Wow. A tough morning, all things considered.

First off, the pitch to replace Helena with a new housemate isn't going so well. Or, more obtusely, there's only been one bright spot and said spot might not be illuminating after all.

Second, this town is too small sometimes.

I'll digress later.

Nice.

My new computer is fast enough to have outlook, a big msc console, six different websites open in phoenix/firebird, outlook newsreader, gaim, windows media player (with a nice new visualization and bjork playing) and still have enough memory to setup my exchange 2000 admin console simultaneously. It's got 250 megs of memory that haven't even been used yet and the cpu is only hitting 50% with all this going on.

Sweet.

Okay, back to "work".

So now, with my new computer, I just setup gaim which allows me to IM people over IRC, AOL & MSN all at the same time. Very cool. Plus, it divides people up by their service so the MSN people look all the same and the AOL people all look the same. It's very cool. So stick it to AOL and MS and go get it!

No, it's not another Santorum piece. Instead, check out this brief piece over at The New Republic. How long until some distinguished Dem statesman (hmm...George Mitchell, anyone?) gets up and blasts the Pentagon for failing to ink in all the important details about a post-Saddam future for Iraq? And hell, unlike Newt, George actually has some prestige and logic to put on the line.

As Atrios notes wryly today, Santorum actually said that ALL consensual sex shouldn't fall under any notion of privacy, gay or otherwise. That's going too far, even for Rick. Because now he's actually saying that even heterosexual people, like y.t., shouldn't be allowed to have consensual sex just because the Supreme Court says so, or it provides a "moral equivalency" to incest, bigamy and adultery.

Step back a second. If I have sex with someone I might as well commit incest, bigamy or adultery? Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's crazy talk. Read the article above, slowly. Then wince when Santorum also claims that this same attitude is responsible for Catholic priest abuse of young men and women. This guy is starting to scare me. Seriously.

I thought I had blogged about this, but I hadn't! If you only read one web news article today, read this one by Dana Milbank. Perhaps Rick "Creepy" Santorum needs to worry less about the slippery slope in the bedroom and more about the slippery slope of government secrecy.

And, yes, if you read the last paragraph of the above article it reveals some rather unsettling facts about the Santorum family. The thought is just too graphic for me to contemplate for any sort of time. I'm always surprised that idiotic parents bring young children to violent movies but despite being at the other end of the spectrum, I can't condone actions like that. No child should have to witness that.

First off, an answer to the earlier post on peeps. The answer is right here. Evidently there's a huge peeps subculture, divided into two sides by those who eat them stale and those who eat them fresh. Go figure.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Senator Santorum is taking some flak from gay groups because of his statement linking homosexuality to adultery and incest. It's a "slippery slope" according to him. Wow. That borders on a Lott transgression. So who among the Dem's calls him out? None other than Howard Dean. Go Dean!

Now if only people would focus on Dean's real assets, namely, his ability to balance the budget without giving huge tax cuts, instead of the overblown attention on his war stance and civil union stance, he'd have a legit shot to win. I guess the peeps divisions echo real divisions as well...although I'm not sure if the Dems or the GOP prefers stale Peeps.

So, last night, the question arose:

Who eats Peeps?

You know, those little yellow ducks made of some diabolical combination of sugar and asbestos. They spontaneously generate around Easter, circulate around offices and homes, and then return to the ground where they came. But, oddly, some are actually eaten. I'm not sure who does, and Helena shared my amazement. At her workplace, an actual "Peep Video Cam" was setup to record who ate them. Turns out the setup was a fake though, so no evidence remains.

If you know the answer, drop us a line. Inquiring minds want to know.

Not to mention up on the hill. Despite Congress being out of session this week, the battle over the administration tax cuts are just starting to heat up. There are strange echoes of 92 all over again, and when the American public wakes up I think they'll find a simplistic argument, one which doesn't address public policy issues, the judicial branch or the environment. Then, as now, it's still the economy, stupid. The Democrat who manages to come across as the person (guy or gal) who'll get America's economic engine purring is going to be the one who wins the nomination. Depending upon the current economic climate, they could win the whole enchilada.

Which is why the tax cut debate seems almost absurd. If it passes, more money will be drained out of the treasury and the deficit will grow larger, strengthening the Dem's hands. The stimulus effect (no pun intended) will be minimal, regardless, which is the long term deficit projections are going to be the subject of debate. 43's first huge tax cut was lauded by some supply siders as "cushioning" the recession. (This was after these same people decided to finally declare the slowdown a recession.) Then it was supposed to have smoothed over the economic malaise. Now the theory goes: with the war over, the economy will take off. The only problem? No leading indicators seem to agree with this voodoo economic conventional wisdom. Which is why pumping more money out of the treasury in the long term (remember, this tax cut package is not a stimulus package) will only exacerbate the issue.

So if the Dem's lose the fight, they may win the war. Conveniently for the American people, most of the tax cuts take affect down the road, so a Dem victory in 04 would mean that future tax cuts could simply be rescinded. Contrary to some talking points issued by the RNC, rescinding tax cuts that haven't taken place yet is not a tax hike. It's actually not anything at all. Under this scenario, a Dem president freezes tax levels at their current amount once taking office. The 10 year projections immediately show a return to black. This inspires a rally in the market, which sparks increased capital being invested, which further improves the financial outlook. To quote Harry Truman, "If you want to live like a Republican, vote for a Democrat". Truer words were never spoken.