Stop me before I think again ...

In mid-thought ...

... Explain to me why it is so terrible that China and India, countries which contain about 2/5 of the population of the entire world, have economies that are growing at a high rate, thereby improving the welfare of their people, taking them out of poverty, making them into consumers rather than dependents. ...

... the debate over whether to Mirandize terror suspects is a sham. Miranda rules shouldn’t hamper obtaining info from suspects like the Xmas day underwear bomber ... They are fanatics - will love to talk. Also, his guilt is so obvious, it doesn’t matter whether his statements are useable against him. Miranda rules do not preclude continued questioning without advising or even if a suspect has asserted his rights. It simply makes his statements inadmissable in his trial, unless he presents a defense which contradicts his statements. Finally, his knowledge of the Al Qaeda workings is probably very limited ...

... Torrey Pines tournament proves that there is no one who will make anyone forget Tiger Woods ... the great white hope, Phil Mickelson fizzled ... the winner and those others in contention were Who He? and Who Cares?

... Meanwhile Fed disappointed all Brits and Aussies by destroying Andy Murray.

... Kobe MJ’d the Celtics with another last sec impossible shot ...

... Conventional wisdom that the New Deal failed to solve unemployment, proving failure of its big government activism was a construct of Milton Friedman (an Ayn Rand devotee). Later economists have revised thinking, pointing out that FDR got cold feet about deficits. ... There should be a lesson there for Obama, who is not unlike FDR in his lack of ideological dogma, straddling a centrist tightrope, sorting through unreliable contradictory advice, facing an uneducated, easily manipulated frightened electorate and an even more frightened Congress. See: http://borensteinslaw.blogspot.com/2009/02/great-deception.html
... My father would have explained the lagging employment stats thus: capitalists love depressions - gives them the excuse to slap labor down, damage unions, lower wages and benefits, break contracts ... Stock market loves layoffs of workers because it reduces costs, increases bottom lines. ... Capital will fight hard to prevent re-employment, mandatory benefits for workers. ...

... Obama’s skewering of the Republicans in his State of the Union speech, and later, his Q&A right in their nest was awesome as an example of how a good lawyer can use the power of argument to overcome deceit. The problem is that the voters these days do not have the patience or intelligence to hear complex explanations, even if they are rational. The sound bite generation is too deeply ingrained.

... The Supreme Court decision expanding 1st Amendment rights to corporations is merely the latest in a long line of cases that elevate the speech freedom over all of the others in the Bill of Rights... I became aware of this long ago when earlier rulings permitted reporting re. & televising criminal trials which damaged the defendant’s 6th Amendment right to a fair trial ... For a long time, the Court has denied a difference between "political speech" and "commercial speech" ... Their rationale for this has always seemed a thinly disguised excuse for favoring business and property interests over individual liberties, which is central to the conservative tradition of The Court. ... In fact, that is what the Founders intended it to be, and how it has worked for most of our history... It has been "activist" as a reactionary restraint on progressive movements in society ... control of commerce, slavery / Jim Crow / civil liberties, regulation of business ... on almost every issue the Court has been a drag ... the Warren Court, a tiny window of progressive control of the Court from @1953 - 1966 was a very rare exception, a Golden Age of civil liberties that has no other parallel in American history ...

... Way back then, I argued with friends who defended pornographers, debating which of the Bill of Rights I would die to defend ... I argued that defending the right of sleaze makers to make money from porno movies was way down on my list - considering what else was at risk at the time: anti-war protesters being shot and jailed, civil rights workers the same, coerced confessions, death penalty offenses proved by perjured testimony, planted evidence, denial of counsel. ... porn is just another form of commercial speech. ...

... Equating corporate rights with individual rights is mainstream American thinking ...

... Howard Zinn’s death again raises the debate about "neutral" or "objective" history vs. activist or argumentative perspectives ... My small contribution centers on how offended I was at discovering that the "history’ I was subjected to in my childhood was, in crucial details, distorted ... The most egregious distortions related to the genocide of native Americans ... The predominance of Southern rooted historians accounted for the mythology which elevated the romance of the ante bellum South, overestimating the greatness of Robert E. Lee and the evils of Grant and Sherman ... and most harmfully, the belief that Southern white society was unfairly victimized by Reconstruction ... Overlooking the weakness of heroes like Wilson and TR relating to race and native Americans... that the creation of the American Empire was all good ... and many more lies... all that being said, Zinn’s bias should also be considered before accepting his works ...

No more thinking ... back to work ...