And when you can't afford your health insurance premium and they just sold your house at auction while you don't have a job and have sent out hundreds of resumes, I am certain that Booman punching crybabies in the face is going to drive hordes of Dem voters to the polls.

And I'm supposed to be excited that Obama removed a bit more of my right to choose while he passed something protecting our coastlines.....and then proceeded to try to ignore what was happening in the gulf until it could no longer be ignored.  Salazar and the Obama administration dramatically increased offshore drilling and Booman is trying to sell me that I got executive orders to look after coastlines and the environment?

Worse yet, the truth is that almost nothing that Obama "accomplished" made one bit of difference in the drastically shrinking quality of life for middle class Americans.  Where that is concerned he stayed clearly on the course he chose and shored up an economic hell for us all to survive.  

I would venture to say that a lot of (god, I hate this word) progressives are ticked off because we are being patted on the head, and there-there'd, and given that little cock of the head that connotes pity, getting that gee-are-you-having-a-bad-day? attitude that points the finger of blame at our emotion, and talked to as if we couldn't possibly understand the grand scheme or the complex details enough to even have an opinion.

Meanwhile, people like Booman have adopted Obama as their "lovey," their comfort object, and cling to him - and it - with all the ferocity of an overly tired toddler.

They have "made it," they have kissed enough tushie, they have surrendered their self-respect, they have kissed Broder's ring (and...) and are now card-carrying "Villagers."

The fact that they are clueless as to what is possible, what is doable, and what is so tragically needed is of no interest to them; all they know is to not rock the boat.

Global differences in intelligence is a sensitive topic, long fraught with controversy and still tinged by the disgraceful taint of pseudosciences such as craniometry that strove to prove the white "race" as the most clever of them all. But recent data, perplexingly, has indeed shown cognitive ability to be higher in some countries than in others. What's more, IQ scores have risen as nations develop--a phenomenon known as the "Flynn effect." Many causes have been proposed for both the intelligence gap and the Flynn effect, including education, income, and even nonagricultural labor. Now, a new study from researchers at the University of New Mexico offers another intriguing theory: intelligence may be linked to infectious-disease rates.

Southwest Bumps Thin Woman from Flight to Make Room for Plus-Sized Teen: Was It Fair?

(CBS) A petite Sacramento woman was bumped from a Southwest Airlines flight to make room for an extra-large 14-year-old child who required two seats.

to be fair

Southwest can't seem to win for losing. This is the same airline that made headlines recently when it booted chubby blogger Kevin Smith, 39, from his seat because he had to squeeze himself into it.

After the Smith incident, Southwest said his removal was for the "safety and comfort of all customers," maintaining that a large person could block passengers seated nearby from exiting quickly in the event of an emergency.

Southwest generally requires large passengers to buy two tickets. But in this case, the child's parents had purchased only one.

Now, I know the narrative about Geithner and Summers and Goldman Sachs, but even there the policy is about stabilizing the markets.  Regulate without causing panic.  Stand the banks back up so they can lend, and get jobs created.  He's not relaxing the rules, he's strengthening them.  But he's not willing to rock the boat too much and risk a backlash that undermines the recovery. He can be blamed for caution or praised for prudence, but he can't be fairly blamed for taking a pro-business stance for its own sake.

Contrast this with Clintin's NAFTA, GATT, Telecommunications Refom Act, and  Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.  Compare it with school uniforms and welfare reform.  That's triangulation.  

What Obama is doing is pushing to the left and making compromises with the middle.  Clinton was pushing to the right and ditching the left (especially after the rise of Newt).  

From Politico:

Rep. Charlie Rangel's chances of cutting an ethics deal are in jeopardy over allegations that he met privately with Ethics Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) Monday night without any Republican members of the bipartisan panel present.

Sources close to Rangel deny that there was an attempt to cut a backroom deal with Lofgren, but Rangel's attorneys met with Democratic ethics committee staff Monday, according to people close to the investigation.

It's unclear whether Lofgren and Rangel themselves attended this meeting, but even if Democratic aides and lawyers met without their GOP counterparts present, that could cause problems with Republicans.

What is clear is that Alabama Rep. Jo Bonner, the top Republican on the committee, was not in on the Monday night meeting.

The behind the scenes maneuvering threatens to upend Democratic leaders' hopes of reaching a swift settlement before the opening session of Rangel's ethics "trial" on Thursday.

Boxer expands lead

Rick Norsigian's hobby of bargain-hunting at rummage sales has paid off big time.

    Two small boxes he bought 10 years ago for $45 -- negotiated down from $70 -- are now estimated to be worth at least $200 million, according to a Beverly Hills art appraiser.

    Those boxes contained 65 glass negatives created by famed nature photographer Ansel Adams in the early period of his career. Experts believed the negatives were destroyed in a 1937 darkroom fire that destroyed 5,000 plates.

    "It truly is a missing link of Ansel Adams and history and his career," said David W. Streets, the appraiser and art dealer who is hosting an unveiling of the photographs at his Beverly Hills, California, gallery Tuesday.

    The photographs apparently were taken between 1919 and the early 1930s, well before Adams -- who is known as the father of American photography -- became nationally recognized in the 1940s, Streets said.

Caught him this morning recalling the unstoppable wave of support and enthusiasm he came in on. He said he just can't understand how the first, tiny little resistance from the R's stopped him cold in his tracks. Todd couldn't help doing a little fantasy roll playing:

From memory, Todd, as Obama, talking to the first malcontent (an "R," or uncooperative "D")
"You really want to do this? (obstruct) You think you've got a future if you get into my way? There's a new sheriff in Town, and his name is Barack Obama. I'm gonna do what I want to do, with you or without you. Think it over, be a good boy, get behind me and start pushing. I got the American Express behind me, who you got? What's that? I see, I knew you were a smart kid."

Yup, Todd said he was "unstoppable" and could've got anything he wanted.