Political rerun...

by: Father Tyme

Everything old is new again...

Now he can gay-marry Jeff Gannon in DC

by: Peter of Lone Tree

"Karl Rove Divorces, Loses 24 Year Long Beard"

My New Blog

by: Debra

I started a new blog because my first one had drifted away from my original intentions.  I have many things that interest me, but politics soon overwhelmed all of the them.  And since I think that much of today's culture consists of things that are so stupid that most of us wish we could whip out a magic wand a la Harry Potter and dispose of the boggarts by yelling "Riddikulous!", I decided to devote this blog to those items and leave my original blog to my many other interests.

So, almost five years later I've decided to try and centralize those items that reflect the decline of logical thinking and the increase in lemming activity.

I have the same feelings about Obama as I did about Bush.  They both reflect the worst that politics has to offer.  Neither one had or has had any interest in helping the majority of Americans unless it was time for an election or they were consolidating the power of their donors and wanted to keep the populace as quiet as possible until the deed was done.

Our so-called elected "Representatives" are about as useful as throwing gasoline on a fire.  They neither represent us nor do they maintain the checks and balances the Founding Fathers envisioned for them.

And the Supreme Court?  The current version is determined to make Dred Scott look like a high point of jurisprudence.  Corporations are not people, they are businesses run by people and should not have the same, or more, rights than a kindergarten teacher.  Besides having more money than most individuals, they now have more influence in an election.  Like a double double at In-N-Out burger.  They get to buy votes as a corporation and the same individuals who decide who the corporation backs also get to throw in their two centsmillions any time they want.  And the best part?  Most of those people sit on more than one board of directors, so they have even more influence.  Isn't that lovely?

Public figures do stupid things all the time so this blog won't always be about politics, but it will be about things that make you go "huh?"

I'm a couple of days behind, so let's start with Tom Tancredo and his "literacy" tests.  I'm all for them.  Especially for the people currently in power.  What the almost never right party of "No, because I said so!" Republicans and the "I can't find my balls with two hands and a flashlight" Demowienies have in common, is a complete lack of understanding of how to run this country effectively.  And they have communicated that to their die hard followers.  The sky is what we should be aiming for, not running into the ground like a plane without a pilot.

Yesterday's favorite was Michael Steele's "after taxes a million dollars isn't a lot of money."  I'm willing to give it a try since I know plenty of people who are living on less than ten thousand a year and they work for a living instead of giving speeches on subjects that affect less than two percent of the American population.

I'm sure that with a little more research there will be more to come.  Unfortunately.

The Stupid For The Day and Debsweb

Sarah's Hand Job

by: Father Tyme

Since the Gorilla from Wasilla made a big deal over Barry using a teleprompter, the hypocracy flows from the dark side.
From the Huffington Post:
Sarah's Hand Job

This isn't even high schoolish. We're talking grade school and mental challenged. I guess that's why she thinks it's ok for Rush to use the "R" word...but no liberals can!

Here, Kitty, Kitty!

by: Foiled Goil

Tea Party Cat Fight

BooMan:

I knew I should have gone to that damn Teabagging Convention. Just standing around in the halls talking to those nutters would have been high comic relief. I could have even called myself a journalist and compared notes. But, seriously, it's belly-achingly funny to picture Andrew Breitbert and WorldNetDaily Editor-in-Chief Joseph Farah having a public argument about who is and isn't a real journalist. It's also hilarious that the subject of contention was whether the Obama birth certificate issue is divisive to the nascent Tea Bagging Party. And the guy arguing that Birtherism is dumb is the guy who brought you the ACORN-steals-elections nonsense.

Hey, their bullshit is effective in its own way. But to argue that any of it is true, or journalism? Yeah, it makes me giggle.

Meow.

Got Cancer? Take a few airplane rides and feel good again.

by: Peter of Lone Tree

Airport Body Scanning Raises Radiation Exposure, Committee Says
Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Air passengers should be made aware of the health risks of airport body screenings and governments must explain any decision to expose the public to higher levels of cancer-causing radiation, an inter-agency report said.
More: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601209&sid=aoG.YbbvnkzU

Politicians: “Think outside the buns.”

by: Peter of Lone Tree

That's another way of saying:
"Get your head out of your ass!"


