Julian Assange is being held without bail.  He has pissed off some Serious People, and there have been a lot of attempts to prevent Wikileaks from posting what he says is killer information on Bank of America (it’s assumed), Guantanamo Bay (Prison, it’s assumed), and more.

"This country was founded on compromise. I couldn't go through the front door of this country's founding. And you know if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn't have a Union.

I heard a talk over a year ago at a meeting of the Madrid Fulbright association: the speaker was professor Fisac, the head of Chinese studies at Madrid University.

She said that in the course of conversation with an official of the Chinese Communist Party, she had asked him what he considered "socialism".  

He replied that Western Europe was an example of socialism with its good, free public schools and universities and its good, free public health systems.  

Some people listening to professor Fisac thought this Tea Partyish formulation was a joke. I didn't.

Ultimately, I'm not as mad about the tax compromise as I thought I'd be because I think Obama won some pretty effective stimulus even though it preserves a tax structure that will continue to encourage wealth to accumulate at the top of the economy.

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

We’ve been discussing the President a lot lately, making attempts to define him as to style, political ideology, and his place along a liberal-conservative continuum.  We’ve taken various positions partially based on issues we care about and have watched closely since the campaign; we argue about what he supported, what we ‘imagined he supported’.  This is Obama on NATFA  and his opposition to the South Korean Free Trade Agreement on 11/13/07:

Sometimes I wonder how gullible most Democrats really are and since we elected President Obama I've wondered that a whole helluva lot more than usual.  Time after time in recent years the Democrats manage, no matter what, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, to come back with half a loaf of rotten bread when they had set out with plenty of money to get a whole loaf and each time they do most of the media, average citizens, typical active Democrats, and even bloggers are left scratching their heads as to how it could be that when the task seemed so clear

Robert Reich wrote this in 1991 (edited to get to the point):

"America may choose another nemesis to replace the Soviet empire....Japan comes immediately to mind....The precise nature of this threat – surely not nuclear annihilation – is never fully explained, but the implication is clear: unless we stop them, the Japanese will eventually control us."

There are several things Murdoch is good at: making boatloads of money, influencing politics beneficial to his financial empire, and influencing thought and beliefs and artificial facts and directing them into less-than-diligent thinkers’ minds through various media.  In other words, Murdoch has an agenda, and he’s highly successful at fulfilling it.

Earlier to day I spent about an hour and a half constructing my first blog in nearly 2 months. I carefully chose my words, editing and re-editing to use non-explosive terminology, and laying out my premise as thoughtfully as I could.

When my knees were younger and the VW camper hadn't yet blown its engine for the 3rd time I made an annual trip up Rt. 395 from the bowels of L.A. to the Mammoth Mtn. area of California. The purpose was to back pack and hike in the Eastern Sierras, but the first stop was at Mono Lake. The lake is, well, other worldly. Alien features like the spikey "tufas" give it a lunar quality. T

Well, if they do, I just can't see any reason to support them any more.  2 years?  Who do they think they're kidding?  

The Bush cuts were designed to expire this year because they were unsupportable beyond this year (actually they were always unsupportable).

Two years?  Three years?  If that goes down we are "governed" by Democratic cowards and Republican thieves.  

Let them all expire, and let the Republicans take the responsibility!  If Democrats don't let that happen then they are passively accepting the Republicans' goals.

NO!  NO!  NO!