Ninja Monkie Bacchanal

This is the argument (boiled down) of the banks and Wall Street against regulation right now:

Don’t regulate us now because the economy is still suffering from the mess we made because we weren’t regulated the last time.

Here is an excellent piece in today’s NYT from David Brooks:

The bottom line is that we face a brutal choice.

Reform would make us a more decent society, but also a less vibrant one. It would ease the anxiety of millions at the cost of future growth. It would heal a wound in the social fabric while piling another expensive and untouchable promise on top of the many such promises we’ve already made. America would be a less youthful, ragged and unforgiving nation, and a more middle-aged, civilized and sedate one.

This is what passes for civilized discourse on the health care debate?

At a town hall event on health care reform hosted by Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL) earlier this month, Midge Hough told the tragic story of how her daughter-in-law, Jenny, and her unborn grandchild died recently because they didn’t have health insurance. Jenny came down with “severe double pneumonia, Septic shock and Respitory failure,” Hough said, “and laid in an ICU unit for the next two months at a cost of $22,000 a day.” Her baby died in the womb and Jenny died a few weeks later. But as Hough was telling her story, tea partiers at the meeting “ridiculed” her, the South Town Star reports. “They moaned and rolled their eyes and interrupted,” laughing loudly and shouting her down at points.

ThinkProgress has a lovely video of the event.

From Joe Klein:

Congressman David Obey, who called for a tax to pay for the war in Iraq two years ago, has done it again. He’s calling for a tax to pay for Afghanistan. It’s a very good idea for several reasons:

1. A war is, one would hope, a temporary aberration from budget norms, requiring a jolt of new revenues. It is also the most consequential decision that a President and Congress can make; therefore, they should be willing to put their money where their mouths are.

2. The notion of shared sacrifice has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle. If we really “support” the troops, we should support the troops...In a war, every citizen should have to contribute something to the effort

Happy Birthday my nautical brethern!  Oorah!

From Dana Milbank’s Washington Sketch:

The debate was only a few minutes old when Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) rose to speak. “I ask unanimous consent—“

“I object!” shouted Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), the leader of House conservatives.

“—to revise and extend—“ Capps continued.

“I object! I object!” Price hollered.

Capps tried again. “I ask unanimous consent to revise my—“

“I object!”

“—remarks—“

“I object! I object! I object! I object!”

The presiding officer pointed out that Capps had not said anything that could be objected to.

This is a reasoned approach to a foreign policy issue. As opposed to the nut jobs currently populating Washington think tanks and the AM radio dial:

The grand strategy of al-Qaeda and its affiliated ideologues is, and has always been, to generate a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West which does not currently exist.  Their great challenge is that the vast majority of Muslims reject their theology, ideology, strategy and tactics.  That’s especially true of American Muslims.  They therefore feel the need to change the environment in which Muslims live in order to change their calculations about the appropriateness of extremist identities and ideologies and actions. 

Terrorism is a means towards that end.  The object is to create a violent, polarized environment in which Muslims are forced to embrace a narrow, extreme version of Muslim identity.  They want Muslims to accept a master narrative in which the Islamic umma is existentially threatened by Western aggression, and the only theologically and strategically appropriate individual response is to join the jihad in the path of god (as they have defined it). 

The author is Professor Mark Lynch. According to his biography:

Marc Lynch is associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, where he is the director of the Institute for Middle East Studies. He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

From our friends at The Onion.com:

The entire office staff of Altman & Hanson Accounting remained utterly baffled as to what, if anything, should be done in response to the prominent sobbing coming from the cubicle of 36-year-old clerk Jack Underwood, sources reported today.

Underwood, who has been employed by the accounting firm since 2004, reportedly began weeping sometime after 10:15 a.m. and has not shown any indication of stopping.

This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen - Representative John Boehner (R-OH), US House of Representatives Minority Leader on the upcoming health care legislation.

Today is the birthday of National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. I have been listening to this morning news program at least 20 years (Thanks Dad!). It is so much a part of my morning routine, I get irritated when am I traveling and can’t find it on the radio. Also, November is the 40th (!!!) birthday of Sesame Street. Google is celebrating it in a classic style.

Wow. I found this on Bruce Scheiner’s blog:

Researchers hope the ‘’fear detector’’ will make it possible to identify individuals at check points who are up to no good.

Terrorists with murder in mind, drug smugglers, or criminals on the run are likely to be very fearful of being discovered.

However, calm they might appear on the surface, their bodies could give them away.

Although the research is at an early stage, the aim is to develop a prototype device in the next two to three years.

Evidence that the smell of fear is real was uncovered by US scientists last year who studied the underarm secretions of 20 terrified novice skydivers.