When did Google get nationalized? Are they paying for this?
Sounds crooked:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Internet search firm Google is finalizing a deal that would let the National Security Agency help it investigate a corporate espionage attack that may have originated in China, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6130M120100204

Big Eddie: Fired Up

by: Foiled Goil

The Ed Schultz Show on MSNBC was broadcast today from Hartford, CT, where he was covering another free clinic by The National Association of Free Clinics:

Bringing health care to the uninsured [ 15:38 ]

Feb. 3: MSNBC’s Ed Schultz and panel talk about President Barack Obama’s plan to move forward on health reform as well as the free health clinic which took place in Connecticut on Wednesday.

Here is a shorter YouTube version. [ 9:59 ]

The MSNBC transcript should be up on Thursday.

Like last December 11, it was yet another chapter in the continuing story of inadequate health care:

Senators Should Visit a Free Health Care Clinic to Really See the America They Represent... and Deny

The stories were gut wrenching. I couldn't help but think this is where the Senate needs to do their business. Do it right in front of the eyes of the people in their own country who are struggling to make ends meet and live in dignity. The Senate should do business in front of the families that have played by the rules and have been dealt a personal set back for one reason or another. Have the guts to tell these people to their face that they aren't worthy of health care because they don't have money. They may see these faces briefly on the campaign trail, but they make no decisions in front of them when they are standing in line in pain, in agony and in desperate need.

America has a heartless side to it as well. That is demonstrated when U.S. Senators put the God Almighty Dollar in front of people who put them in office. How any law maker could deny full access and full health care coverage is beyond me. Senators who put themselves ahead of the people and who have been spoiled by the Washington good life have lost their soul and what it means to be an American. We throw billions of dollars at wars, often without hesitation, but some in the Congress are willing to treat humans in their own country like a piece of machinery that can be left in a junk yard.

My God, what has happened to America?

Congress, fix Health Care Reform. Now.

Later, Ed talked with Keith Olberman about the moral imperative for providing affordable health care: "it will save lives."

Need for health reform grows [ 6:52 ]

Feb. 3: Countdown’s Keith Olbermann and MSNBC’s Ed Schultz discuss how the intensity of the health care reform debate may have diminished, but the need for it has not, as evidenced by another free health clinic in Connecticut.

The same questions apply now as they did back in January 2007:

What is the price, we ask the other side? What is the price that you want from these working men and women? What cost? How much more do we have to give to the private sector and to business? How many billion dollars more, are you asking, are you requiring?

When does the greed stop, we ask the other side?

That's the question and that's the issue.

~ Ted Kennedy
January 25, 2007

Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

More Bad News

by: Peter of Lone Tree

U.S. May Lose 824,000 Jobs as Employment Data Revised: Analysis
(Bloomberg Multimedia) -- The U.S. may lose 824,000 jobs when the government releases its annual revision to employment data on Feb. 5, showing the labor market was in worse shape during the recession than known at the time.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aNSc0oQ0vb4M

Stupid Begets Stupid

by: Debra

Politico has the results of a poll (OMG! the rampant stupidity from the respondents is mindboggling) commissioned by the Kos group, a blog to which I neither read nor link to. The results didn't really surprise me considering how many people consider Fox News to be "fair and balanced", but one of the comments did. Someone called "beisbolfan" sounded relatively reasonable and informed until you get to the third paragraph.

For Republicans to even think about the word "impeachment" is absolutely nuts. Didn't these idiots learn anything from the Clinton episode? People don't like the opposition trying to overturn democratic elections in the courts.

I don't believe he is a socialist, but he does want a strong "social safety net", and very intrusive government regulation of private business. That is basically how western Europe is governed, and I don't have much problem with it. My main goal as a conservative is to preserve traditional America as much as possible.

That means stopping mass immigration. I want my nation to remain majority white for as long as possible. And I don't care who doesn't like hearing that or reading that. Why should white people, whose ancestors founded this country, volunteer to become a racial minority, by accepting unlimited immigration?

