Out Foxed?

Obtuseness Redux.
Why does Social Security Need 174,000 bullets?
Dems open convention playing defense of Obama.
Get the lede out?

Not to bury any ironies or unintended puns...
The first two links are referenced in the next two lines.
The third line and two links are in regard to the heading, and to the sources.
The "Obtuseness Redux" were from Comcast/AP. 
But I first went local then tan gent or BaneOr BainOr... 
the punchline has to do with they nature of Infowars(the site), a bit more journalistic and fair and balanced than FOX, not that they do not require very careful reads.   The four links seem to represent a sort of unsorting and GPS un-crossroads dynamic. And for my part, the first aspect has to do with the irony of any whining about Social Security having an Inspector General division that hunts down fraud, in this age of second amendment fruit salad or T-parties. And for the sake of any intelligence briefs or geeks, "lede" is a journalistic term not a bullet point.  The last two links are a good un-cross Rhodes* of the left.  Not quite Tin-Foil Hats, not quite Coffee Party, but maybe close enough. (4 hard work?)

* not exactly
** ibid?
(See Labels, but I note here the original four:
DNC Convention, Infowars, Seattle PI, Social Security
(I know, [...] there is a local irony...)

[and global...]***

*** Re-verse asterisk of sorts. Emphasis on not read yet and irony. Heavy on the latter.
[For Rob Sake!]
[M-bed-ed?  Actually...]

Speaking of Ge Oh Me Try

or plane (and not so plane) English...
here is a base of hope, a try angle of diplomacy(Robert Naiman)[UPDATE]:

The New York Times reported yesterday that the US says it does not want to call for Mubarak to step down because 1) it fears losing all leverage with Mubarak 2) it fears creating a power vacuum in Egypt 3) it wants to avoid the perception that the US was "once again" engineering the ouster of a Middle East leader.
Regardless of whether one believes that these stated reasons are the full story, or whether they are also a cover for other US motivations - the Times acknowledges that the administration's "restraint" is also driven by lack of enthusiasm for "dealing with an Egypt without Mubarak" - these are the stated reasons of the US for not responding to the protesters' call.
But publicly and privately backing the opposition parties' call for negotiations would not, on the face of it, trigger any of the stated US objections. It is a very modest demand, totally consistent with previous US statements, which would not plausibly lead to "losing all leverage" with Mubarak; it would not create a "power vacuum"; it would not reasonably lead to a perception that the US was
"engineering" Mubarak's ouster. On the contrary: the US would be raising the profile of a particular proposal for negotiations as a way out of the crisis, and increasing pressure on the Egyptian government to respond to it.

Hope may not be too strong a word for what is not really a base, but a path. The point is that diplomacy must recognize the points and the angles to be effective.

Speaking of angles:

YES! Do not pick on Social Security as part of the debt picture, shore it up. In fact, lowering the retirement age, increasing the cap for contributions, catching it up with inflation would actually improve the debt picture, by impacting federal receipts. (not from Social Security but in income tax on the improved income.) Thank Senator Reid

I may need to take another angle on my comment: Big picture, poor segue, right note. My social security tangent is less than clear in economic or accounting terms, but the issue of State budgets, and the impact of unfunded retirement and health plans is a similar complex of factors that angle back to the nature of our frackin' troubles.

[Footnote * on embedded nature.]

* not (...embedded that is.)

Flash Words

and Holey Math!
The words are not as bad* as the math or the understanding of the checks and balances and full faith in budgets or IOU's.

* Picking up from the last link(or 2) in the last post I must note the biased(although that is relative)source(mediaite) and dig out the Paul Krugman and Peter G. Peterson sources above. And I have to say that there is no comparison to the "gotcha journalism" of recent controversy. Commissioner Simpson was the aggressor who stood his ground in error or at least two worlds, confusing the IOU's with the Lock Box. i.e. the double hit is not, except for the interest that is robbing Paul to not pay Peter. No pun on sources, but I must note that we have a strange convergence of agreement, Simpson must go or actually be used to school the debate. But I will unthread these sources to D-Day(the Derivatives article) in Progressive Breakfast with a side of Simpson a link to Krugman, and from him to The Fiscal Times(of Peter G. Peterson). Has one ever seen such bipartisan agreement that Simpson should go for several reasons?[bold added 1-31-11] But does it not boil down to this? The double hit is really a double pick pocket or some such farther from faith and credit to government.

[Post-comment updates] [and more]

Who is "Lighting a Fire"?

President Bush gave a very remarkable speech today. One filled with hope, if not fantasy. While I did not catch the whole thing, many parts of it should be embraced as goals which we could unite behind. A few parts I may have missed, might cast a shadow on how we go about the tasks that we could agree are admirable, amongst them freedom and equality. However as they say, and I may google the who "they" are, but the devil is in the detail. Here is to the hope that he "speaks anew" to us all, and that we will know what he means, and most important that he means what he says.

If what President Bush calls, spending political capital, is any indication, we may have little hope. If it means claiming a mandate by addressing the Social Security "Crisis" when it ranks fifth (question 2) on a list of highest priorities, then we may be in trouble. It may mean only more, Weapons of Mass Distraction.

Maybe he has been a uniter not a divider, as the poll shows the top concerns of those finding need for hope. While hope may be found even in those that worry, the issues which are of concern are "the situation in Iraq" and "the economy and jobs" (same link, same question). We must have hope, but it is how we work for it that matters. The process does matter or the fire will be suffocated.

We must remember and remind others that when Bush was told "you broke it, you own it" about Iraq, that we are the ones that will pay for it. Now we must make sure that while we may need to improve social security, we do not want to break it.

Optimism

Not Exactly ...

Pop Yogurt*!

* Now this is the ticket.

"economist predicted 8 of last 3 depressions"
Mices predicts 8 of next 3 bubbles. 

[Note: Facetious Time Stamp 2014]