House Democratic leaders sent conservatives into apoplexy today, writing an op-ed describing right-wing efforts to shut down debate over health care reform as "un-American."

As opposed to all those times these same conservatives have called Pelosi "un-American", which are perfectly acceptable because she really is un-American. Assholes.

Pace the Times, I would maintain that 'fail', used in the sense article discusses, marks the re-appearance of the supine, an IE non-finite verbal noun distinct from the infinitive and gerund, found in some Slavic and Scandinavian languages as well as Latin. If 'fail' were an interjection sensu stricto, it wouldn't be capable of being used in prepositional phrases or taking an adjective, features that distinguish nouns.

Hate to break it to you but actual unemployment numbers have been over 10% for a while. The "official" numbers don't reflect what's actually happening.

That being said, I'm sure people in Michigan would love 10% unemployment.

Online cynics deploy fail as a countable noun (“That’s such a fail!”) and also as a mass noun that treats failure as an abstract quality: the offending party is often said to be full of fail or made of fail.

I find this greatly amusing.

You forgot to add that Afganistan has become Obama's VietNam (from Juan Cole):

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of US forces in Afghanistan, admitted in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Monday that the Taliban have gained the upper hand in fighting in Afghanistan. They are deploying small units that combine suicide bombings and ambushes, killing US troops at an unprecedented rate. McChrystal wants an addition 10,000 troops, with which to garrison the major western Pashtun city of Qandahar, a center of the Taliban insurgency.

McChrystal said that he only had about a year to turn things around in Afghanistan if the effort was not to lose the support of the US public. My own impression from lecturing around the country is that the American public is tired of wars, doesn't see the point of the current ones, can't any longer connect them to their security, and in view of the collapse of the economy thinks that there are better uses for the $4 bn. a month that the Afghanistan effort is costing. 54% of Americans now oppose the Afghanistan war.

Oh, and this lovely tidbit tops it off:

Incoming head of the British Army, General Sir David Richards, is under fire from Labour Party cabinet ministers and by Tory and Lib-Dem politicians for his recent statement that Britain would be in Afghanistan for forty years.

(Btw, why are you guys stripping out [blockquote] tags now?)

Keep an eye on the collapse of the commercial real estate market.

Keep an eye on the fact that if the major banks accurately priced their toxic assets, they'd all be under water. We are no where near being out of the woods yet. The "reprieve" that we are seeing now is just a mini bubble driven by the Obama admin backing down from real reform of the financial sector. This is going to get much worse.

"As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!" wrote Palin in a note posted Aug. 7, 2009.

Amen, sister Sarah. And thank you lord Jesus, for sending a truth telling prophetess in this time of darkness. Without Sarah educating the masses, I'm afraid the debate over how best to care for the sick, the elderly, and the meek would be out of corporate hands.

An entire story about the popularity of 'FAIL' without a single mention of teh /b/tards or 4chan?

'Net awareness FAIL!!1

If I published a series called Think Tank Digest, that aggregated all the research and position papers from American think tanks in the past week, do you think anyone would read it?

Do you guys think there is a need for that kind of thing?

Well, I would disagree with the article on 'fail'.

It seems to me like it is just a shortened 'failure', but that its' aggressive use also abbreviates a lot of intention into it, a lot more than you would put into just saying 'it failed', so it's really like a bit of an Asiatic language adding into English.

It's use is always pronounced in capital letters.

* As the need for action on global warming mounts, the public desire for action fades.

Nothing a couple of Cat5 hurricanes hitting the east coast wouldn't cure.

Unfortunately, while many parts of the world have warmed substantially over the past decade, the largest polluter of carbon has enjoyed nearly average annual temperatures.

I like the idea of "Rumsfeld" becoming a verb.

As in, "I've Rumsfallen and I can't get up. Now I need a way to divert everyone's attention."

