Today’s reason: hypocrisy about the true nature of Beltway politics.

FactCheck.org does a good start of explaining Kerry’s now infamous quote “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”, but it forgets to mention that Bush threatened to veto the bill if his precious tax-cuts were rolled back by the ammendment Kerry tried to attach to the bill.

…the bill Kerry opposed did contain $300 million requested by the Pentagon to buy best-grade body armor for all troops in Iraq, and also contained additional combat pay and health benefits for reservists called to active duty. …Kerry had co-sponsored an amendment, which was defeated, to pay for the measure by rolling back some of Bush’s tax cuts. …For the record, the body-armor money amounted to just over 1/3 of 1 percent of the $87 billion supplemental bill that Kerry opposed.

Vetoing military spending is something Bush has threatened several times. Ignoring the fact that many politicians, including the POTUS, will alternately support or denounce bills as they are formed in committees and passed through Congress is an attempt to dumb-down the political process to fit in the NeoCon echo chamber.

NPR profiled James Prosek, a 20-something artist who makes a living painting fish. I think artists need a story. It doesn’t need to be a fabrication.

Missy and I went to one of his shows after his first book came out; he seemed a normal guy (he was probably 21 or so then) who was somewhat amazed at the number of people who wanted to buy fish pictures.

In any case, he’s living a dream – fishing and writing. Another reason to like Connecticut.

Here’s a change – a reason to vote for a candidate:

The NYT, that bastion of liberalism between Hell’s Gate and the Hudson, reports on the IRS’s income figures.= The lead is “American’s Income Shrunk for 2 Consecutive Years”. That’s true, but it fails to reflect consistient gains in income for the middle class despite the overall bad economy. (The chart below was a javascript dealy, so I took a screenshot)

A couple of notable stats – The number of returns below $25K dropped – the folks at the bottom are getting lifted up. The folks in the upper middle class ($75-$100K, people in the burbs) showed the both the largest gain in population and in adjusted income – the American Dream has flourished thanks to targeted middle class tax cuts. And Ashcroft’s relentless pursuit of corporate cheats has knocked the highest earning Americans down a peg.

George Bush’s programs and tax plans have been good for the middle class, and not even the NYT can hide that.

You’re going to hear a whole lot in August about the Kerry Campaign’s decision to “go dark” (3rd item) during that month.

Wow, I can hear you saying – that’s a ballsy move, and will give the candidate the chance to press the flesh without worrying about spending campaign cash. But won’t that be 31 days of open window for GW? Stupid public finance rules.

What’s being overlooked are the free speech restrictions in McCain/Feingold CFR, most notably, the restriction on anyone besides candidates buying campaign ads within 60 days of a national election. So the 527s have over $125 million to burn in the next month, before they’re restricted by law from expressing their views.

So, it’s another shrewd move by the Kerry Camp. Not that there’s any coordination going on between them and the 527’s. But “going dark”, in addition to not oversaturating the market, will also land them a schwack-ton of mentions on the TV news, and many favorable interviews (“But why go dark?” “Well, Katie, we wanted to take the time after the conventions to connect with the voters, to give more of America a chance to really get to know us. We don’t feel like we’ve had a chance to introduce the Johns to America in the last 18 months of campaigning, and now we can do that without the distraction of advertising.”)

This made my day:

Economists searching for reasons why some nations are richer than others have found that those with a wide belief in hell are less corrupt and more prosperous, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

… “Adam Smith wrote that one of religion’s most important contributions to the economic development process is its value as a moral enforcement mechanism,” they (Being the researchers at the Fed) said.

Obviously, there are heathen dissenters (Who most likeley are sponges off the economy):

Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists Inc., called the study the latest gimmick from the religious establishment to drum up government support.

“Religious people cannot rely on their theology to promote what they do so they turn to other things,” she said.

You, too, can get the Fed’s pamphlet, “Jesus wants you to be a capitalist” off their website. They’ve also got good stuff like Light Rail – Waste of Money, and Satan’s Carriage and Greenspan for Pope – Money as a Belief System.