Breaking: North Korea reports dictator for life King Jong Il has died

This is potentially a big deal. North Korea is nuclear, and even with stable leadership was a dangerous regime - a "rogue" state, as it were.  He's reportedly groomed his son to take over (Kim Jong Il took over from his father).  If this leadership change creates any instability in the North Korean government, that may or may not be a good thing.  Obviously, an Asian Spring would be welcome in principle, but revolutions are trickier when nukes are involved, and when we're talking about a country that seemed ready to use them for a while now.  There's also no saying someone even more hardline couldn't take over. Read the rest of this post...

Boehner tries to derail bipartisan payroll tax holiday extension when far right flips out

The House Republicans, like much of the Republican party, are under the control of the Tea Partiers and other far right Republicans.  And this is what happens - they refuse to compromise on everything, and insist on including radical provisions in every innocuous piece of legislation.

Yesterday, the Senate passed a two month payroll tax holiday extension with a whopping 89-10 vote (i.e., super bipartisan).  GOP Senate leader McConnell was reportedly given GOP House Speaker John Boehner's proxy to negotiate on his behalf.  So McConnell reached a deal with things neither side liked, but which at least continued the payroll tax holiday for another two months (something without which economic growth would tank next quarter, according to a good number of the experts).

Well, you can imagine what happened when House Republicans found out that a bipartisan deal had been reached.  They wanted nothing to do with it. Since, after all, if the Democrats had agreed to the compromise then clearly it wasn't far right enough.  So Boehner is in the position now of basically torpedoing a bipartisan compromise, right before Christmas, and holding every working American hostage to a GOP-imposed tax hike right after Christmas unless the far right in the GOP gets its way.

The Dems are far from perfect when they control Congerss, but they're far better than handing the keys to car of the nation to a bunch of angry nuts.  More from the White House. Read the rest of this post...

Video: A recreation of Calvin’s (and Hobbes) various snowmen

This video recreates the various snowmen that Calvin, of Calvin & Hobbes, built over the years. Some of them are really great ideas. If anyone has snow, and builds one, email me the picture.

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Vaclav Havel (1936-2011)

BBC:

Vaclav Havel, the Czech Republic's first president after the Velvet Revolution against communist rule, has died at the age of 75.

The former dissident playwright, who suffered from prolonged ill-health, died on Sunday morning, his secretary Sabina Tancecova said.

As president, he presided over Czechoslovakia's transition to democracy and a free-market economy.

He oversaw its peaceful 1993 split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

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"Ron Wyden, Useful Idiot"

Coming right on the heels of his heroic blockage of the Senate Kill-the-Internet law (PIPA), Ron Wyden proves he's a Democrat by wrapping himself in shame and dishonor in his next official act.

Ron Wyden did "a bad bad thing." He teamed up with Republican House hitman Paul Ryan on a Kill-Medicare proposal. Paul Krugman (my emphasis):

Sen. Ron Wyden did indeed do a bad, bad thing in his joint proposal with Paul Ryan. Ezra Klein explains why; and the devil isn’t in the details.

What Wyden did was to give cover to the fundamental fallacy of right-wing attempts to dismantle Medicare: the claim that market competition is the key to reducing health care costs. We have overwhelming evidence on this — and it just isn’t true. Looking both within the United States and across countries, if you ask which systems are best at cost control, the ranking looks like this:

Government provision as well as financing (socialized medicine) > single payer > market competition

That's market competition at the bottom.

After explaining again why market-based systems don't reduce medical costs, Krugman asks the obvious question:

So why would anyone who isn’t a right-wing ideologue propose that kind of degradation? Inquiring minds want to know.

Because of Wyden's truly heroic effort to forestall PIPA, I'll offer Krugman's charitable answer: Useful idiot.

Remind me why we should support Democrats. After all, who are the PIPA supporters that Wyden is blocking?

Democratic cosponsors include:

Sherrod Brown [OH] – (202) 224-2315
Al Franken [D-MN] – (202) 224-5641
Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY] – (202) 224-4451
Amy Klobuchar [D-MN] – (202) 224-3244
Sheldon Whitehouse [D-RI] – (202) 224-2921

Your "progressive Democrats" in action.

I included phone numbers for your handy printing and use. Switchboards are open until 5:00 pm EST until Congress goes home for the holidays. Operators are waiting for your call.

You can contact Ron Wyden at 202-224-5244 or 503-326-7525.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Obama's auto czar wishes he could have pushed more into poverty

It's assholes like that need to be kept far away from the political system. Unfortunately the Obama administration has a history of staying with the same old crowd who promote the same old stories and protect the same old people. Steven Rattner surely would have loved to cut more salaries to the bone to please his Wall Street buddies but that doesn't do much for an economy that is supposed to be reliant on consumer spending. If workers are all stuck at or near the minimum wage, who is going to buy the GM cars or other products? We're not going to progress as a society if we keep moving in the direction of a Banana Republic where there is no middle class. Eliminating jerks like Rattner from any decision making or involvement would be a really good start. Instead of talking about change, we need political leadership that actually implements change.

Former auto czar and wealthy Wall Street financier Steven Rattner told a luncheon in Detroit on Thursday that while the $50 billion GM bailout was successful, "we should have asked the UAW to do a bit more. We did not ask any UAW member to take a cut in their pay." He also said that "friends on Wall Street" were concerned by GM's earnings and communications with the market, pushing the stock down to a level that would lose the goverment $14 billion if it sold its shares today. Meanwhile, at General Motors' Orion Township, Mich., plant about 45 minutes away from where Rattner spoke, there are three tiers of hourly workers. Roughly 900 workers at the top tier, the most senior UAW workers, make $29 an hour, a rate unchanged since 2008. Another 500 or so UAW workers are paid about $16 an hour — a rate, adjusted for inflation, equal to the famed $5 a day Henry Ford started paying his workers in 1914. And at the bottom scale are 200-odd workers technically employed by an outside supplier but who work in the plant moving parts to the assembly line, jobs once done by GM workers paid $29 an hour. The contractors' pay: $9 an hour with no health care, a rate which over a year's work would leave them below the poverty level for a family of four.

USA #1. Read the rest of this post...

T. Rex - Jeepster

The Christmas gift exchange plans have changed this morning. I've decided that there's nothing more than either of us could want other than a new washing machine. I hadn't really thought it through enough but this morning when the 14 year old machine popped and shut down the electricity four times, I realized that maybe it's time for a change. It did the same thing the other day and it seems to be leaking water somewhere. The only problem is how Santa will manage to get this one down the chimney, because it's kind of big. Nothing says "Christmas" quite like a new washing machine under the tree. Read the rest of this post...

More than 500 dead in Philippines flood

More are missing, so the count is likely to increase. BBC News:

Rescuers are continuing the search for survivors after floods killed more than 500 people and left hundreds more missing in the southern Philippines. Naval vessels are scouring the coast along the island of Mindanao while soldiers searched swollen rivers. Officials said many bodies remained unclaimed, suggesting entire families had been swept away. The flash floods were triggered by a tropical storm that coincided with high tides, trapping many in their homes.

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Video: Playing virtual giant pinball on the side of a building

This is so freaking cool. Brought to us by that French lighting company that paints buildings in light. This time, they've created a virtual pinball machine that works, and is played on the side of a building. People are actually working the flippers. Check this out.

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