Most people want to live in residential neighborhoods where the majority of their neighbors are people of their own race, language, religion, culture. That's the truth, and everybody knows it. Whites don't move into nonwhite neighborhoods. If their neighborhood becomes majority nonwhite, they typically move out, if they can.

I also believe firmly in capitalism, as free and unfettered as possible, albeit with sensible regulations. The prior 8 years are enough evidence that the financial system needs policing.

So, don't call Obama a socialist. George Will, a pretty even-keel conservative, wrote "nobody wants to live in a country without a welfare system"

He was right.

White people founded this country?  I'm sure this is a major surprise to the Indians who lived here for hundreds of years before the Puritans invaded and brought their restricted views on life to the new world.  And since history isn't taught in school anymore and teabaggers believe that only whites were willing to die for freedom, Crispus Attucks has been deliberately relegated to the dustbin of history.

So what am I?  Dad married mom, a German citizen at the time.  She got her citizenshipin 1959 and proudly called it the best day of her life.  There isn't one inch of me that identifies with my so called African heritage.  The only African heritage I have is my skin color.  Period.  I don't dance because I hate that frog in a blender look.  I definitely don't rap and singing is relegated to places where people can't hear me, like my car.

My preferred music is classic rock, though I have tunes from Glenn Miller to Pink Floyd, Dusty Springfield to Michael Jackson and Beck to MC Hammer in addition to Amy Winehouse, Golden Earring, the Scorpions, Grover Washington, Jr.and Led Zeppelin on my iPod.

Black citizens in Britain are called British, black citizens in France are called French.  I'm an American.  Not a black American, nor am I a German American.  I'm an American who was willing to die for her country so the above bumpkin could make stupid remarks with complete freedom.  It does make me wonder why I was so eager to fight for a country that hates me so much.

With attitudes like these, it's no wonder that there are still women in th USA who don't know they're pregnant until they give birth.  There even was a television series on TLC called I didn't know I was pregnant.  Innocence was not lost, information was imparted at at an age where girls need to know before the parents think they need to learn it. Raging hormones are better helped by the truth than they are by a promise ring. And if parents think ten year old boys aren't looking at Playboy, or National Geographic like when I was a kid, they are not living on the same planet as the rest of us.  On the other hand, these people are from Texas.  The state that ranks fifth in teen pregnancies and third in teen births.  The mythical theory that abstinence and religion prevent pregnancy is wrong, it's correct information and contraception that do.

Debsweb

College Students Take (Another) Economic Hit

by: Foiled Goil

Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire.
~William Butler Yeats

Education aims to give you a boost up the ladder of knowledge. Too often, it just gives you a cramp on one of its rungs.
~Martin H. Fischer

Coast-to-coast double-digit college tuition hikes:

State budget deficits contribute to higher education costs

As students around the country anxiously wait for college acceptance letters, their parents are sweating the looming tuition bills at public universities.

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.
~G.K. Chesterton

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
~John Dewey

Doctor, My Eyes!

by: Foiled Goil

Roger Ailes told Barbara Walters, who filled in Sunday as anchor on ABC's This Week, that he would pose nude for less money than what Scott Brown was paid by Cosmo.

I kid you not.



Eww.



Seriously. Ewwww.

Republicans Retreat, Baltimore

by: Foiled Goil

Friday certainly turned out to be a most interesting political day. President Obama visited the annual Republican retreat in Baltimore, and what ensued was quite an amazing thing to watch:

C-Span archives: Presidential Remarks at House Republican Conference

Jan 29, 2010

President Obama spoke to House Republicans at their retreat in Baltimore. In his remarks he said he welcomed disagreement and debate, but called for genuine bipartisanship and asked for constructive ideas in confronting the nation's problems. Following his remarks he openly and frankly answered pointed questions from the Republican legislators. Topics ranged from health care, to energy policy, to taxes and the economy.

1 hour, 26 minutes

Here are some reactions:

Steve Benen:

I'm reasonably certain I've never seen anything like it. GOP House members were fairly respectful of the president, but pressed him on a variety of policy matters. The president didn't just respond effectively, he delivered a rather powerful, masterful performance.

It was like watching a town-hall forum where all of the questions were confrontational, but Obama nevertheless just ran circles around these guys. I can only assume caucus members, by the end of the Q&A, asked themselves, "Whose bright idea was it to invite the president and let him embarrass us on national television?"

