Down with Tyranny:

Friday's Washington Post explained it beautifully, pointing out that by directly giving the student loans to students and cutting out the greedy middlemen ... Obama saves the taxpayers $47.5 billion over the next ten years and, at the same time, helps far more students-- two factors that aren't exactly McKeon goals. Since the government assumes all the default risk, there is no reason at all to involve the finance companies.

So, why not cut out the "greedy middlemen" in the health insurance industry too?

per Reuters' report:

Sat Feb 28, 2009 5:42pm EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will nominate Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a U.S. official said on Saturday.

Sebelius has accepted Obama's offer and the president will formally announce the nomination on Monday afternoon at the White House, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Well.... Reactions?

Update: Firedoglake has same info, adds that Rahm's brother, Dr. Ezekial, may be up for Health Czar (WH position on healthcare).

Behold another Mandos movie review to brighten your day.

Last night I saw "Echelon Conspiracy". Verdict: OMG! Worst. Script. Writing. Since. Attack. Of. The. Clones. My eyes! My eyes! I tried hard but I cannot find a way in which it does not suck.

Fortunately, it is the kind of bad that makes it an ideal candidate for geek movie nights. As you can tell from the title, it's a techie surveillance-paranoia movie, and in fact it is a knockoff of "Eagle Eye". "Eagle Eye" was no "Slumdog Millionaire", not least because it stars that annoying Sunni LePoulet guy, but it had a plot twist that was worth the price of admission. "Echelon" tries, but it is completely deus ex machina and weak.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

On most issues I am firmly in the liberal camp, but have recently voiced disagreements with some on the left I usually agree with. The responses have been somewhat surprising. There are issues concerning the presidency and the executive branch in general, and Barack Obama should not be above criticism if he contributes to them. Defenders have said he is just getting started so it is too early to make even preliminary evaluations, that relatively minor retreats from Bush administration policies are sufficient concessions to civil libertarians, that the economic mess crowds out consideration of other issues, or that we ought to give him the benefit of the doubt as he works out his stance towards the Constitution in the expectation he will eventually end up in the right place.