Geez, I almost forgot…

…new column at FoxPolitics.net today. It begins:

Enormous rallies, thousands upon thousands of people. Signs, both purchased and homemade. Marches. Speakers. Costumes, jokes, parodies. But mostly people. Lots and lots of people, exercising their rights of speech, of assembly, of petitioning their government.

And so what if they were sponsored by vast, billionaire-funded partisan organizations? So what if major media outlets promoted them under the guise of “reporting?” Those thousands upon thousands who came out, dressed up, brought the kids, painted signs, took time off and paid their own way did so because they believed.

Sure, critics called them all sorts of names, but the protests made a difference: Across the country, people saw others who shared their beliefs; who were willing to publicly state those beliefs; who demanded that their government pay attention.

Say what you will. We’ve seen a lot of successful anti-war protests over the past several years.

Oh, you thought I was talking about last week’s Tax Day Tea Parties? No: I was talking about post-9/11 anti-war rallies. But, since you brought it up…

Go ahead and read the rest of it.

LINKED at The Daley Gator!

You don’t say!

The LA Times:

Crimes suspected in 20 bailout cases — for starters

The special inspector general says TARP is ‘inherently vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse.’ The risk grows as the plan becomes more complex, he says.

Quick! Somebody get me Captain Louis Renault!

More:

In the first major disclosure of corruption in the $750-billion financial bailout program, federal investigators said Monday they have opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax violations, insider trading and other crimes.

The cases represent only the first wave of investigations, and the total fraud could ultimately reach into the tens of billions of dollars, according to Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the bailout program.

The disclosures reinforce fears that the hastily designed and rapidly changing bailout program run by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve is going to carry a heavy price of fraud against taxpayers — even as questions grow about its ability to stabilize the nation’s financial system.

Barofsky said the complex nature of the bailout program makes it “inherently vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse, including significant issues relating to conflicts of interest facing fund managers, collusion between participants, and vulnerabilities to money laundering.”

The only real surprise here is that anybody’s surprised.

Another day, another 600 hits from people searching for Yuri Fujikawa.

But unlike yesterday, I think I’ve figured out why. That Spanish magazine, “20 Minutos,” which published the “most beautiful politicians” story in the first place: they were letting people vote on their favorite beautiful politician and, according to the Babelfish-translated story:

The beautiful congresswoman aprista, Luciana Leon, occupied the second place between the 65 more handsome policies of the world. Luciana only was surpassed by Yuri Fujikawa, Japanese policy of 28 years and that went off in the first place after becoming echo of the list of 20minutos.es in several Japanese means.

I think that means people in Japan found out about the voting, and made sure their girl won. That’s why people in Spain are finding The TrogloPundit via googling Yuri Fujikawa.

Gracias! Um…how do you say “Welcome!” in Spanish? Babelfish is giving me “recepcion,” and I think that’s probably wrong.

Back to the voting: I’m all for rooting for the home team, so good for all those Japanese voters. Assuming they were all Japanese, anyway. Had I known they were having a vote, I’d have tried to gin up something on this side of the Atlantic. Sarah Palin is way better looking than Yuri Fujikawa.

But then, so is Luciana Leon:

Apollo Creed used to pick fights with his opponents before the big match, too.

Suzanna Logan thinks our society is spoiled. Monique Stuart says “I am not!” A debate ensues. Smitty casts his eyes downward and hopes nobody notices him.

Smitty writes:

We can all have a laugh, but I’m going to come down on Monique’s side in the argument. While it may be possible to show substantially that modern Americans are indeed a bunch of crybabies, sweeping generalizations about anything other than brooms remain fraught with peril.

Wh…what? Fraught with peril? Oh…oh no! Not fraught! With peril!

Whatever will we do?

I’m all for a laugh, but dammit, I didn’t join the blogosphere so I could just sit around avoiding peril. A gauntlet has been thrown. Lines are being drawn. Sides chosen. And I for one find it disturbing – to say the least – that a co-blogger at the blog that brought us Rule #4 would worry over “sweeping generalizations” being “fraught with peril.”

Bald guys. Whatchagonnado?

Sigh. Fine. Let the tall guy with the full head of hair take this thing on. SLogan writes:

Surrounded by excess, the very nature of our hyper-consumerist society has guaranteed that we rarely have to do without those things we want and almost never have to give up those things we already have. We have not been forced to be in want, so, quite naturally, we have chosen not to be.

Obesity is a greater problem among America’s poor than malnutrition.

But. I have great faith that, should the necessity arise, we will all be quite happy with less. I base this on the fact that my four children – my modern, electronics-obsessed, TV-watching, Nintendo-playing children, currently ages 7 to 16, will play happily with a fallen log for hours upon hours on our annual family camping trips.

Not exactly what Slogan was talking about, though. She thinks our materialism has killed off something important in our national psyche, and she wonders if the solution isn’t something drastic:

Tito [Perdue, not Jackson –ed.] and I discussed whether an effective antidote existed for a culture ailing for this reason and agreed that an economic downturn may be just what the doctor ordered.

…The kind of economic difficulty that America needs to purge the “spoiled brat” mentality and return to the days of moral and cultural integrity that Tito remembers and I (sadly) do not is one more severe than we are currently having.

Okay, but: FDR’s New Deal sprang directly from the Great Depression. The New Deal was the larva of today’s welfare state; uncle to our gimme mentality – the I-need-it-so-you-have-to-give-it-to-me sense of entitlement, which is what I thought Slogan was talking about in the first place.

So while I agree that deprivation and hard work are good for the soul, I think historically we see that people are more likely – not less likely – to take from their neighbors during times of need.

Now: Monique Stuart, a.k.a. HotMES, took issue with Suzanna’s thoughts by telling her life story (and got a Memeorandum thread for her trouble!). The point being: she’s not spoiled, she had to work her ass off to get by even while growing up.

A lot harder than I did, that’s for sure.

But, come on, Monique. Slogan’s working on a theory, here. A broad* theory. Every theory has its exceptions. That you are one of those exceptions doesn’t mean the theory itself isn’t sound.

It was the last part of Mo’s post that hit me the best:

As for our generation making sacrifices, don’t worry, our time for sacrifice will come. Just as the generations below us will be forced to sacrifice, too. At some point, the bill the politicians are running up will come due. And, it won’t be the “Greatest Generation” that pays for it. They’ll all be dead by then.

A lot of people are realizing the same thing – that’s why the Tea Parties were such a success.

But why has it come to this in the first place? Because we’ve become accustomed to somebody else – the government, mainly – taking care of us. When we’re in need, we think very little of contacting the nearest government office and asking for – demanding, possibly – help. Young, old, rich, poor, black, white, educated or not. Politicians know they can get elected by promising more of our neighbors’ money.

This, I believe, is what Slogan meant when she called us “spoiled.”

Okay. So. Arguments weighed, reasoning examined…how do I pick a winner in this one? Smitty went with Monique…sorry, Mo, but I hate agreeing with bald guys…um…

Ah, I know. Lemme check….

….yep. Monique’s got The TrogloPundit in her blogroll. Slogan doesn’t.

You had her the whole time, Mo. Nice job.

* not intended as a potentially offensive euphemism for “chick.”

UPDATE – Linked by HotMES.

ANOTHER UPDATE – Linked by Slogan, who also did away with my entire rationale for ruling against her. Dammit. I might actually have to think about this now.