Note, however, that this wasn't just about political theater -- it was an important back-and-forth between the president and his most forceful political detractors. They were bringing up routine far-right talking points that, most of the time, simply get repeated in the media unanswered. But in Baltimore, the president didn't just respond to the nonsense, he effectively debunked it.

Republicans thought they were throwing their toughest pitches, and Obama -- with no notes, no teleprompter, and no foreknowledge -- just kept knocking 'em out of the park.

Ezra Klein:

Remember the old joke, "I was at a fight and a hockey game broke out?" Well, earlier this afternoon, I was at a photo opportunity and a policy debate broke out.

Obama's Q&A session with the House Republicans was transfixing. What should have been a banal exchange of talking points was actually a riveting reminder of how rarely you hear actual debate -- which is separate from disagreement -- between political players. [snip]

Republicans are already spreading the word that they made a mistake allowing cameras into the event. Apparently, transparency sounds better in press releases than it does in practice.

But if this is to be the last of these we see for a while, make sure to take the time and watch it, or read the transcript. It's some of the best political television I've seen in memory.

BooMan:

Obama performed as well as any British prime minister during Question Time. The same cannot be said for the Republicans who, by and large, tried to use dishonest arguments and demonstrably inaccurate statistics only to have Obama tell them to get serious and stop trying to score cheap political points. I can honestly say that if as many Americans watched today's Q & A with the Republicans as watched the State of the Union, our political problems would be over. If we had Question Time, we'd have a much easier time winning over public opinion and sustaining support for progressive policies.

The Republicans certainly will not want to repeat this extremely painful beat-down.

Luke Russert:

Tom Cole — former head of the NRCC, congressman from Oklahoma — said, “He scored many points. He did really well.” Barack Obama, for an hour and a half, was able to refute every single Republican talking point used against him on the major issues of the day. In essence, it was almost like a debate where he was front and center for the majority of it. … One Republican said to me, off the record, behind closed doors: “It was a mistake that we allowed the cameras to roll like that. We should not have done that.”

John Cole:

For some reason, the GOP allowed the cameras to roll at their retreat during a question time session with President Obama, and he spent the next hour and a half depantsing them. Pretty funny stuff...

If you missed this event, here are some other resources:

Daily Kos: Jed Lewison - Full [MSNBC] Video & Transcript

MSNBC: Q & A video

C-Span, on YouTube:

President Obama's speech [ 20:28 ] — President Obama's full Q&A [ 1:07:34 ]

White House.gov: Transcript and Video

Speech exerpts:

And I'm not a pundit. I'm just a President, so take it for what it's worth. But I don't believe that the American people want us to focus on our job security. They want us to focus on their job security. I don't think they want more gridlock. I don't think they want more partisanship. I don't think they want more obstruction. They didn't send us to Washington to fight each other in some sort of political steel-cage match to see who comes out alive. That's not what they want. They sent us to Washington to work together, to get things done, and to solve the problems that they're grappling with every single day. [snip]

Now, here's the point. These are serious times, and what's required by all of us -- Democrats and Republicans -- is to do what's right for our country, even if it's not always what's best for our politics. I know it may be heresy to say this, but there are things more important than good poll numbers. And on this no one can accuse me of not living by my principles. A middle class that's back on its feet, an economy that lifts everybody up, an America that's ascendant in the world -- that's more important than winning an election. Our future shouldn't be shaped by what's best for our politics; our politics should be shaped by what's best for our future. [snip]

Bipartisanship -- not for its own sake but to solve problems -- that's what our constituents, the American people, need from us right now. All of us then have a choice to make. We have to choose whether we're going to be politicians first or partners for progress; whether we're going to put success at the polls ahead of the lasting success we can achieve together for America. Just think about it for a while. We don't have to put it up for a vote today.

~President Barack Obama
Republican Retreat, Baltimore
January 29, 2010

Andy Borowitz (satire):

"On the whole, we felt that it was a worthwhile exercise," said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). "But clearly, each of us left with twice as many assholes as we went in with."

Congressional observers had doubted that it was possible for there to be more assholes in the Republican caucus than there already were, "but the President proved them wrong," Rep. Boehner said.

