Wasn't it just last week that there began a swelling outrage that while the senate was voting on three measures (including raising the debt limit) Brown was out on the talk-show circuit?
Brown had initially said that the Feb 11th was fine - but now wants to be sworn in immediately .... Sorry, I am beginning to think he is no more than politics as usual ... just slide along, hoping no one will notice ... problem is WE are noticing.
Wasn't it also last week that he touted the fact that he was "his own man" - perhaps, at times voting with the Dems ... and/or the Republicans ... that he wasn't beholding to anyone - now that has GOT to miff the people of Mass. who elected him ... I was under the assumption that he worked for them.
Also last week wasn't there a flurry of talk around the republican party that Brown might make the perfect candidate for the presidency in 2012 - Are we to assume the trend of thought withing the Republican Party is to "fight fire - with fire"???? By putting forward their own totally unqualified, inexperienced candidate.
It just becomes increasingly obvious that there is NO difference between the reds and blues

Then there is Loreena McKennitt "Nights from the Alhambra"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WSr0pNLNy0

Is there anyone - or anyone in this administration that hasn't apologized for ALL the "sins" of this country .... I have heard rumors that there is even a plan in the works to change our national anthem to the old Brenda Lee song ...
I'm Sorry, So Sorry

"Veteran Republican activist Tim Albrecht says politicians don't just happen to stop in Iowa..." Tim is correct ... it is a little known fact that Iowa, much like Brigadoon ... is a mythical place that only emerges from the early morning mist, once every presidential election cycle. GOOD GRIEF, Albrecht - nothing it seems exists beyond the world of politics .... BOTH parties ... I guess it "don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that (political) swing" .... It is this profession of politics that - along with an extraordinarily lazy and apathetic public that got us to where we are today. SO both parties can take a bow (bowing out, would be hoping for too much) ... for nearly 35 plus year (20 as a journalist and nearly 15 since I retired) I have practiced Political Atheism ... and I see nothing from EITHER party that dissuades me from that course.

Larsinkima nailed it ... NOTHING is permanent.
When you look at ALL the weather data over history - we have been basking in a very, very mild climatic period. That the cycle moves one way or another within a major climatic period is NOTHING.
To live on this planet is like most anything else in life - a crap shoot. The species has been experiencing - adapting - and getting on with things since the beginning of the beginning. I think one of the reasons for this success is that up until recent years, they didn't have to endure the sanctimonious rantings of the clergy of the church of science whose pronouncements I would argue are more to reaffirm their self-described importance than it is anything else.

Reading the comments here and comments that follow most ANY story regarding what is happening to this country, they are ALL so remarkably similar. While I will make no attempt to gauge the level of discontent .... I would not be surprised to say that it may well already surpass that of another period of similar turmoil in this country 234 years ago.
This first time it took around ten years for the “pot to boil over” - when you set aside “party politics” we are presently running along the same timeline.
It is interesting to note that the average of the world’s greatest civilizations has been in the neighborhood of 220 - 250 years ... I am sure most all have heard this before ... let me put some names and numbers to that assertion;
Assyria - 247 year reign (859-612BC)
Persia - 208 year reign (538-330BC)
Greece - 231 year reign (331-100BC)
The Roman Republic - 233 year reign (260-27BC)
The Roman Empire - 207 year reign (27BC-180AD)
The Arab Empire - 246 year reign (634-880AD)
The Mammeluke Empire - 267 year reign (1250-1570AD)
The Ottoman Empire - 250 year reign (1320-1570AD)
Spain - 250 year reign 1500-1750AD)
Romanov Russia - 234 year reign 1682-1916AD)
Great Britain - 250 year reign (1700-1950AD)
The United States - ?????????? (1790-2009AD and counting)
NOTHING IS FOREVER - especially when it is expected that it runs on some automatic pilot.

Charles, I would agree - in reading the report when it was released my reaction and concern is that no mater whose "watch" it was under, this is more an issue of the "experts" just not getting it right when it comes to communicating OR content - as we are seeing now with "Climategate."
I wonder if anyone would have "clarified" if this report was just accepted at face value?
We tend to readily accept "theory" as dogma. Darwin's theory is perhaps the best example - it pushed out in Victorian England - and at the time one couldn't find a more ego-centered society - so anything promoting linear development was bond to be a winner. A Nobel prize winning physicist once told me (and I think this really says it all) - "throw theoretical bull sh$# against a wall, and what sticks becomes dogma."

Came across this yesterday in the European Union Times yesterday;
"U.S. Forces Plan Direct Action Against American Citizens"
http://www.eutimes.net/2009/12/us-forces-plan-dir...
Here is a youtube link to the audio that the article refers to;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdyFgS3G90Q
This is frightening - frightening because what he is saying is highly plausible - However, I think perhaps the only caveat to this is that I wonder if the US Military would even side with the central government considering how it has been so maligned by this administration.
I would wonder if they would react in the opposite direction. - At least I would hope so.
I have had a growing sense that perhaps - just perhaps one of the reasons that Congress seemingly acts in total disregard to the will of the "people" is not that "the American people will forget all this by next November's elections" - rather, that they don't envision elections even begin held next year. I so hope I am wrong.

The deeper one dives into history the more amazed you become ... I recently was speaking to a group of students about why it was that the Germans supported Hitler ... it was fascinating in that during the discussion that followed, they began drawing analogies between the mood or mindset of the citizens of Germany then and the Citizens of this country today. One student who most assuredly was a Liberal Democrat and most likely an Obama supporter chided me and the other students for comparing Obama to Hitler.
I NEVER mentioned anything in a present tense .... I reminded him that the Third Reich under Hitler was in power around ten years or so BEFORE WWII broke out and that in the pre-war years, Hitler, Roosevelt, and Mussolini were often compared (in a positive sense) and ALL three in a sense admired one another. I also reminded him and ALL the students that an important thing to remember is that to compare is NOT to equate.
Perhaps one of the reasons that history repeats, is that we attach so much credence to the characters on stage at the moment of history, rather than recognizing that PATTERNS that caused the moment.
The trend toward fascism was wide spread in the world (including the United States)- really since just before the turn of the century .. 19th into the 20th - like anything it ebbs and flows .. advancing and reseeding.
Personally, I don't attach a moral judgement to any of the "ocracies" or "isms" ... to me they are "things"
I was a journalist for over 20 years ... and during that time made many close friends in BOTH political parties ... what is sad in a way is that I have been retired for 15 years and many of those "friends" ARE STILL IN WASHINGTON! But the Democrats I know would swear to you I am a Republican ... and the Republicans would bet their first born, that I was a Democrat. In truth .. I am a Political Atheist. Or perhaps a more crass way of putting it is that I am not politically bigoted at all ... I don't like ANYONE - Equally.

Great piece - I would perhaps argue on close examination that it began to die, even before the ink had dried in 1789.
An excellent book - if I may recommend - The Rise and Fall of Society by Frank Chodorov.
It is available through the Ludwig Von Mises Institute - in hardcover, paperback - or one can download it free in .pdf format.
I thought this highly interesting -- from the first chapter;
"The story of the American State is instructive. Its birth was most auspicious, being midwifed by a coterie of men
unusually wise in the history of political institutions and committed to the safeguarding of the infant from the mistakes of its predecessors. Apparently, none of the blemishes of tradition marked the new State. It was not burdened with the inheritance of a feudal or a caste system. It did not have to live down the doctrine of "divine right/' nor was it marked with the scars of conquest that had made the childhood of other States difficult. It was fed on strong stuff: Rousseau's doctrine that government derived its powers from the consent of the governed, Voltaire's freedom of speech and thought, Locke's justification of revolution, and, above all, the doctrine of inherent rights. There was no regime of status to stunt its growth. In fact, everything was de novo."