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“Some One has to stand up to the Experts”

The Confluence - Sun, 03/14/2010 - 3:00pm

Why worry about preparing for the 21st century when you can remake the 18th century, history, science, and reality to fit your particular narrow view of the world?  Who cares about truth and your future workforce when your misguided beliefs are at stake?   With all of the challenges that education now faces in this country, the biggest challenge still comes from deliberate ignorance. This would be the ignorance coming from those who worship a primitive god of hellfire and brimstone that would deny the existence of intellectual bliss to any one who dare refute them.  Why do we have to continually fight christian conservatives in Texas for the minds of our children?

In Texas conservative Republicans are rewriting the textbooks to be used in the state’s schools to fit their political agenda.

Friday’s NY times outlines some of the most outrageous moves and views.  In fact, some of these folks are so outrageous, the majority of the democrats on the board just stood up and walked out rather than listen to it. The 10-5 vote went right down party lines. They were outnumbered to start out with and resistance was futile.

In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state.

Since January, Republicans on the board have passed more than 100 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school. The standards were proposed by a panel of teachers.

Why let facts stand in the way of religious and ideological indoctrination?  As seen in the video above, they even bragged about ignoring the experts preferring a purely propaganda-based curriculum to the truth.  The truth, of course, was seen to have a liberal bent. They just can’t have the truth standing in the way of what they want to believe.  They also can’t just inflict ignorance on their own children.  They have to share it with all of ours.

Take this example on racism in American history and politics.

Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported.

“Republicans need a little credit for that,” he said. “I think it’s going to surprise some students.”

Mr. Bradley won approval for an amendment saying students should study “the unintended consequences” of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. He also won approval for an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians as well as Japanese were interned in the United States during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism.

Market Capitalism?  Sheesh, let’s repackage that!  Because, you know, capitalism has been turn into such a naughty word by those horrible leftists running around the country.

In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”

“Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” said one conservative member, Terri Leo. “You know, ‘capitalist pig!’ ”

Of course, the most egregious rewrites and cleansing have to do with religion and ‘traditional values’.

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

“The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.

Next up on the agenda?   We have to get rid of negative numbers and zeroes!  After all negative numbers came from China and that’s a communist regime!   The Babylonians were most likely the first to use the zero and of course, that probably means it’s part of a radical Muslim terrorist plot!  Then of course, there will be the funding of the only viable field trip in the country — to the Creation Museum in Kentucky where dinosaurs frolic in the Garden Eden!

The state-of-the-art 70,000 square foot museum brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings. Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Majestic murals, great masterpieces brimming with pulsating colors and details, provide a backdrop for many of the settings.

I think if I was a teacher facing such a nonfactual book, I’d have to forgo using the textbook and go straight to the experts who thankfully have websites on the internet.  The problem is that this is viable only if you’re lucky enough to live in a school district that can afford computers in the classroom.  The rest of the nation is stuck in the bushes of eden with the dinosaurs,cavemen and that person with the nasty lady parts who invented sin.

Filed under: zombies Tagged: creationists, mixing religion and public education, religiousists, zombie school boards

Categories: Our Friends

Speaking of tea parties . . .

The Confluence - Sun, 03/14/2010 - 1:00pm

SFGate:

“Alice in Wonderland,” Tim Burton’s reimagining of the Lewis Carroll tale, is doing more than setting box-office records for a 3-D movie. It’s serving as a showdown between two rival projector technologies.

On one side is the dominant format from RealD, a company in Beverly Hills. On the other: San Francisco’s Dolby Laboratories Inc., which rules the market for audio technology but remains an upstart in 3-D video.

U.S. theaters are using both companies’ equipment to show Walt Disney Co.’s “Alice in Wonderland,” which took in $116.3 million last weekend – a record premiere for a 3-D movie. While RealD accounts for most of the more than 2,000 screens playing the film, Dolby is counting on the movie to spotlight its technology, saying it provides better visuals without the need for special screens.

“We’re just getting started here,” said Josh Gershman, a spokesman for Dolby. “There’s a lot of room to grow.”

The rivalry stemmed from Dolby’s involvement in helping outfit theaters for 3-D in 2005, when Disney premiered “Chicken Little.” That film was the first with digital 3-D technology, letting audiences watch the sky fall off the screens into their laps.

This is one of those movies you shouldn’t wait to see on DVD because your television won’t do 3-D, even if you have high-def and you wear those funny glasses. Tim Burton is the only director with the imagination needed to make this film, Helena Bonham Carter is perfect as the Red Queen and Johnny Depp is performing the role he was born to play.

