Multi Medium

Giant Red Flag On Daschle

For those of you who might have been wondering whether Tom Daschle would be a strong advocate for healthcare reform, or an ineffectual cave machine like he was as Senate Majority Leader, wonder no more:

Republican senators largely held their fire against former Senator Tom Daschle on Sunday, saying that while they questioned how he made a $128,000 mistake on his taxes, they were not yet prepared to vote against his nomination as health secretary.

“We’ll have to question former Senator Daschle and understand his explanation, and then have a conversation about it and see where it goes,” Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Senate Republican, said on “Fox News Sunday.” As to how much trouble the tax issue could present for the nomination, he said, “I think it’s too early to tell.”

So they jump all over Geithner for his tax problem, they jump all over Holder for basically acting like a Republican, but they’re reserving judgment on Daschle despite having a golden opposition opportunity on a silver platter.  It’s because they know that Daschle as HHS Secretary is the best thing that could happen to the anti-healthcare cause.  Hell, they probably want him more than Obama does.

February 1st, 2009 at 08:51pm Posted by Eli

Happy Superbowl Day!

I have decided that I will commemorate the Superbowl by eating nothing but chips and dip all day.  I have three varieties of chips and three varieties of primary dip, as well as three varieties of backup dip should I run out of primary dip, or if any primary dip should fail unexpectedly. (I have configured my primary dip in a RAID 5 array to minimize the impact of a hardware failure, but one can never be too careful.)

I considered following the lead of the Italian horror movie Absurd, which indicates that Americans celebrate “The Big Game” by dressing in their best formal dinner wear, milling around eating spaghetti standing up, and saying things like, “Darling!  Our team just scored a point!” – but it just seemed like too much work.

As for the game itself, I have a mild preference for the Cardinals, mainly because they’re the underdogs and they need it more.  But also because it’s really hard for a transplant like me to get excited by the home team, which makes the celebrations and triumphalist chest-thumping kind of irritating.  It’s only cute when your team does it, ya know?  The Giants really need to find a replacement for Plax, and to teach Eli how to throw in the damn wind.

February 1st, 2009 at 10:32am Posted by Eli