Beehives and Tax Cuts (updated)

For those of you who don’t watch Countdown, and I’m actually reaching the point now that I congratulate you for your good taste in that case, a local Yellow Labrador made Olbermann's “Worst Persons” list last night. I’m sure that Olbermann is not alone in considering dogs as “persons,” but I’m not certain that courts would do so, reserving that designation for the two-legged variation and for corporations.

Anyway, this four-legged person made the list for eating an entire beehive. Labs, it should be noted, are not actually very bright, especially yellow ones. This fellow’s feat was either enhanced or diminished, I’m not sure which, by the fact that the bees were all dead, since the hive had been soaked with insecticide. The vet was not too worried about what harm having eaten the bees would do to the dog, although it did have an interesting effect on the dog’s poop, but the insecticide was a potential problem indeed. The dog is, however, fine.

The hive, by the way, had been killed because all bees in San Diego County are now Africanized to a significant degree, and all hives are considered dangerous. There have already been several events this year where people have been hospitalized by bees, and that is becoming routine. Several horses have been killed by bees. All hives discovered in the metropolitan area are destroyed on an emergency basis.

On a political note, Olbermann is back to his little ploy of claiming that Republicans “voted specifically to have the Bush tax cuts end in 2010,” and cites a variety of comedic reasons having to do with ecomonic responsibility or, sometimes, lack thereof. Having established that spurious basis, he uses it to mock them for wanting to extend the Bush tax cuts now.

The tax cuts end this year because they were passed using a Senate procedure that allowed passing them only on a limited time basis, for ten years. The procedure was used because they did not have enough votes to get them passed as permanent cuts, which they would have done if they had been able to muster more votes.

This whole claim of his that “they deliberately wanted them to end and now they don’t want them to end” is absolute and utter nonsense.

He should stick to talking about things like dogs eating beehives.

Update: The more I think about it, the more I think that Olbermann is a creep for citing the dog as a "Worst Person." I mean, really, what dog would not eat a beehive if given the chance? It probably was rather tasty, aside from a little insecticide. But, what's a little bit of toxin, he's a dog! The "Worst Person" should be the stupid exterminator who killed the hive and left it lying around for the dog to eat.

Update 2, Thursday am: Okay, so it turns out that the "worst person" was not the dog, nor the person who left the beehive out for the dog to eat it, nor the owners who failed to prevent the dog from eating the beehive, but the pet insurance company which gave the dog an award for eating the beehive. That makes Olbermann an idiot if he thinks the award is going to encourage more canines to eat beehives.

That also means that Olbermann considers a corporation to be a "person," which is rather at odds with his position on the SCOTUS "Citizens United" ruling regarding corporate campaign contributions.

The commenter also pointed out that the Senate used "reconciliation" to pass the Bush tax cuts, which is exactly what I said only I called it, accurately enough, "a Senate procedure." They used reconciliation because that's that the Senate uses when they do not have enough votes to overcome a filibuster, and that process imposes a ten-year expiration on legislation. That does not meet Olbermann's claim that "they wanted it to end" after ten years. They accepted the necessity of it ending because they were unable to pass the tax cuts on a permanent basis.