From Politico, on the bailout vote:

“I guess the Republican leadership is so weak, John Boehner couldn’t deliver 50 percent of the votes. I thought these were big boys,” a furious House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) said moments after the vote.

I take it the Democrats, then, were much more disciplined and attentive to their leadership. Or something like that:

As the time clock struck zero on the bailout vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi strode toward Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, to ask her to change her nay to a yea.

Kilpatrick refused to even look at Pelosi during the exchange, calmly removing her jacket and laying it on a chair. At the end of the day, 20 of 39 caucus members voted against the bailout plan–votes that could have saved the bill.

“Too often, it seems that self-professed small-government conservatives come to this town to fight the good fight. Somehow, we do things we ought not to be doing in order to stay in office so we can do things we ought to be doing. But we never actually get around to doing the right things.”

…and we are indeed a nation of whiners.

How else could the venerable Washington Post look around for victims of the “economic crisis” and only come up with 1. a retired 64-year-old who is so worried about health care costs that she has to “force” herself to use her gym membership every day, 2. a chain-smoking market-playing 58-year-old who might have to give up on his dream of buying a farm in Iceland (”Like most Americans, he’s carrying more debt than he’d like and he started saving for retirement late…”), 3. a 45-year-old who decided to get serious about retirement earlier this year, stashing 50 bucks in a 401(k), 4. a wealthy dentist with three kids in college and a fourth soon to be, and (my favorite) 5. a Botox doctor who won’t be able to open three new clinics this year?

I don’t mean to pick on anyone (except the Post), but 1. being retired at 64 and having a likely-not-free gym membership does not a victim make, 2. not being able to buy a farm in Iceland (where you probably can’t smoke anyway) does not a victim make, 3. 45 is a bit out there into life to start saving for the future, 4. Barack Obama doesn’t think you should be punished with four children to begin with, and 5. the future of our economy will not rely on Botox clinic revenue, I hope.

I don’t know. This post is mean-spirited. But there are real victims of this “crisis” out there, even if they’re too busy trying to make ends meet to sit down for a chat with the WaPo.

Mutiny on the Bounty (the 1962 Marlon Brando version) was on teevee the other night. The 1935 Clark Gable version is much better–and it’s quite fun on the odd weekend evening to practice my impersonation of Charles Laughton’s Captain Bligh. In the privacy of my home. Ahem.

But the ‘62 version is fine. And has better music. And spends more time telling the story of the mutineers’ post-mutiny-ing life on Pitcairn Island.

Which I hadn’t paid much attention to, even after reading the novel and some of the other historical accounts and memorizing various parts of the various movie versions. I’ve always been semi-intrigued that there are still descendants of the mutineers living there (despite the vile things they’re doing that make me think someone should go in and clean the place out), but never really paid attention to those early days.

Like the birth of Fletcher Christian’s son on Pitcairn on a Thursday in October, which resulted in the child being named…Thursday October Christian.

He looks like a Thursday:

Or maybe he looks like a Friday, since some Britishers renamed him when they found that the mutineers didn’t account for the International Date Line.

I find this all fascinating.

Of course, I also practice my impersonation of Charles Laughton’s Captain Bligh on the odd weekend evening.

I’m not so sure about this thing so far…. It’s okay–good for McCain, which is just okay.

But he would have been smart to go with “My friends, I accept your nomination–and now Sarah Palin has a few more things she’d like to say.”

“I’m not good at the one-line zingers. That’s not my deal.”–Joe Biden.