes me want to throw up."

How would one know from looking whether he did or didn't?

Interesting WHO Fact:

The World Health Organization groups countries into regions. We are in the "Region of the Americas".

They classify countries based upon two measures: infant mortality and adult mortality.

Only three countries in our region get into the "A" category: very low infant and very low adult.

The countries are the United States, Canada and ... Cuba.

Check out the whole world:
http://www.who.int/choice/demography/regions/en/index.html

Senate has passed the budget. The spectral boy wonder voted with the party he's still listed with (R) even though the NRC is already fundraising on the basis of the outrage about the "former Republican" (TPMDC has the screen capture). The usual suspects on our side: Bayh, Byrd, and the ND half of the Nelson twins. Kennedy sick and Rockefeller couldn't be bothered (which takes care of WVA)
http://senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00173

Specter voted against the budget bill. I assume Harry Reid has already sent him flowers and an apology for almost all Democrats voting the other way.

"First quarter GDP numbers were really ugly."

Wait'll it gets revised.

A climate change complication: Arctic ice is twice as previously estimated.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/10662

Other findings from the expedition will be published later.

Does this mean that the earth isn't really warming up? We'll have to wait and see which trends continue and which don't, won't we.

Meanwhile, we should all buy our own carbon offsets. The technologies are proven, and we don't have to wait for governments in order to assume our own responsibilities.

A climate change complication: Arctic ice is twice as previously estimated.

Bwahahaha! Twice as...what? Certainly not twice as LARGE, as your misleading wording pretends, as you can see from the satellite data here that the ice is thinning.

Or you can read here about an expedition on foot whose findings verified the satellite data.

Once again you've been punked by following biased news outlets.

Worst. Analyst. Ever.

Really, folks, ratchet down the panic. -Disputo

I don't happen to feel staying informed is anything akin to panic, but I'll go ahead and ratchet down my 'panic' if you ratchet down the pedantic asshole routine.

Shortstop and I are *not* twins, honest, even if we do post almost-the-same-thing within 3 minutes of one another. I cherish Shortstop's flourish of Reid's flowers and apologies and wish *I* had thought of it :)

To offer a flourish of my own...

This being the third-in-a-row lockstep vote from the Repubs (on "the issues economical"), I propose that DNC buys the rights to "Wild Rover" (and it's no, nay, never; no, nay, never, no more) to use as the background for all their future ads.

TG wrote: A quote from the linked article says:

Conservative critics say the bill amounts to a gag rule for preachers and other religious figures who do not support homosexuality.

