I've seen a lot of electrons wasted about how we need to help out people suffering on bad investments like variable-rate interest only mortgages.  But it seems to me that if your house price collapses and your equity is minimal, the right thing to do is to just take out all the appliances and walk away.  Those mortgages were basically renting from the bank, with a possible upside if the market went up--in effect the bank assumed the risk.   So how do you help these people out, other than to make sure that walking away doesn't hurt their credit rating much.  People walk away from bad investments every day; you are only hurting yourself if you don't.

I just don't understand how one would go about helping in this case.

According to today's AP, there are plans in action to reduce troop rotations in Iraq.  Instead of 15 months on and less than a year off, rotations will be 12 on and 12 off.  When I read that, my first reaction was, "it's about time."  My second reaction was "of course it's time; it's an election year." I'm betting on August, sometime around the start of the Democratic convention.

What's your bet?

I just added up the total popular votes for the Potomac Primary, and the blowout in DC means that Obama's votes were about 17000 more than all the other candidates, combined.  (That is, Clinton+McCain+Huckabee+Romney+Paul.)
Adding the uncommitted Democratic votes cuts this to around 7000 votes.

There's no possible way to spin this as anything but an overwhelming Obama victory, Big Tent Democrat's arguments notwithstanding.

Billmon and Hit and Run have already jumped on Pelosi for being same as the old boss, and rightly so.  The Dems got elected on an anti-corruption platform.  Isn't this a great chance to freeze Byrd and other pork-barrel types out in the cold?  And though Jack Murtha is good for some red meat, he also belongs on probation for his historical association with 'the other white meat.'  And Alcee Hastings for Intelligence chair, who was impeached for corruption as a judge, by a Democratic congress? Bribetaking and potential extortion must count as a genuine security risk.

William Jefferson is getting the can, or so we can hope.  But let's keep some of these other guys on as short a rope as possible.

We can do better!

So I'm watching a little football, and I see a hilarious new ad by Sony, with the plastic figurines reenacting The Play, with voiceover from the original radio broadcast.    "The band is all over the field.... the bears have won! The bears have won!!"

And I think: anybody who doesn't know a little TV football (a) won't get it, and (b) is really missing something.

From the NYT:

As members of the Siboni family whiled away Monday afternoon in lawn chairs just outside their bomb shelter, knitting, smoking and reading the Torah, Hezbollah's rockets suddenly came raining down with their signature thump.
...
In this part of the country, where Hezbollah rockets have been a threat for decades, taking cover in bomb shelters has become as commonplace as bracing for a hurricane is in Florida.

So what is a little odd about this story?  They are under missile attack after all!

From the Washington post:

In a speech at the White House, Bush hailed a report today from the Office of Management and Budget showing that this year's budget deficit "will actually come in at about $296 billion, compared to what he said was the White House's "original projection" of $423 billion.

Like clockwork, the deficit is "lower than expected".  Of course, it's still $296billion, down only $15B from last year.  It sure is strange -- every year they outperform expectations on the deficit by $100B or better.  So we must be making progress eh?  

Very strange how they manage to collect a lot of taxes in April.

The demand for oil is going up.  The supply is not.  And the demand is not particularly elastic; by and large people do not use less oil without major price changes.

So at some point, we are going to be paying more for gasoline than the Europeans do today.  The question is: who gets the benefits?

Way back when, John Ashcroft directed the FBI to destroy all background checks for gun purchases after 90 days.  He was right to do it.  What isn't right is the current push to record all internet activity indefinitely.

Hilary Clinton has approximately the same qualifications as Al Gore and John Kerry:  a lifetime in politics, a reasonable political record, paid her dues in the Senate, etc.  So why don't I like her?

I'm not a fan of Ted Ralls.  I am a fan of Tom Toles, however tasteless his recent cartoon.  (Perhaps a man with only a missing right arm, instead of quadriplegic next time Tom?)  
And I thought about 1/2 of those Danish cartoons are funny as hell, and the others are tasteless as hell.  But I really detest the anti-liberal Islamist bastards who are protesting cartoons with guns.

O'Reilly is spouting hateful propaganda.  But I don't give any props to San Fransisco for banning military recruiters from its high schools either.  There's plenty of mud to go around.

Kos is disappointed that Al Gore isn't running.  Frankly, I'm glad to see he's not. I'd feel better if Gore, Clinton, Kerry, Edwards all stayed out of it.  They all share one thing, and it is historically a huge negative in Presidential politics:  they are all Senators or ex-Senators.

Powell is "devastated" that some members of the "intelligence community" didn't speak up about the bad intelligence in Iraq.

"I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world," Mr. Powell told Barbara Walters of ABC News, adding that the presentation "will always be a part of my record."

"The plural of anecdote is not data" -- Frank Kotsonis(?)

Both sides are full of crap on the Sheehan story.  Whatever Mrs Sheehan says, the Iraq war should stand or fall on it's merits.

In the reality-based community, we shouldn't be basing our reasoning about politics on an anecdote, especially when the anecdote is based on the beliefs of a single individual.   By pushing the Sheehan story in the way it's getting pushed, we are going down this road.  

Republican strategist Grover Norquist once stated that the proper stance of the Democrats is that of a neutered dog, content in it's passivity.  By agreeing to keep the right to filibuster, but not ever use it except in extreme cases, where extreme does not include those candidates most offensive to the Democratic party, the Democrats have acceeded to his plan. They cut of their own ball-sack; Nordquist didn't have to do it for them.

That's the very definition of a tame animal: one that has the "right" to go where it wishes, but agrees of itself not to dig in the flower garden.

update

The Rude Pundit has more. I left of his more graphic version out of politeness.

Just saw this on the BBC RSS feed.  Short form: worked for CIA until he planted the bomb.  Then worked for Ollie North during Iran-Contra.

Cuba "Plane Bomber" was CIA agent

Declassified US government documents show that a man suspected of involvement in the bombing of a Cuban passenger plane worked for the CIA.
Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban-born Venezuelan and anti-Castro dissident, was an agent and informer.

The papers also reveal that an FBI informer "all but admitted" that Mr Posada was one of those behind the 1976 bombing that killed 73 people.

Terry McCaulliffe gets a lot of mileage out of being a good fundraiser.  The trouble is, he's no kind of spokesman for the party.  And he, along with Al Frum, have proven to be an other-than-winning team of late.  It's time for new management, just like in any other sport.

So I propose:

pledge to give $100 to the DNC if and only if Terry Mac gets canned, and replaced with a better communicator.