Monthly Archives: January 2009


Will Everything Really Be On the Table?

pelosi says everything should be on the table:

Obama announced last week that he would convene a “fiscal responsibility summit” in February to focus on long-term problems with the economy and the skyrocketing costs of benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
“I support what he wants to do, to have a summit of that kind,” Pelosi said Sunday. “We will have our own initiatives in the Congress to work with him on that.”
Pelosi said everything should be on the table, including benefit cuts.
“The only thing we didn’t want to put on the table is eliminating Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” she said.

Of course, benefit cuts would run counter to the incoming administrations desire to increase spending:

“Our overall focus is going to be on increasing spending,” Summers said in a broadcast interview. “Beyond that, there’s going to be a substantial tax cut for the American people.”

We will know that real change may have come when the defense budget is on the cutting table taking some serious 12 figure whacks!

Via Corrente.


Buy Your Roquefort While You Can

Despite what Cookie Jill says, this kind of crap is not unique to the bush administration:

Less than a week before it leaves office, the Bush administration has sparked anger across the Atlantic by tripling the import duty rate on roquefort cheese to 300%, a move which the US hopes will “shut down trade” in the sheep’s milk product by making it prohibitively expensive.

It is a thing of governments and various rent seekers looking for unearned treasure.

In a free country, a free world, there are no tarriffs. Individuals and groups of individuals voluntarily trade goods and services without the interference of third parties unless force or fraud have been used in the transaction


Friday Ark #226

We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

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In Memoriam

Didn’t Make It

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Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe last year is on hiatus an looking for a new sponsor
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey’s Musings has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival