Friday Instahoglets

By BJ Bjornson

Some Friday afternoon reading for all of you formally productive folks now going all "John Galt" because Obama has the sheer gall to allow Bush tax cuts to expire and send rates back to where they were in the horrible 90's of government surpluses and a strong economy. And so to start off, a nice little column explaining how stupid the whole, "war on the rich", claim is.

It was pretty clearly Rush Limbaugh's week, and one of the best takes on the Republican's self-inflicted wounding I've read is from Al Giordano.

Of course, we're told this is all a distraction, and the Republicans would really like you to focus on the important matters, like whether Obama and his wife snubbed the British, how dependent Obama is on his teleprompter, and of course, the fact that his birth certificate was faked.

All of which points to the fact the Rush is the least of the Republican's problems. Their real problem is that they have no leader, no direction, and no ideas.

And for good measure, John Cole asks that someone provide him with some evidence that national Democratic leaders stood up and said they wanted to see George Bush fail like the GOP leadership is doing today.

In actually important news, Kevin Drum notes how the poor get screwed by the US health system.

The Catholic Church has decided to excommunicate everyone involved with getting a nine-year-old rape victim an abortion for a pregnancy that threatened her life. The rapist is still presumably a member in good standing, since punishing the sexual abuse of minors would leave them woefully short on priests.

James Dobbins figures the best way to start a dialogue with Iran is to stop not talking to them. Looks like the administration is willing to take the advice.

And because I don't want to leave you sad, this video from the Onion regarding our love affair with gadgets. (Warning: Considerable profanity)

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work