The Original Tea Partier

Doctor Grumpy:

The Mad Hatter is well known in English literature. He was created by Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) for the story Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. An interesting side note is that the character was most likely based on a furniture dealer, and not a hatter.

The phrase “mad as a hatter” actually predated the story, and has an interesting neurological history.

Mercury is a metal with multiple human toxicities. It can affect many organ systems, and in sufficient amounts can cause brain damage. When this occurs common symptoms are memory loss, confusion, and behavioral changes.

Mercury poisoning is uncommon in modern medicine, but before it had been identified as a toxin it was commonly used in the cloth industry, in the manufacture of felt.

A hatter, obviously, is someone who makes hats. And in 18th & 19th century England, felt was commonly used in hats. So hatters had a fairly high level of exposure to mercury, and after several years of plying their trade they sometimes developed brain damage, and went “mad”. And that’s where the phrase came from.

Not all tea partiers are mad as hatters. Just the ones who think Obama is a socialist.

Filed under: General

Categories: Our Friends

The GOP beats Obama and Emanuel at 11 dimensional chess

The Confluence - Sun, 03/14/2010 - 11:03am

When you're so busy being awesome that you don't notice that Republicans checkmated you 10 moves ago.

The New York Times Magazine has a lengthy piece about poor put upon Rahm Emanuel.  He is so tired of all of the nasty things said about him.  He is so tired of the Republicans playing hardball.  He is so tired of Democratic activists acting retarded.  He is so tired.  Period.

He gets blamed for everything he does.

I almost feel sorry for him.  Really.  Because, ya’ know, he’s just doing his job.  There was a reason why Barack ” NOW with a WHOLE 142 days in the Senate!” Obama hired Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff.  It’s because Obama didn’t know what the hell he was going to do on legislation.  He didn’t have enough experience, er, legislatin’.  He spend the great bulk of his time in the Senate getting recruited, lining up sponsors and shmoozing the Old Boys Club who liked the cut of his jib and the whack of his mashie niblick.  If Obama has any political genius at all (and I have my doubts, big time), it’s being in the right place at the right time with the right genetic mutation for melanocyte expression.  But I digress.

I found this segment about Rahm particularly interesting because it shows his usefulness to Obama:

By the time Obama was headed for victory in 2008, Emanuel’s name was coming up as an obvious choice to run the new White House. But he had other ideas. Just a few weeks before the election, we met for one of those expense-account dinners, and he flatly rejected any suggestion that he might become chief of staff. He had set his sights on eventually becoming speaker of the House of Representatives, keenly aware that Nancy Pelosi was approaching 70, as were the two others ahead of him on the Democratic ladder, Steny Hoyer and James Clyburn of South Carolina. Emanuel, two decades their junior, could afford to wait them out and would still have a long tenure ahead of him in the speaker’s chair. The typical White House chief of staff, he knew all too well, lasted only two years or so. And then what?

There you go.  Obama needed someone to interface on his behalf with Congress and he needed someone who swung a big dick.  That was Emanuel’s job.  He serves at the pleasure of the president.  When he is no longer pleasuring the president, he’ll be out.  But then, Obama will have to find an Emanuel replacement.  Someone who knows who’s in, who’s out.  Someone who understands the legislative process because they’ve actually had to work it.

But replacing Rahm won’t make the legislation better or Obama more to our liking.  After all, Rahm is only carrying out what Obama wants to do.  And by the looks of it, it isn’t much.  If you read the piece, you get the idea that maybe Rahm wanted to approach health care incrementally by expanding medicaid and SCHIP.  Stuff like that might have been doable and a good stop gap measure while the Obama administration worked on more pressing issues like the economy.  Rahm would have known what this congress was capable of since he was one of the chief architects for bringing some nasty conservative actors into the Democratic fold.

(BTW, I am noticing a troubling tendency of the NYTimes to refer to these blue dog reactionary elements as ‘moderates’.  They’re not.)

The country voted in Democrats in 2008, or what they *thought* were Democrats anyway.  They could have voted in small government, tax cutting, hard hearted, authoritarian, rugged individualist, dog-eat-dog, Hobbseian, warmongering, Glenn Beck worshipping, Enron-esque Republicans instead but it appears the country was tired of them so they voted those types out in favor of the party who they thought would protect their   nest eggs, jobs, civil rights, reproductive rights and put the country back on the right track.

When it came to health care reform, Obama decided to go for comprehensive reform.  But he was more interested in the kill (enter Emanuel) than the policy.  He ordered Rahm to do the dirty work and just get it done.  So, Rahm did the bi-partisan thing and got a bill, any bill.  In it, the Republicans have gotten their pound of flesh.  They were never going to sign off on the thing anyway but like predators toying with their food first, they have been seeing just how far the Obama was willing to go to score health care reform.  Now they know and we know that Obama was willing to negotiate with insurance company terrorists, backstab their most fervent union supporters and betray everything Democrats ran for when it comes to women’s reproductive rights.  If the Democrats pass this bill, it will be a Republican triumph.

We have to wonder why Obama, and let’s put the blame where it belongs, it is Obama, was so eager and anxious to pass health care reform without really reforming health care.  Let’s put aside the fact that he didn’t really have a plan.  He was just crudely plagiarizing Hillary’s plan during the primaries, that is, when he wasn’t trying to stab her in the back with Harry and Louise ads.  I don’t think he really came to the White House with well developed policies on anything, and it shows.  So much for his political gifts.  In essence, here was a guy obsessed with winning at all costs but had absolutely no idea what to do once he got there.  So, he hires Rahm.

But why health care?  Why is it so important to score a win in that area above everything else?  Why does this POS legislation have to have his stamp on it before the 2010 elections?  If it passes and there is no meaningful reconciliation before he elections, there will certainly be none after the Democrats lose their majorities.  And Republicans will fight tooth and nail from now until November to keep Democrats from fixing the bill.  They like it just the way it is.  It’s going to disgust the Democratic base.

So, why would Obama and the Democrats walk into a trap like this, other than the obvious reason that Republicans can control the message and play this game so much better than they do?  Could it be because Hillary is still out there?  After all, Obama’s numbers took a dip in the past couple of weeks.  Right on schedule, the Washington Post writes about how Hillary Clinton runs the State Department.  Actually, except for the gratuitous bit of revisionist history at the beginning and generally negative spin such pieces are famous for, it sounds like she’s doing a pretty good job of winning her employees’ loyalty and staying on top of things.  She is practicing what appears to be a political version of Lemov’s rules, making cold calls, keeping everyone on their toes and engaging in debate with people who may not agree with her (she then rewards them).  Um, she sounds like the ideal boss, to be honest.  I want to work for Hillary.  I’m betting that if Rahm could ever get over his macho, testosterone fueled disdain for Hillary Clinton, he might wish he were working for her too.  And she’s still out there.  If Obama doesn’t put his stamp on health care reform, there’s always that remote possibility that Democratic moneybags who still have some Democrat principles will want to give Hillary a shot in 2012.

But enough wistful regret at what might have been.  This is the reality: Obama is out of his league, he’s naive at a  in our nation’s history when naivete is a phenotype we should be selecting against and he’s got a fricking pitbull for a Chief of Staff.  There is enough stuff in here about Rahm’s workouts in the House gym and pressure tactics he employs there that make Massa’s report of an encounter with him very credible.

The Republicans are taking the Democrats to the cleaners because, damn it!, they just play 11 dimensional chess better.  We don’t have to love their policies to admire their ability to adapt to their environment and survive.  Nancy Pelosi is smart enough to know the White House is playing the strategy badly but, hey, she was also stupid enough to buy into the “easy win with the first black president” idea back in 2008.  Nooooo, can’t have Hillary.  The press would savage her, like she wasn’t winning in spite of all the $%^& they hurled at her during the primaries.  What Pelosi and her ilk failed to realize is that the Republican tactics that have been so successful blindsided the Clintons in 1992.  But they adapted and Hillary had a much better chance of neutralizing them in 2008 because she learned from experience.  Obama ran on his advertised political gifts and newness but has no experience whatsoever.  In any area.  So, Pelosi is a very slow learner but now she has a clue, as do many other Democrats who were infatuated with Obama and assumed he was a demigod of political gifts.

Too bad they stuck us with a newbie against a party full of Gary Kasparovs.

Filed under: General Tagged: Barack Obama, Health Care Reform, Hillary Clinton, Lemov's rules, Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emannuel, State Department

Categories: Our Friends

[audio] Christian Rockers Deny Kicking Ass

The Onion - Sun, 03/14/2010 - 9:21am

Onion Radio News - with Doyle Redland

Categories: Our Friends

Sunday News Roundup

The Confluence - Sun, 03/14/2010 - 8:00am

Good Morning Conflucians!!!

Don’t forget to set your clocks forward an hour for daylight savings time if you didn’t do it last night. Here’s to more daylight.

Big news of the week has been the healthcare fiasco, aka, insurance company bailout, and will likely be big news this week. Nancy Pelosi is playing the typical speaker bluff of pretending the votes are there in a ploy to strong arm holdouts into voting, usually telling them their vote doesn’t matter now, so they have no leverage, but just the same, they should vote with the majority less their careers and even family be destroyed. Apparently the majority leader says the vote may not be there and the majority vote counter says he hasn’t even started counting votes. The stakes are high. For any vulnerable member voting for the measure, it will likely be the end of their career. Any member voting against it faces the wrath of Nancy and some friendly Chicago henchmen (as an example, see Massa). At least that’s what they will hear from Nancy and her friends. If I were them, I’d call her bluff. If the bill goes down to defeat, she may not have the power to back up those threats. Speakers that use such tactics and fail tend to have short careers.

First we heard that Obama postponed his trip overseas for three whole days to rally support for the bill.

Obama pushed back a scheduled March 18 departure on his first overseas trip of the year to March 21 to help rally support in the days before the House vote.

The House Budget Committee will meet on Monday to take the first steps toward passage of the healthcare overhaul, Obama’s top legislative priority, with final votes planned in the full House by the end of the week.

“I’m delighted that the president will be here for the passage of the bill,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “It’s going to be historic.”

Given that this will be a major boondoggle and bail out for insurance companies, it’s interesting that their stock prices dropped a bit on Friday. Perhaps there are doubts about the bill passing:

Health insurer shares dropped on Friday even though the broader market was little changed. The Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payor index ended 1.4 percent lower and the S&P Managed Health Care index dropped 1.8 percent.

When a health insurance bill has seemed more likely, insurance company stocks have tended upward. So this might be telling.

An assistant to Nancy sends memo that outlines schedule and plans:

The office of Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who is the assistant to Speaker Pelosi, sent a memo to Democratic staffers today telling them to clear members’ schedule for next weekend, saying a vote could come as early as Friday or Saturday, and noting that it was no coincidence that President Obama pushed back his trip abroad from March 18 to March 21st.

And similar to that propaganda talking point great piece of journalism, we have a similar pushed talking point:

Democratic leaders on Friday stoked expectations that the year-long debate in Congress over health care may be coming to an end, after President Obama delayed his upcoming trip to the South Pacific and House leaders indicated they could deliver a final bill for his signature by the end of next week.

The House is preparing to vote, perhaps Friday or next Saturday, on the legislation that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she was “delighted that the president will be here for the passage of the bill. It’s going to be historic.”

There is one thing I like that Byrd is trying to squeeze in. He’s trying to fix the black lung rules that raygun screwed with:

The Chamber of Commerce is targeting a provision in the Senate health care bill it says is a special legislative deal inserted by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) that threatens the solvency of a trust fund created to help mine workers suffering from black lung disease.

“This had to be another one of those backrooms deals that was put into the larger bill to cobble votes together,” said Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s top lobbyist.

The special legislative deals Democratic leaders cut to win votes for the Senate bill, including the Cornhusker Kickback and Louisiana Purchase, helped sour the public on reform. So the prospect of yet another questionable provision is like candy for opponents.

The Byrd provision unwinds a 29-year-old requirement that people applying for benefits from the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund show x-ray proof that they suffer from the condition. Byrd’s provision presumes workers who spent 15 years or more in the coal pits qualify for benefits. The Byrd provision returns the law to a standard that was in place prior to reforms passed in 1981, which were designed to steady the financially faltering program, according to the Chamber’s research.

You can always count on the Chamber of Commerce to be evil. I’m still hoping the bill fails, but that’s one bit I like.

Catholic hospitals are now supporting the bill. Apparently they’re getting that good old fashion feeling about the anti-choice language that will likely make it through:

Keehan said in an interview that she believes the approach now in the bill would work just as well to keep federal dollars from being used to pay for abortion.

“On the moral issue of abortion, there is no disagreement,” Keehan said. “On the technical issue of whether this bill prevents federal funding of abortions, we differ with Right to Life.”

The current legislation would allow private insurance plans operating in a new insurance marketplace to cover abortions, provided they do not use taxpayer funds. What makes that tricky is that many of the plans’ customers would be receiving federal subsidies to help pay their premiums. So the legislation requires plans offering abortion coverage to collect a separate premium from their policyholders. Those separate checks would have to be kept in a different account from money for other health care services.