And The Rock Cried Out

by: Debra

I've never hidden the fact that Babylon 5 was my favorite science fiction show.  Actually it's my favorite show. Period. I've been a Trekker since I saw The Man Trap on Armed Forces Radio and Television.  Or Afarts as we called it.

Star Trek provided me with a vision of the future that told me I could be anyone I wanted to, that eventually everyone would be equal.  And from my point of view that meant men and women could both be captains or they could be navigators or they could whatever they wanted.  I had to take this on faith because female captains were pretty rare on TOS.  I believe that the first one was Klingon, the rest were women Kirk tried, and many times succeeded, in bedding.  It wasn't until TNG that we learned there had been a female captain of the Enterprise, who dies trying to right a blip in time and her helmsman ends up saving the timeline.  But still, I just knew there would be a time when men and women were equal, unfortunately it isn't likely to be in my lifetime.

Enough about Trek, on to a more realistic version of the future:  Babylon 5.  Way back in the mid-nineties another vision of space appeared on television and Battlestar Galactica should thank its luck stars.  B5 had aliens who didn't always get along with one another and women were considered the exact equal of men and could protect themselves. The special effects were fantastic when you remember that this was a television show that saved them for when they were needed, not as plot filler. B5 had politics galore and most importantly, it showed how easy it was to turn a liberal civilization into a totalitarian society.  For two years the hints were simple and sprinkled on the wind before coming to fruition. B5 was the last, best hope for victory.

While Gene Roddenberry created and produced a great show (thank you Lucille Ball), most of the episodes were pretty much fluff except for The Famous Kiss and The City on the Edge of Forever.  The stories tended towards being lighthearted and playful while touching on a few important themes.  J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5 was nothing like that.  Most of the episodes were completely serious interjected with moments (and people thought he would always be Flounder) of humor.  The story arc from first episode to the last was incredibly consistent and from today's perspective, way too prescient.  Take out the space ships and the aliens and you pretty much have the present we live in and the future we're headed for.

At the end of the first season, the President of Earth was killed under what the viewers knew were suspicious circumstance, but looked like a tragic accident to others.  A Narn outpost had been destroyed and the Centauri were solidifying their alliance with the Shadows.  Then things got worse.

The Earth Alliance under President Cheney Clark rounded up people who didn't agree with his decisions, bombed civilians deliberately to get their leaders to surrender, forced television stations off the air until he could get his own mouthpieces to recite the company line while he declared war on former colonies of Earth and B5. In the end Clark was willing to destroy the Earth as his last act before killing himself instead of being captured.

B5 didn't portray humans as the best of the universe, other cultures and characters always had something to offer (such as the (one moment of perfect beauty) and embracing the differences made all of the characters stronger for it,  Even if it took acts of evil to realize their redemption.  Or, as in the video below, revenge. And how sweet it was.
Marva Hicks can certainly belt one out, can't she?  The episode was about different faiths coming aboard the station to have a conference and the music was perfect for the scene and for the moral of the story.  Here is a version of just the lyrics and music.Unlike most shows, B5 credits were always worthy of watching, you never knew what you were going to hear.For those who say that those who participated at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and black sites we don't know about were just doing their jobs and also believe that waterboarding and other forms of torture are okay, there will come a day (hopefully) where somebody, somewhere will stand up and fight for what is right instead of blindly following orders, especially the ones they have qualms about.Otherwise, it really is too late for the pebbles to vote. 

That is all.

Debsweb

While I was away...

by: Peter of Lone Tree

...they awarded the Nobel Prize to a genocidal, kill-crazy maniac.
Easy to explain though. He's afraid of his own military.

He awarded hundreds of billions of dollars to banks and Wall Street.
Easy to explain though. He's afraid of bankers.

Easy to explain though. The last guy who wasn't afraid of the bankers or the military was JFK.


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Is there anything less awe-inspiring about a baby than about a galaxy, excluding, of course, the difference in size? Perhaps, if size were to be a consideration, the baby would be the most awe-inspiring because so much of my Light has been contained in such a compact bundle. -- Ruby Nelson

Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man. -- Rabindranath Tagore