Akkam’s Razor

It goes without saying that given the stream of news through this weekend through Monday (Fannie Mae, Fannie Mac, IndyMac, and National City), the most popular post on Akkam’s Razor is this one, detailing my findings in search for the FDIC’s bad bank list.

George Carlin is dead.  In his own words:

I’m getting old. And it’s okay. Because thanks to our fear of death in this country I won’t have to die. I’ll pass away. Or I’ll expire, like a magazine subscription. If it happens in the hospital they’ll call it a terminal episode. The insurance company will refer to it as negative patient care outcome.

I agree that he wouldn’t want to be eulogized, so instead reminisce at some of his bits (with more here with some memorable quotations).

Update: As expected, the Democrats caved, including local Representatives Pat Murphy and Joe Sestak.  The roll call in the House can be found here, and the Senates tally forthcoming.

In the spring of 1987,  the year of the 200th anniversary of the first Constitutional Convention, President Ronald Reagan began calling for another.  Reagan had been frustrated by Congress’ failure to brovide him with a Balanced Budget Ammendment.  Reagan’s solution was to call for a new Constitutional Convention, as described (but never tested) in Article V of the Constitution, where each state would get delegates to propose a balanced budget ammendment, and then pass it on to the individual state legislatures for approval.  Reagan succeeded in getting agreement from 32 of the required 2/3 of the States, but was eventually blocked by an unlikely coalition of Constitutional defenders, fearful of the seismic changes [pdf] regarding preemptive federalism and the erosion of states’ rights.

Uh-oh.  Looks like McCain may have some trouble with the ladies.  Seems his “trollop and cunt” (that would be a great name for a British pub, dontcha think?) remarks about his sugar-momma wife in response to her comment about his thinning hair have started to enter mainstream consciousness.  The following is NSFW, but after all, if a Senator running for President can publicly call his wife one, why can’t you listen to it being repeated aloud? [via]

YouTube Direktvideo link

One of the prevalent memes circulating regarding John Sidney McCain is that he is his own man, and not like George W. Bush (note, the statistic is that he supports him via Congressional votes 95% of the time). Small problem like that - they are nearly identical, as John Cusack (IMDB) points out in this MoveOn advertisement.

YouTube Direktvideo link

Also curious is how some Bush dead-enders (and McCain supporters) actually maintain McCain will carry on the failed Bush policies, which directly contradicts with the image the kindler, gentler, more moderate candidate McCain desparately needs to project in order to woo independents and hoodwink Bush-Democrats.

McCain lobbyists make HALF-A-BILLION DOLLARS in the last 10-years, as described in this report [pdf] from Campaign Money Watch.  In case you haven’t realized it, the anti-lobbyist McCain currently has 118 lobbyists working for his campaign, some of which are working for free.  Maverick, indeed.

Via Cryptome - Quite a difference in body language for the Secret Service Agents protecting McCain versus those of Obama. Take special note of the hands.

Update: I wouldn’t even know about this story if it wasn’t for Phillybits.

It was probably 20-years ago, when I was a wee-lad at Northeast Catholic High School, that I first heard Gil Scott Heron.  Mind you, in my working class, nearly all-white neighborhood and school, there’s no way that Heron would come up in conversation or in academics.  No, I heard it on Howard Stern - who basically helped raise me.  Howard had a very race-centric shtick at that time (late 1980s), and Heron’s “Whiteys on the Moon” was exemplary of what my kind of white-folk grated against - being blamed for the wronging of blacks several generations ago, with a feeling that it was totally unwarranted.  Frustrations over crime, the Section-8′ing of the neighborhoods, and a decline in the comparative advantage for whites (particularly males) certainly enabled a hostile posture on race.