Akkam’s Razor

• Forgotten Bush Scandals - The Daily Beast - Everyone remembers WMD and "Mission Accomplished." But what about the sordid Bush moments that slipped through the cracks? The Daily Beast has 20 indiscretions you may have forgotten.
• Incentive Central | Incentives and the Automotive Industry -

• Retailer Survival Tips - Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog - The holidays are going to stink. But I'm hopeful that the crisis will be cathartic for retailers, and that the smart ones will embark in 2009 on the true journeys of reinvention that, up to now, they've barely even recognized, let alone begun.
• Philadelphia Will Do » Give This The Pulitzer - Does it get any better than these courtroom sketches of Rod Blagojevich? Why yes, yes it does, in the form of a Chicago Sun-Times story headlined, “Is Blago’s hair a sign of sickness?

• slacktivist: She doesn’t care - We've seen this disease before. We've been watching it for eight years now. This is ignorance born of incuriosity. And that incuriosity arises from a lack of empathy. Like President Bush, Gov. Palin doesn't know because she doesn't care.
• OverFed? - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog - Until this past year, the Fed’s balance sheet was simple and clean: basically, it held Treasury bills, and its only liabilities worth mentioning were the money supply (strictly speaking, the monetary base.) And there was next to no risk. Now the Fed holds a vast array of “liquidity tools” — loans under the various emergency programs, the TAF, the TSLF, and all that; and it’s taken on quite a lot of risk.

I have a hard time defending former Bush press secretary Scotty ‘Flounder’ McClellan, especially given his prior performances:

YouTube Direktvideo link

That said, he appears to be the latest of the loyal Bushies troubled by their consciences after leaving the administration.  So far, the book has delivered observations on wartime propaganda, an apology to Richard Clarke, the revelation Bush outed CIA-operative Valerie Plame via Scooter Libby, the non-suprise that the Administration has allies within FOXNEWS, that Bush similarly declassified National Secrets to advance a political agenda, warnings to be serious and skeptical regarding administration claims on Iran, and (of course) that propaganda and a media operating somewhere between lazy, incompetent, and compliant directly enabled the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

I saw this story on the Onion a couple of days ago…

Funny stuff, huh?  Then I saw this one, NOT from the Onion (it's from USNews)…

With President Bush unable to get much traction so far in moving his agenda through Congress or in improving his job-approval ratings with the public, White House advisers are casting about for ways to jump-start his final two years, including issuing executive orders to get things done without having to ask for support from the Democratic-controlled Congress.

He's like John McCain, but with integrity.

Here's Hagel chiding the Republicans unwilling to buck the authority of Dick Cheney and the White House:

What do you believe? What are you willing to support? What do you think? Why were you elected?

If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes. This is a tough business. But is it any tougher, us having to take a tough vote, express ourselves and have the courage to step up on what we’re asking our young men and women to do?

I don’t think so.

Another incidence of the substitution of "lawful" where one would normally use "legal" (emphasis mine):

In the 6th year since our Nation was attacked, I wish I could report to you that the dangers have ended. They have not. And so it remains the policy of this Government to use every lawful and proper tool of intelligence, diplomacy, law enforcement, and military action to do our duty, to find these enemies, and to protect the American people.

Not legal, but lawful.  I have heard this many, many, times.  Why? 

The NYTimes has an interactive SOTU word browser here. An older one, going back to the beginning with George Washington can be found here and another here.

It appears that the Bush plan to increase the Strategic Petroleum Reserves may simply serve to raise the floor for oil prices.

Who has these "gold-plated" benefit plans that the President so desparately wants to tax?  This DailyKos diary breaks it down. 

The SOTU was so boring, it appears it put Senator (and 2008 Presidential Candidate) John McCain to sleep.

The Sunlight Foundation has some examples of SOTU mashups that are appearing across the web. 

Here's an older response to an earlier SOTU that may brighten your day…

I'm trying to give the Prez ANOTHER chance, but I keep seeing a continued thread through all of his policy suggestions, namely help the Republicans in 2008 at the cost of the Democrats, and continuing to divide us and hurt the country as a whole, especially the middle class.  I've got some thoughts on this that have been congealing for the past couple of years, but I don't have it all together yet…

I put out a call on PhillyFuture to ask for local perspectives on the speech, and how they thought the Prez's comments would help, hurt, or affect them personally.  I'll chime in on that too, but not yet…

I think I'll be skimming the EconBlogs on my blogroll - usually they cut the partisan yapping and get down to numbers, and at this point, that seems to be the only things that are somewhat irrefutable.  I'll be del.icio.us'ing them throughout they day - they'll show up tonight as a "Daily Links" post.