The Joggers Rule, and some positive ideas for progression

First things first, you NEED to get this album now. It's also available on the iTunes Music store as well. It's by the Joggers, I heard them on KEXP. It sounds like members of Q and not U and Rodan decided to get together and make a brilliant album. It has the loose feel and messy sound of the former with just enough of the form and complexity of the latter to keep you hooked. Speaking of hooks, it's got plenty of pop hooks, lurking behind some unexpected corner, keeping me listening. Gotta have hooks.
NYT article of the day: Matt Bai suggest that much as GM's ossification as a 20th century industrial giant mirrors the ossification of the Democratic party. The latter's inability to offer much-needed change to sacred cow programs like social security is in synch with GM's inability to design a car that people want to buy despite the writing on the wall. Both are stuck in the previous century's rigid bueacratic mindset and have not embraced business 2.0 like Wal*Mart has. Like it or hate it, the world has changed. Deal or become irrelevant.
The endless chicanery, lying, and cheating of the Republican party should have the Dems (or please dear God a third party) winning every local election, but I don't think anyone's noticed that the GOP is Business 2.0 and the rest of them aren't. They are results oriented, and responsive to customers. That's why Bill O'Reilly talks about Christmas to show he's Christian, instead of donating all his wealth to the starving children of the world or calling attention to massacres. Thanks to Thomas Friedman for making the point so much more elequently than I have been able to do thus far. While all these assholes are clawing their way to the top of the holier-than-thou heap, they are the least Christian amongst us.
Bob Herbert also outlines a much more polite list of White House sins.