What The Heck

It was another “be at work at 4:30 AM” day so I’m too tired to think much right now. Per Pandagon, here’s the 10 random songs that my iTunes gave forth on Shuffle:

Baubles, Bangles, and Beads – Kismet (Original Broadway Cast)
All Night Long – Lionel Richie & The Commodores
And Suddenly There Was With The Angel – Handel (Messiah)
With This Love – Peter Gabriel (Passion Music for The Last Temptation Of Christ)
Take Me to the River – Talking Heads
Virtual Reality – Rusted Root
Poems, Prayers And Promises – John Denver
Too Early For The Sky – Johnny Clegg & Savuka
Take Another Piece Of My Heart – Faith Hill
In The Still Of The Night – Neville Brothers (Red Hot + Blue, A Tribute To Cole Porter)

I do actually listen to stuff written after 1995, but random chance didn’t pull any of it into this list.

I Wish I Knew

So what’s the answer? What should a responsible press do when faced with a president who baldly lies over and over about stuff like this [Social Security] in a blatant attempt to scare the hell out of people? Somebody needs to figure it out, because people like George Bush have no incentive to stop lying if the press lets them get away with it.

Edit – forgot to source this: Kevin Drum.

Typical

It’s official – there are no WMDs in Iraq and the people sent to find them have come home.

Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the findings will stand as the ISG’s final conclusions and will be published this spring.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials asserted before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, had chemical and biological weapons, and maintained links to al Qaeda affiliates to whom it might give such weapons to use against the United States.

But instead of saying, “we were wrong, there were no WMDs”, you’ll never hear a word of regret coming forth from BushCo.

PeopleSoft goes poof

Good luck to the PeopleSoft people about to become jobless. Layoffs are reported to hit as early as this week.

Oracle is expected to cut 80 percent of sales jobs and up to 90 percent of administrative jobs at PeopleSoft, but keep the bulk of its research and development team

Ouch.

Congress shall pass a law…

More fodder for the tinfoil hat brigade — but even so this is almost certainly unconstitutional and ought to be overturned if signed into law:

Usually, 218 lawmakers – a majority of the 435 members of Congress – are required to conduct House business, such as passing laws or declaring war.
But under the new rule, a majority of living congressmen no longer will be needed to do business under “catastrophic circumstances.”
Instead, a majority of the congressmen able to show up at the House would be enough to conduct business, conceivably a dozen lawmakers or less.
The House speaker would announce the number after a report by the House Sergeant at Arms. Any lawmaker unable to make it to the chamber would effectively not be counted as a congressman.
The circumstances include “natural disaster, attack, contagion or similar calamity rendering Representatives incapable of attending the proceedings of the House.”
The House could be run by a small number of lawmakers for months, because House vacancies must be filled by special elections. Governors can make temporary appointments to the Senate.
Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.), one of few lawmakers active on the issue, argued the rule change contradicts the U.S. Constitution, which states that “a majority of each (House) shall constitute a quorum to do business”.