TPMDC Morning Roundup

post from Talking Points Memo on 01 May 2009 09:17:00 AM. © Talking Points Memo

A battle-hardened veteran of judicial confirmation fights, Joe Biden is reportedly in charge of drawing up a list of potential Souter replacements. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.[...]

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Oh, Pooh!

post from All Spin Zone on 01 May 2009 09:14:00 AM. © All Spin Zone

Pooh and Piglet

h/t to DKos commenter “Scarce”.

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Arianna: "to the vanquished go the spoils"

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 01 May 2009 09:12:00 AM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

Who else could retain so much power in Washington besides the banksters who trashed the economy? For those wondering how in the world they can continue to receive so much money both from a corporate perspective and a compensation perspective, no need to look beyond Wall Street's lobbying efforts that are being funded by the taxpayers. The profiles in courage in Congress remain as gutless as ever and beholden to lobbyists. More from Arianna Huffington:

According to Sen. Dick Durbin, the banks "are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."

When it comes to reforming our financial system, we are truly through the looking glass. I mean, since when did it become "to the vanquished go the spoils"? How do the same banks that have repeatedly come to Washington over the last eight months with their hats in their hands, asking for billions to rescue them from their catastrophic mistakes, somehow still "own the place"?

But the banks continue to be rewarded for their many failures.

Obama used harsh language yesterday related to the hedge funds that held out for a better deal though Arianna is right that Treasury folded to some of their demands. It wasn't perfect but stepping back, I'd still say this was an OK change and worth noting. Obama will never be a radical change kind of president but he does show a willingness to move in the right direction. He is listening, it seems, so I'd put this in the "to be watched" category. If in six months there's no movement, then we will be in big trouble.

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o-spoils.html

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ThinkFast: May 1, 2009

post from Think Progress on 01 May 2009 09:00:00 AM. © Think Progress

Associate Supreme Court Justice David Souter "plans to retire at the end of the term in June, giving President Obama his first appointment to the Supreme Court." The generally liberal Souter has "grown increasingly sour on Washington and intends to return to his home state, New Hampshire." President Clinton was the last Democrat to name a justice to the Court.

Yesterday, detainee Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda, after having denied the charges for the six years he was held in isolation in a naval brig off of South Carolina. His plea ?reflects what we can achieve when we have faith in our criminal justice system," Attorney General Eric Holder said.

President Obama blamed ?a small group of speculators? for forcing Chrysler into bankruptcy. ?A group of investment firms and hedge funds decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout,? Obama said yesterday.

SEIU has "asked CNN and Fox News to pull a health care commercial by the group Conservatives for Patients? Rights, describing it as 'unfit to air.'" The union argued that "the ad should be pulled for overstating the power of a newly established federal board on comparative effectiveness research and misrepresenting the views of the two featured physicians." FactCheck.org said that the ad was "misleading."

"The number of terrorist attacks around the world fell by 18 percent last year but rose dramatically in Pakistan, growing in frequency and lethality," according to a new State Department report on terrorism worldwide. Terror attacks also rose in Afghanistan while falling sharply in Iraq. Additionally, the number of suicide bombings declined worldwide, despite the increases in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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SCOTUS: Souters Retirement Opens Many Possible
Doors

post from Firedoglake on 01 May 2009 08:59:16 AM. © Firedoglake

Justice Souter's retirement has been rumored for weeks -- a whisper that he'd failed to hire any clerks for the Fall term. But confirmation was hard to come by for anyone chasing down the rumor. It broke wide open late last yesterday. No official[...]

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Burma: JHU Party leader attend Myanmar blogger
monk's birthday

post from Ashin Mettacara on 01 May 2009 08:51:00 AM. © Ashin Mettacara

JHU leader Ven. Athuraliye Rathana Thera and Ashin MettacaraSmile ClubsMyanmar Blogger Ashin Mettacara celebrated his 27th birthday for the first time with a monk-studded lunch.Monks and friends joined him at Makutarama Temple for a morning of Lunch Dana[...]

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ProJo Survey on Prostitution Law

post from Kmareka.com on 01 May 2009 08:46:00 AM. © Kmareka.com

Here’s a link to a ProJo.com survey about criminalizing prostitution in Rhode Island. As of Friday morning a majority of respondents are opposed. The comments section has a lively debate.

Remember, there are several bills–the bill to criminalize prostitution is not the same as the bill against trafficking. My guess right now is that the bills outlawing prostitution won’t pass, and if they do, there will be legal challenges.

I say, let’s have our police officers drive on by and ticket all the cars. Parking is never really legal in Providence, you just hope they don’t notice you.

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Coulter's credibility rating drops even further
with repetition of Obama approval falsehood

Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter falsely claimed during the April 30 edition of Fox News' Hannity that President Obama is "actually the second least popular president, 100 days in, we've had in 40 years." As Media Matters for America recently documented, this falsehood, which has made its way from a blog post to Fox News and The Washington Times, is based on an apples-to-oranges comparison between an April 20-21 Gallup poll question that asked respondents to "rate the job Barack Obama has been[...]

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The Future of American Energy

Since the coal-pushers are rallying at the Statehouse today urging the Kansas Legislature to[...]

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QoTD: Panic Edition

The end of the semester is always an awful time, and the end of the spring semester is typically even worse. On my plate, I currently have two experiments' worth of data to process and analyze, a paper to write about language acquisition, 16 term papers to grade, and somewhere in there get a meal or two. I am in full-fledged panic mode, and so I've been working somewhere in the neighborhood of 12-16 hour days for the last two weeks. Somewhere in there I've taken a few minutes for myself, and (perhaps sadly) some of those minutes have been spent on MLW.

My panic, though, is not true panic. Many people think they're in full-panic mode about swine flu, but if that were true, they'd be heading for the hills, leaving civilization and moving north or something. That is not happening, because things are at least going according to a plan (see Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight. At least there's a plan that people are following, so no one is really in panic mode.
What do people really panic about? It takes a lot to get people to really panic, and I think it's tied up in anxiety -- that generalized worry that you can't direct toward a specific fear, but the belief that you should be worried about something. The last time I saw any kind of real panic was in my sophomore year of college, when 9/11 happened. People were honestly RUNNING around campus, trying to share the news, but no one really even knowing what the news was! People were asking, "Have you seen the news?" and "What are we supposed to do? Did the news say anything?" Now, it may have been made somewhat worse that the fourth plane went down maybe 30 miles or so from where we went to school. People believed that the "terrorists" were trying to hit a nuclear power plant and cause a nuclear bomb explosion. Ha, okay, there are so many things wrong with such a hypothesis, but first among them was that the local power plants were all coal-powered. Not to mention that the uranium power plants use is not enriched enough to explode, but nevermind all of that.

Another situation that I've observed people in full panic is when it starts to rain at a baseball game. People are so afraid of getting wet! Particularly children. That is, until they've already gotten soaked. Then they jump in puddles.

If I weren't quite so frantic with work, I'd write some interesting stuff about the science of fear and anxiety. Maybe another time, but if you're interested in some aspects of the lateralized brain and emotion, I'd recommend the work of Eddie Harmon-Jones or Richard Davidson. Both are really nice guys who do amazingly interesting science.

My question for today is this: