People are angry -- some with good reason, most just because it feels good to be angry right now. People are being bussed rent-a-mob style to turn townhalls in frothing pools of rage. And, wherever the President goes, there seems to be a couple of angry white men with guns on their hips and rifles slung on their shoulders but instead being thrown into the deepest, darkest jail we could find these sociopaths are paraded on cable news.

We're on the edge of a very dark cliff overlooking a very dark abyss in this country. In that dark abyss lays the kind of real political violence that dare not speak its name. Instead of recognizing the drop that stands before them, the Conservative Movement and Right Wing in this country continues to push us all towards the cliff.  

I've been thinking about healthcare reform and what it means in the large scheme of things to come.

I look around the Progressive "blogosphere" and I see an awful lot of people declaring the "Public Option" their line in the sand. If the boisterous talk is to be believed the Public Option is the Progressive reenactment of the Battle of the Somme.

Progressives across the country are prepared to saddle their horses and jump out of their trenches, charge recklessly into a wall of hot lead sprayed from machine gun entrenchments, and turn themselves into metaphorical piles of human meat for the Cause. Bully! Forward! The Public Option or Nothing At All!

Dying in melodramatic fashion Progressive will thump their chests proudly and declare, "Without the Public Option Healthcare reform is meaningless! Tis all pointless! But, aye, what a glorious way to die!"  

And they would be wrong. The Public Option is not the Thing. When it comes to Healthcare Reform, the Act of Doing Something is The Thing.

People want to understand. There is a need in everyone to understand and comprehend; a compulsion to set logic to the senseless, and then to make sense of the senseless by comparing that senselessness to a senselessness they  are familiar with.  This often leads to awkward moments like, "I have brain cancer." "Oh, that's terrible; I stubbed my toe today!"

People also like to jump on bandwagons, even if it's a wagon they don't like and a band they rarely listen to, and graft their issues onto the News of the Day.

So when I read diaries on Daily Kos, or blogs in other portions of the blogosphere, attempting to compare Issue X (whether the issue is healthcare, guns, or disappointment in the perceived betrayals of President Obama) to what is happening in the streets of Tehran, Iran I get it.

I See What You Did There

But, please, STOP IT.

Today I received an email from the Humane Society of the United States revealing Governor Schwarznegger's newest attempt to fix California's fiscal mess on the backs of the ones who really have No Say: Sheltered Dogs and Cats.

Around 10:50 PM Central Time BNO News began twittering reports that North Korea is withdrawing from the Armistice that ended the first Korean War, and is threatening military action against South Korea for participating in U.S. Anti-Proliferation efforts.

As of this update (12:30 AM Central) there is no indication that North Korea is doing, or has done anything yet besides make more threats. Below you will find, as Jack Webb used to rap, just the facts culled from various news outlets.  

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Rimjob has a far, far better diary about all this on the Rec List right now.  Check it out here.

I forget who the Patron Saint of Lost Causes is, but in the world of video games you could very easily split that title amongst State Senator Leland Yee, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Attorney General Jerry Brown. In 2005 Senator Yee sponsored and Governor Schwarzenegger  signed into law  legislation that was intended to "protect" kids (WON'T ANYONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?) from the evils of Violent Video Games (BOO!).

In terms of law the 2005 California Law was just plain bad and the courts recognized it as such, striking it down in 2007 and striking it down again in 2009. And in 2008 the State of California had to fork over nearly $300,000 to the ESA to pay the video game industry's legal fees.  

You'd think that would've been the end of it. A bad law, written in haste to pander to your base of Helicopter Parents, struck down by the courts. Give up and move on to, I dunno, something more productive, like, I dunno, un-Bankrupting the State of California. But oh no!  

The National Meta-Forecasting Center has issued a Severe Meta Watch for Daily Kos until 5PM Friday Morning. Light to moderate Meta is now projected for the area and those projections may be upgraded to heavy by tonight, and are expected to reach severe levels by tomorrow morning.

This is the (sniff sniff) hardest (sniff, snotty snort) thing I've ever had to do in (sniff, sobbing) in MY LIFE! Eh, not really. Online Communities come and go, the circumstance changes, you change, something better comes along or you simply get tired of the B.S. And you leave. For me it is a mixture of all those things tugging at me as I type the words, Goodbye Daily Kos.

Yeah, it is one of those diaries. Afraid to say. I promise you this won't be completely self-serving, although not entirely free of self-service. I am writing about Me after all and I'd have to be some great, inhuman literary genius to divorce myself entirely from the portraits I paint.

Ah, who needs the End of the World when we are already leaving in financial apocalypse? More grim news from General Motors and Blockbuster today as both companies flirt with the edge of oblivion. An interesting trend emerges from both these stories, more on that a bit later.

From MSNBC.com

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea has begun fueling a long-range rocket, U.S. officials told NBC News on Thursday, as President Barack Obama warned that launching the missile would be a "provocative act" that would generate a U.N. Security Council response.

