I wonder if Kathleen Parker wants to save males with mudblood.

...oops, because I am stupid I deleted the last deep thought. The universe weeps.

Bringing a stack of books to Drinking Liberally tonight, 6-? at Tangier at 18th and Lombard, in case anyone wants them. I'm starting to get multiple copies of stuff sometimes. You know you want to be the proud owner of Kathleen Parker's "Save the Males."

It seems the Villagers have gotten bored of this little primary contest.

We focus on gas because it's easy to track day to day and it's something most of us consume regularly. But rising oil prices are of course going to impact a lot more than gas if they do indeed continue to rise. Energy costs generally will go up, along with the price of plenty of oil derived products, and the cost of air travel will increase. Along with intra-city and intra-region transit, one wonders if political pressure to create and improve train service for medium distance (sub-550 mile or so) high speed hauls.


Mrs. A took the Ave from Barcelona to Madrid yesterday. 386 miles in 2:45, city center to city center.

A quick stroll through the google tells us that transit ridership is going up everywhere. I do wonder if this will lead to political pressure to improve and expand transit systems.

The increased likelihood that there will be fewer appearances by Lanny Davis on my teevee is more than enough reason to support Obama.

This really is quite astounding. An investment bank had a contract with a mortgage lender which dictated that they couldn't reject more than 2.5% of their loan apps.

The alliance between right wing Jews and Christian lovers of Israel until it is destroyed in a fiery apocalypse and all the Jews go to hell has always been a wee bit puzzling, but one would've thought that asserting that the holocaust was all part of God's divine plan would perhaps strain that relationship a bit.

Rick Perlstein writes about the failure of conservatives to understand that it isn't the 60s and 70s anymore.

But there's a bit of a broader question. Why is that when I turn on my teevee on Sunday morning I still see George Will, Cokie Roberts, and Sam Donaldson? And when I click on the Washington Post I still find Richard Cohen and David Broder?

The pundit class is old and ossified. It was old and ossified 16 years ago and 16 years later it's the same damn people.

Free fall.

NEW YORK - U.S. home prices dropped at the sharpest rate in two decades during the first quarter, a closely watched index showed Tuesday, a somber indication that the housing slump continues to deepen.
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Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller said its national home price index fell 14.1 percent in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, the lowest since its inception in 1988. The quarterly index covers all nine U.S. Census divisions.

Richard Cohen.


And because I'm cranky:

And because I'm really cranky.

sweet sweet poll porn:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the Kentucky Senate race shows Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford with a five percentage point lead over long-time Republican Senator Mitch McConnell. The poll, conducted just two days after Lunsford won the Democratic nomination, shows the challenger with 49% of the vote while McConnell earns 44%.

These results stand in stark contrast to the Presidential race in Kentucky—John McCain leads Barack Obama by twenty-five percentage points. However, just 67% of McCain voters currently plan to vote for McConnell. Twenty-eight percent (28%) of McCain voters say they will split the ticket and vote for Lunsford. Recognizing the overall political dynamic, McConnell issued a statement last week indicating that he is looking forward to running against the “Lunsford-Obama plan for America."

Conservative media critiques are getting more Baroque.

Poll: "Is Joe Lieberman Worse than Zell Miller Yet?"

And here's a link to send to all your family.

Signed,
Not Atrios

Rock on.

The chart accompanying this article about the auto industry, showing how many new cars were purchased using HELOC funds, is pretty staggering especially since auto dealers have long had generous financing deals which probably would've provided lower interest rates than the relatively low HELOC rates.

It supports an idea I've been mulling over for awhile, that when people got HELOCs they didn't really quite conceptually understand that they were just taking out a loan. They thought they were selling a little bit of their home to the bank. I don't mean that they literally didn't know it was a loan they had to pay back, but I think the concept of "pulling out equity" gave people a sense that they were actually taking a bit of the profit on their imagined home price increase, instead of just taking out a loan against it.

I know I'm not alone in the League of Mostly Nonaligned Bloggers in being rather puzzled by Clinton supporters. I don't mean all people who supported her, but the ones who are still pushing for her candidacy. As far as I can tell they want her to be the candidate and really just don't care how that happens as long as it does. At this point only a drastic rule change combined with a massive shift in support from superdelegates even gets her close to the nomination. In another words, cheating combined with the smoke-filled room residents overturning the outcome of the primary process.

I never really cared all that much about who won this thing, but at some point Obama became the only one with a legitimate path to the nomination. I just stare and scratch my head and wonder what it's all about. I appreciate that there are people who don't like Obama for whatever reasons and prefer Clinton for whatever reasons. But he, you know, won?

Somebody call the wahmbulance, and send it over to the White House WATBs.

Haven't been there in awhile. oy.

And, yes, I know I should get a mac.

enjoy