The abortion provisions Obama’s bill are identical to those in the Senate legislation that passed on Christmas Eve. But the bishops and National Right to Life prefer the approach in the House bill.

The House bill prohibited any plans receiving federal subsidies from covering abortion. Women desiring insurance coverage for the procedure would have to buy a separate policy.

Here is a bit about the parliamentarian at the Senate and what his role will be:

Frumin labors in relative obscurity as the Senate’s chief parliamentarian, a post he has held under both Democratic and Republican majorities. His job: making sure Capitol Hill combatants play by the rules.

Already, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid are wrestling over Frumin’s procedural verdicts. It is with Frumin’s guidance that Democrats must engineer a legislative triple bank shot to win a health care bill — first passing a Senate version of the proposed law in the House and then pushing through a set of repairs to the measure, which must pass both chambers.

The Senate Democrats’ plan to use “budget reconciliation,’’ which allows them to skirt a Republican filibuster, promises to keep Frumin in the middle of the action.

Republicans, planning a variety of procedural challenges, have argued that reconciliation has never before been used for something as sweeping as an overhaul of the health care system.

Past parliamentarians have lost their jobs with less at stake.

The great O is making noises behind the curtain again. This time about education reform, specifically reforming Every No Child Left Behind:

President Obama proposed overhauling the No Child Left Behind law that was his predecessor’s hallmark education initiative, aiming to eliminate several of the measure’s controversial mandates on public schools but adding new ones.

Students would still be tested every year in reading and math under Obama’s proposal, but scores in other subjects could also be used to measure progress, addressing concerns of parents and teachers who say the law has shortchanged such topics as history and science.

The president’s proposal to Congress, released Saturday, would place more importance on academic growth than the current pass-fail approach to judging schools. If a student were to start class work three grade levels behind and move up two by the end of the school year, that would count as a victory. Now, it is rated a failure because the student is still behind.

In the 41-page blueprint, Obama wrote that his proposal “is not only a plan to renovate a flawed law, but also an outline for a re-envisioned federal role in education.”

Somehow after seeing what they’ve worked out as a healthcare bill, pardon me for being a bit skeptical. But we’ll have to dig into it to see what it’s all about. Stay tuned to this story as it develops.

Ah, some are noticing the grand flip flopper of all flip floppers, our flip flopper in chief and are all miffed, well, not really, they still love him:

Obama in December fired shots at “fat cat bankers,” then told bankers at the White House the next day he didn’t mean to vilify anyone or dictate their pay.

He denounced the “twisted logic” of big Wall Street bonuses, then suggested recently he doesn’t begrudge the mega-buck payouts.

Ten days ago, Obama confronted health insurance CEOs during a White House meeting with a letter from a woman whose premiums went up 40 percent.

It had the makings of a signature moment in the health care fight — the president standing up for average Americans — yet just before Obama arrived, reporters were escorted out of the room. So there was no footage of the exchange and no record of the insurance executives’ reaction.

You mean, you never noticed this about him before Carol? Really? And she goes on:

Obama the politician matched the moment back in November 2008, when voters weary of President George W. Bush flocked to his promise of change.

Now the times have changed, and they’re looking to Obama to feel as angry as they are about the failing economy and the sense that Wall Street is out of whack and that Washington seems incapable of doing anything about it. That mood, plus a strong disdain of Obama, has fueled the conservative tea party movement, but it’s not strictly partisan. A lot of voters are mad, and many want a sense the president is mad too.

That kind of populism demands a stark view of the world, a clear-cut villain, good guys vs. bad guys, or big guys vs. little guys. Obama comes across as far more cerebral, a figure who embraces nuance, who is hesitant to single out a boogeyman. But populism and nuance don’t mix — and for Obama, that seems to muffle his message, when a satisfying shotgun blast might do.

Sigh. She sees something’s not right, but just can’t quite figure it out. Poor Obama, he’s just too cerebral. Gag.

FEMA is selling off the tainted trailers set up to be used after Katrina:

In a giant auction, the federal government has agreed to sell for pennies on the dollar most of the 120,000 formaldehyde-tainted trailers it bought nearly five years ago for Hurricane Katrina victims. But the sale of the units, perhaps the most visible symbol of the government’s bungled response to the hurricane, has triggered a new round of charges that it is endangering future buyers for years to come.

Mmm, get those while they’re hot. And lest we forget, this is the Obama administration trying to pawn these toxic waste, killing trailers off on people. Heck of a job Obie.