The three-stage Taepodong 2 rocket is sitting on a launchpad, the sources said, adding that "final checkouts and preparations" are under way for an "imminent launch" — meaning North Korea appeared to be on track to launch the missile sometime over the weekend.

From CNBC.com:

General Motors's new chief executive told CNBC that filing for Bankruptcy may be the best option for the struggling automaker.

In a taped interview to be aired tonight on NBC Nightly News, Fritz Henderson said that because of greater demands from the Obama administration to restructure, GM is considering the bankruptcy option. The auto giant previously had ruled out such a move, saying it would discourage people from buying GM cars.

From MSNBC.com:

The prime minister of the Czech Republic says it could have been his taste for the rock group AC/DC — not his study of economics — that inspired him to describe President Barack Obama's nearly $2 trillion economic plan as "the road to hell."

"Last week, AC/DC played the Czech Republic," Mirek Topolanek told the Lidove Noviny daily newspaper Friday. "And their cult song 'Highway to Hell' may have influenced me to use, in my very improvised speech, 'the road to hell.'"

Ah, the mob. The vainglorious and angry mob has once again set upon DailyKos filled with vitriol and vituperation. The utterances of this angry mob basically boil down to a base of "WE'RE AN ANGRY MOB! RAWR! LET IT ALL BURN! RAWR!" Let the banks fail, let AIG fail, let the automakers fail, fire Geithner, fire Summers, Impeach Obama!

Every time (by which I mean, every five minutes, when a new one appears) I read one of those "Let 'Em Fail! Let 'Em Die!" Diaries I am a bit amazed at how little consideration is given to the question of, "If you do that, what happens next?" by these diarist.

There is None. No thought given to the dire consequences that would follow such a policy decision, no attention paid to how the "LET 'EM FAIL!" approach would effect them and the people around them. They just, to quote a wise man (Alfred the Butler)  want to see the World Burn.

I'm not really angry at AIG anymore. My outlook on the whole debacle is somewhere between The Joker (The Dark Knight) and The Comedian (Watchmen), it's all so fucking hysterical. If Karl Marx and John Steinbeck got together to craft a Capitalist Villain for a broadway musical they'd write something like AIG, then come back the morning after, and both say, "Nah, who are we kidding, no one company is both this evil and this stupid at the same time."

The newest AIG outrage comes from New York's Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, who disclosed in a letter to Congress that Eleven Executives that AIG paid "retention bonuses" to -- bonuses whose stated goal is to retain people -- left the company after being paid their retention bonuses.

So today I had to run a few errands, pick up a few groceries for my Mom who was feeling ill, and when I come back DailyKos is in a righteous blaze over ... Rick Santelli. Seemingly dozens of diaries devoted to a Screaming Head from CNBC, who routinely says stupid shit, that once more said some stupid shit.

I've spent the last half hour checking various instruments to make sure that I hadn't walked into an alternate dimension or gone completely insane. As far as I can determine neither one of these has happened.

I really think this entire country is being under served by the Republican Party. As a "loyal opposition" they kind of suck.

Not just because eight years of Republican rule managed to bankrupt the country (literally). Not just because the small remnant of the Republican Party in the House and the Senate cry for bipartisanship when they really just want their kind of bipartisanship. Not just because they haven't had an idea since Ronnie Ray-Gun and haven't had a good idea since Eisenhower's Highway System.

It is because the Republican Party -- especially the House Republicans -- are an embarrassment to the idea of a loyal opposition.

One wonders if the heads of the major U.S. banks are into masochism. If, in their darkest moments, they crave the hatred and vitriol of the public at large. Perhaps John Stumpf, the CEO of Wells Fargo, is hold up in a cheesy dive motel room, shirt off, fingers twisting his nipples harder and harder as the public disgust over the excesses of the insolvent banking industry are splashed across cable news, yelling, "HATE ME! HATE ME! SO GOOD! Now spit on me! Tell me I'm irresponsible! YES YES YES!"

This strange sexualized daydream is the only logical explanation I have left for the seemingly endless parade of stories about "Insert Bank Here" spending wild amounts of money with one hand as they beg for more taxpayer money with the other. Masochism, plain and simple. They want us to hate them.

Today's tale of Guilded Age excess and corporate cluelessness comes from Wells Fargo.

When Keith Olbermann asked Professor Jonathan Turley if 'this [re-taking the Oath of Office] was going to be a daily thing now' I immediately thought to myself, Yes, Yes it is.

See what is left of the conservative movement in this country happens to be both profoundly stupid and deeply tenacious. When the Right Wing thinks they've got ya', they really think they've got ya' even if no one else agrees. This has happened before and failed before with Reverend Wright, William Ayers, and Obama's Birth Certificate. And Now this has happened again and will undoubtedly fail again when it comes to the once flubbed Oath of Office.

Submitted for your approval the wonderfully whack front page of WorldNetDaily.