Whaa?? Do they really say that? My understanding is that the bill would only affect someone who commits a violent crime. So the preachers would only be affected if they assaulted or murdered a gay person, not if they merely said homosexuality was sinful.
~~~
TG is correct. The quote is part of the right's disinformation campaign. Typical lying on their part.

Well, the flu doesn't directly kill 36,000 Americans a year. "Flu-related deaths are deaths that occur in people for whom influenza infection was likely a contributor to the cause of death, but not necessarily the primary cause of death."

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm

Crying. Throwing up. Tanning too much.

Are we sure Leader Boner isn't a teenage girl? (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

"Conservative critics say the bill amounts to a gag rule for preachers and other religious figures who do not support homosexuality."

OH! A "GAG rule." No WONDER the Tan Man from Ohio wants to throw up.

BTW, can we add "gag" to teabagging and cornholing in terms of ReTaliban Party's latent homosexuality?

I'd put his unnatural tan up against Nancy Pelosi's botoxed eyes as a strange physical transformation. Does he not KNOW it causes skin cancer? Is he racing his skin against his lungs for which organ can deteriorate first? BTW that's the answer to an interesting trivia question: What's the largest organ in the body? The skin.

I LOVE Wild Rover. It's the only song I can play on the harmonium.

North Korea is threatening a second nuclear test and the launch of an ICMB unless the U.N. Security Council says it's sorry for censuring North Korea earlier this month.

And then they stamped their feet and ran off to their bedroom to throw a crying fit. Screaming and yelling N.K. was heard to say it would hold it's breath until everybody was sorry.

What exactly is the matter with those people? Have they been consuming too much with sugar?

If Wall Street's so broke they're begging DC for money, then why does Dick Durbin think they still own the place?

Oh, I see, it's a robbery, and there's nothing we can do about it.

Well, *that* is reassuring.

So.....the medical community is stressing that if you feel sick, stay home. But DON"T flood ER's if you only have mild symptoms. The WHO is stressing that antiviral drugs available will only be most effective if taken within the 1st 48 hours. OK, so the first couple of days I have mild to moderate symptoms. I stay in bed instead of panicking and rushing to the ER. By the 3rd day, I'm feeling quite a bit worse and decide to go to the doctor. Obviously, because I didn't rush to ER immediately after feeling sick, I'm too late for the medication timeframe to work effectively.
This makes no sense to me. They are telling people to stay home, and not to bombard the ER if they are not seriously ill. Out of the other side of their mouths they say to get the meds into your system within 48 hours.

Sorry, doubtful, I didn't realize I was dealing with such a fragile ego. I won't bother correcting your misinfo in the future.

Sherri, @22:55,

Obviously, you'll have to make a Solomonic decision and head for the ER (or your regular GP) after observing your symptoms for only 24-36hrs.

Cal Gal, @22:11,

Too bad you're so far away (I take it that "Cal" stands for "California"?)... If you were closer, you could take your harmonium to all the House and Senate debates and, as soon as the Repubs began to stray into their usual "weedy wilds of rhetoric", you could crank up the first few notes (and it's no, nay, never...). And, during the voting, you could play the whole refrain, over and over and over...

I bet that, by the second or third day -- if you managed not to get yourself ejected, that is -- you'd be on every TV news program. Except Faux.

Sherry, it's quite simple -- soon as you have flu symptoms, go to your Dr instead of the ER and get a prescription. Or, if you have a cool Dr like I do, email them and have them call in a prescription.

I have to say from a perfectly selfish standpoint, I am quite happy with all the panic. If irrational fear of the BlackDeath will get people to start covering their mouths when they cough/sneeze, wash their hands when they go to the bathroom, and stay home from work/school when they're sick, I'm all in favor of it. Although I'm indifferent as to the effect such behavior changes will have on my already negligible chance of getting the BlackDeath, it will certainly decrease in a non-negligible way my very real chances of getting some other contagion.

Now if only we can figure out how to get people to act responsibly wrt public health without scaring the crap out of them.

Interesting, the cognitive dissonance of the right. Olympia Snowe is vilified by Fox News for saying the Republican Party needs to be more inclusive. She's told don't let the door hit you in the behind.
Then--same day-- the party's spokesman Rush Limbaugh says on his radio station if people want to leave the party, let them leave, because the conservative movement and the Republican Party are going to have to be "rebuilt" anyway.
Isn't the man Republicans fear to offend really saying the same thing as Ms. Snowe said?

trex: Certainly not twice as LARGE,

Nope. Twice as THICK. Sorry about the dropped word. The rest of the results of the German scientific team will be reported in upcoming months. With luck, we'll be able to read about them in Science. By now, someone has surely alerted George Will, who reported that the recent refreezing was the fastest refreezing ever recorded by scientists.

[interesting that you have assumed the handle of a parodist. it's not difficult to imagine why you want confusion around which comments were actually yours when considering the standpoint of future accountability -- mod.

That should be ICBM, not ICMB.

Sherry, it's quite simple -- soon as you have flu symptoms, go to your Dr instead of the ER and get a prescription.

Because everyone's doctors can/will see them within 24 hours, or 24 days, for that matter. HA HA HA HA HA HA! Good one.

Or, if you have a cool Dr like I do, email them and have them call in a prescription.

Because doctors are going to want to call in prescriptions for Tamiflu to unseen, possibly healthy patients who are stockpiling against future infection, rather than use potentially limited stores of antivirals for people who are actually sick. HA HA HA HA HA HA! Good one.

As the "RepuG" flu appears to have begun in Mexico, let us all croon to the tune of "Suddenly Seymour", Laves Los Manos.

[interesting that you have assumed the handle of a parodist. it's not difficult to imagine why you want confusion around which comments were actually yours when considering the standpoint of future accountability -- mod.

MatthewRMarler is now posting his bullshit under the handle of his parody, MatthewRQuarreler? Now that's borderline pathological. What's the matter with this guy?

The regular old flu kills 36,000 each year.

Keep in mind that most of the deaths occur in the very young, very old and those whose systems are already compromised by some other serious problem.
Thats .012% of a population of 300M.

There is also the fact that the flu varities the last couple of years were unusually severe with serious cases showing up in hospitals in the fall, well ahead of the normal "flu" seasion occuring in the February 6 months later.

[interesting that you have assumed the handle of a parodist. it's not difficult to imagine why you want confusion around which comments were actually yours when considering the standpoint of future accountability -- mod.

I thought that the parody name nicely captured my tendency to disagree with the main themes here, and rhymed besides. I doubted that anyone was actually fooled.

As for future accountablilty, I guess we'll have to wait and see, as the parodist noted I frequently say.