it's all good as long as the canucks get to design the `amero'. US currency is just lame.

Dammit. Despite all The Left's best efforts, guys like Tom Tancredo continue to effortlessly dominate the tinfoil haberdashery sector.

the "Amero"

Hey, you just threw that into the mix yourself, right? I am not seeing it in the article.

That'll smash the Québécois toot sweet!

Alternatively: And we would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you Québécois!

3: Huh. I actually got the name of the currency from a partner here who mentioned the story (and then I came back here and found a link. Thanks, Bob, and I really hope you aren't reading this). I wonder if he made it up or if it's in other coverage.

Just noting that that this is Tom Tancredo talking to WorldNetDaily, so while it should be assigned more credence than two bag ladies talking about the chips in their heads, it's only by a tiny margin.

Wow.

It seems to have been first proposed by the Frasier Institute in 1999.

7 -- but he talked to Fox too! A major television network!

The WorldNetDaily article, the source, never cites Tancredo but refers to the "amero" often.

What's really great is that Tancredo made his comments to WND in response to another article from WND.

This is obviously a fabricated issue, but it may be a dangerous fabricated issue. After all, Americans have been known to base their votes on a fake war against a mental state.

The "Amero" has been kicked around as an idea for at least as long as the Euro has been discussed (so early 90s - I am 99% I've seen references previous to '99). It's like the war on Christmas - a completely impractical idea used to get conservatives/xenophobes like TOm Tancredo worked up.

This guy is in congress, but he talks to worldnetdaily, and thinks that Bush is a "dangerous internationalist."

Imagine if Tancredo's left wing mirror could get elected. She would be someone who gave interviews to the Revolutionary Worker calling Nancy Pelosi a dangerous warmonger.

12: and like the war on Christmas, actually something I have some sympathy for.

9: Right! Tancredo says this isn't something that's just written about by right-wing fringe kooks. And he should know.

7 makes me so happy. I just hate Tancredo. And yet, last time I wrote something about some kooky-ass idea of his, I actually had someone show up in the comments to defend him. The world is full of nutters.

2 says everything I could have said.

13: The following questions are not rhetorical, but rather reflect my desire to have other people do research for me.

1) Is Bernie Sanders the "furthest left" politician currently holding an elected office at the federal level?
2) If not, who is?
3) If yes, how far left is he? Perhaps comparing him to some European or Latin American office holders would provide a good answer to this.

This was addressed in depth by Stan Jones.

I'd be very interested to read the answers to washerdreyer's questions.

Define "left". (The smartass answer to washerdreyer's first two questions is "No: Stevens, Murkowski, and Young".)

(Or perhaps "Akaka, Inouye, Abercrombie, and Case")

Yeah, I surely don't know what left means, and would have been fine with people answering by saying "I mean blah by left and given that meaning, the left-most federal elected official is foo." That's why I suggested situating the official relative to an international comparison, in that it seems to me there is greater variance, and therefore more room to differentiate, among the international left.

Also, I decided to look at the DW Nominate data, which indicates that Sanders was far from the furthest left House member in the most recent Congress, and therefore probably isn't the furthest left upon moving from teh House to teh Senate. But I have no idea how that data is calculated! If they had rolled dice to determine it, I wouldn't be any the wiser. And I just tried to skim something about how it's calculated, and determined that I could probably understand it, but it would take hours of time following links to understand concepts I don't currently and I don't have time to do so right now.

The almighty dollar is actually a bastardized bohemian invention, by way of Spain. According to Norman Davies, who put a handy summary on page 525 of Europe: A History (OUP paperback, for those who want to read along at home), coins from a mine near Pilsen were known as Joachimsthaler, which was shortened to thaler. At the time, the Habsburgs ran both Bohemia and Spain, thus thaler became taleros, and they circulated in the New World as pieces of eight and were Anglicized as dollars.

Two bits, four bits, six bits, taleros
All for Tancredos
Stand up and holleros.

Alternatively, you say reconquista, I say salud.

18. I don't know a lot about Sanders, but from what I see he would sit comforatbly in the mainstream of most European social democratic parties these days. Maybe slightly to the "left" of centre in the SPD, "right" of centre in the PSOE - meaningless distinctions. So would several other Democratic congresswallahs, and what singles him out I cannot tell.

I gather his brother, who I used to know slightly and who was a lovely guy, is now a County Councillor in Oxfordshire, UK, for the Green Party, but I don't know if they influence each other.

Are the terms left and right even descriptive any more, except subjectively?