Tartlets, tartlets...the word has lost all meaning.

I keep trying to say that to people who don't know what I'm talking about.

I agree with points made by Typo Boy and Ginger. I've been really frustrated with the way the President and the Democrats overall have handled things, not just the things I think they're wrong on, but even the things I think they've done right. If the Democrats had done more to make their successes visible "on the ground", I think more people would have turned up to vote. If you don't follow the pundits or read the papers, you don't know what's going on except for what happens around you. If you and your friends and family and community are still struggling financially, and you know we're still (back, again) at war, it might be hard to come up with a reason why you should vote, why one vote would matter, or why one party is meaningfully different from the other.

Also, I now dislike the word seminal. Ew.

I'm watching last night's Daily Show coverage, and it's not making me feel *better*, per se, but it is making me laugh. "It's a Red Wedding out there."

I feel really guilty that I blew off 2000, still, but it did light a fire under me so, to the degree that that's good, well--

For some reason this is reminding me of a story that someone here (Kat, meara??) told about the trees that smelled like semen, and all the lesbians being like "What is that horrible, disgusting, repulsive smell?"

Hahaha! I have no idea , maybe it was Kat, but that amuses me greatly.

Flea & Glamcookie - should we tell them about us?

(I found this parenting blog, now mostly a FB group, because of Flea, and hence because of Buffy. A thread on the FB group just went off on a Buffy tangent and one member jokingly suggested making a Buffy spinoff group. My internet world is eating its own tail.)

Jess, YES! They are Our People!

Jess, you have made me cackle with glee. Thank you.

Be wary of the singularity, Jess!

Y'all, this day! First I had the no alarm fiasco, and then the delicious salad I had at my lunch meeting turned out to be full of almonds. Figured it out after I had eaten the whole serving BUT soon enough after that a big dose of Benadryl seems to have headed off any major badness. Of course, then I'm all loopy from the Benadryl and thinking I am just incompetent, but in fact my keyboard just decided that some keys no longer do anything, including shift, control, and backspace. So I'm working from home and hoping my keyboard gets replaced in my absence.

Or maybe taking the rest of the day as a sick day, we'll see if I run into more trouble.

A number of points where I disagree with Ginger

1) Not true that deregulation meant that nothing could be done. Eliot Spitzer (who is a great lawyer when not making personal decisions) among others has pointed huge numbers of laws that top bankers and managers violated which could have been prosecuted. Essentially a decision was made that some people were too important to punish. (BTW since deregulation started under Carter, and grew the most under Clinton, not sure you can refer to it as primarily Republican - a bipartisan screwup)

2) QE is not literally printing money but it is a method of money creation. Printing presses are not the primary means of money creation and have not been for 3 quarter of a century or more. The point is that the same money used to purchase Long Bonds could have been used to purchase other assets. For that matter, since QE is itself taking advantage of a loophole, other loopholes could have been taken advantage of (like the PLatinum coin) to have created money that could be used to benefit ordinary people. If the Feds had sent a 1,000 check to every American,then fine let the Republicans file a law suit to take the money back. Even if they won the lawsuit they would have lost a hell of lot of cred 3) You mention the REpublicans running on the debt. Obama was already talking about a grand bargain to cut the debt before he took office. He "pivoted" to publicly making debt a priority two or three years into his term - which was freaking insane. And, as an example of "taking laps" when the Republicans passed the debt limit as part of a frugal austerity budge while we were not fully out of a recession the freaking Democrats crowed at the victory, when they should have shouted about the Republicans extorting long term sabotage of the economy in return for not immediately crashing it. When your opponents are hurting people, make sure they get the blame - don't paint what they extort from you as a victory.