I knew it; I just knew it! First, they made their list (and checked them twice, no doubt) and then... then, they sent their goons, to drag the innocent, helpless, citizens to who knows what hell...
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/08/protester-on-fox-pelosi-thugs-came-in-middle-of-the-night-health-care-plan-sentences-our-families-to.php?ref=fpblg

My WWII vet father-in-law finally died, after a DECADE of Alzheimer's, colon cancer, heart attack(s), on top of the usual end of life illnesses.

And they talk about the Medicare costs of the last six months of life!

Folks, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Multiply Grampa tenfold with the number of 'boomers' entering the twilight zone, and you have a financial backbreaker.

It may be too late to have that conversation about the ice floes.

Oh, I forgot. Because of climate change, there won't BE any ice floes. . .

Mental health break

Bobby McFerrin makes like a genius at the World Science Festival...

This post is terrific, about all the services we use that are run or regulated by the government:

http://www.americablog.com/2009/08/i-am-american-conservative-shithead.html.

As you might guess from the title, it's done as a sarcastic parody of those who hate the government. The blogger says, "Something that's been flying around the Internet - I couldn't figure out who the actual author is." Anyone know the origins?

Anyway, considering that issue I repeat it below:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school. After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

Check for copyright first (BTW, how?) and if OK, repeat at fora and NGs etc.

Tax predator ruling class? Whatever happened to the plain old "ruling class" that has all the money to begin with, that the rest of us did most of the working for to allow them to have it? Is that who you whore for? The tax rates have stayed about the same, did you know? But thanks for commenting here (Moderator, do not take it down we need to see it) and showing us what sort of psychopaths you people are.

I would like to ask,

how do you just, accidentally,

'drop' your gun somewhere?

Oh, look, paid trolls to attack heath care reform on blogs:

http://www.politicsandtechnology.com/2007/07/make-no-mistake.html

Good work, if you can get it.

For those of you trying to "reason" with someone being paid to mess you up - you've got more patience than me, I just tell them to fuck off.

H1N1 second wave!

FWIW, this disease already had a wave in Africa in 1978 -

google http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.med.diseases.lyme/2007-05/msg00132.html

title is "Biona Part 3 The Mystery of Plum Islands:Nazis, Ticks and Weapons of Mass Infection"

On the pharma deal with the White House:

If there's a dispute then they should agree that there are one of two ways it can be done.

1. Pharma can fill in the Medicare Part D donut to the amount they 'promised'.

or

2. Government can negotiate with them for good prices on drugs.

This choice might be made in any given year by the Pharma industry. They know their costs and profit margins and could decide which they would prefer to do.

Or, maybe they make a deal for X years before deciding again.

There really isn't any other way this should be done. We need to cut costs one way or another.

Speaking about Palin's death panels, today I've seen two articles about actual death panels that are in existence right now. One is Gov. Pawlenty who has decided that the homeless in Minnesota should die rather than continue getting funding for their diabetes medications, schizophrenia medications, etc. The other was by a guy who was told by his insurance company that they wouldn't pay for the last week of his mother's time in the ICU so he should take her home and let her die.

And then there was this by raugiel on FDL commenting on the statement by the idiot who was claiming that the proposed system would sentence his handicapped child to death:

"Those who cannot fend for themselves are discarded." I thought that was the current system...

what's the big jump?
the government owns a car company
half of the largest insurance company
and has propped up the financial sector
what's the big deal about healthcare
that actually would benefit everyone?
single payer/universal coverage
let the insurance companies
fend for themselves
instead of the people

.
Obama relocates the Strategic Hamlet Program: "OPERATION FOREVER: AFGHANISTAN"
.

Obama rebukes Democrats for condemning the disruptive shouting down of those trying to engage in civil discourse and calls it merely an indication of healthy disagreement characteristic of our democracy. Will someone get him a clue or persuade him to change his party label? This behavior is hardly democratic in any sense of the word.

The whole FAIL thing, like many internet buzzwords owes its roots to online gaming- get a few thousand teens/college students/social misfits in one virtual environment and pretty soon the English language gets "pwned". How many times people misspell Rogue is astronomical ( often spelled like makeup- rouge). In these environs it is the norm for players to air their superior"skills" over others and lord it over them. Insecurity knows no bounds.