In cultural news, Lady Gaga and Beyonce have a video out. Here’s a short article with the video. Catchy.

Bill says Chelsea and Hillary are having a good time planning the wedding.

Century’s old shipwrecks were found in the baltic:

A dozen centuries-old shipwrecks — some of them unusually well-preserved — have been found in the Baltic Sea by a gas company building an underwater pipeline between Russia and Germany.

The oldest wreck probably dates back to medieval times and could be up to 800 years old, while the others are likely from the 17th to 19th centuries, Peter Norman of Sweden’s National Heritage Board said Tuesday.

“They could be interesting, but we have only seen pictures of their exterior. Many of them are considered to be fully intact. They look very well-preserved,” Norman told The Associated Press.

A pregnant male seahorse was filmed giving birth.

Slate has an article about what Whale tastes like. OK, everyone together, it tastes like chicken. No, they say it’s more like moose. Though I like the funny commentor who says: “Whale tastes a lot like dog. Less stringy than cat and with much more robust flavor, like hamster.” Probably tastes like whale. Wouldn’t you have to have a really big mouth to eat one of those, and be really, really hungry?

Moon astronauts say Obama’s NASA plans will be catastrophic:

Jim Lovell, commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, said Mr Obama’s decision would have “catastrophic consequences” for US space exploration.

The last man on the Moon, Eugene Cernan, said it was “disappointing”.

Last month Mr Obama cancelled Nasa’s Constellation Moon landings programme, approved by ex-President George W Bush.

Nasa still aims to send astronauts back to the Moon, but it is likely to take decades and some believe that it will never happen again.

Ah, the sunday propaganda blubber fest. Here’s the lineup if you have the stomach for it:

Axelrod appears on ABC’s “This Week,” NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CNN’s “State of the Union,” while Gibbs is on “Fox News Sunday” and CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

ABC also has Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn. ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper is the guest anchor.

CBS also hosts Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans.

(snip)

Fox also interviews Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Eric Cantor (R-Va.). And former President George W. Bush’s political guru, Karl Rove, now a Fox News contributor, discusses his new book “Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight.”

NBC also has Rove, along with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.).

CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” has Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What’s cook’in in your backyard? Post any news you find for more discussion, screaming, pulling hair out or laughing ’till you drop.

Filed under: General, Morning News edition Tagged: General, news, sunday news

Categories: Our Friends

The State of Women

The Confluence - Sat, 03/13/2010 - 8:37pm

I’ve been looking around for things to share here that don’t make me want to scream. Since this is women’s history month, I thought I’d try to focus on a few articles that I’ve read on things that give me hope.  One such article showed up today in my mailbox from the The Economist. I’ve already highlighted India once before when I talked about the Pink Sari Ladies.  This article is titled “Indian women on the March” and reminds me of my days in the years we fought to pass the ERA.  This one, however, got signed into law (changing their constitution) and didn’t stall despite some pretty upset men out in the Indian hinterlands.

YELLING dementedly, seven lawmakers mobbed the chairman of the Indian parliament’s upper house on March 8th and tore at the document, containing the women’s reservation bill, he was reading from. Yet the bill passed the next day, with the two-thirds majority needed to change India’s constitution. With broad political support, including from the Congress party that leads India’s coalition government and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the bill could soon clear the lower house and win the support it needs in at least 15 out of 28 state assemblies. The president would then sign it into law: imposing a 33% quota for women in India’s federal and state assemblies.

This would be momentous, especially for India’s half a billion, badly served women. Today’s Lok Sabha, or House of the People, as India’s lower chamber is known, contains 58 women, a record number, but fewer than 11% of the seats. By greatly boosting women’s membership of India’s legislatures, the proposed amendment, its supporters say, will also begin to make a dent in their more grievous suffering—in a country where female fetuses are often aborted, where wives are battered and women earn on average $1,200 a year, less than a third of the male average. A woman can take credit for this: Sonia Gandhi, Congress’s leader, who has pushed the long-mothballed bill against a furious band of dissenters—of a kind that persuaded previous BJP- and Congress-led governments not to touch it.

While Nancy Pelosi bargains away U.S. women’s right to choose so she can win one for the Gypper, Sonia Ghandi presses forward for the women of India.  Yes, Sonia does come from that Ghandi family we know from India’s history. That would be the Nehru family. She is the dual chief of the 113 year old Indian National Congress and its Parliamentary party. She married in to the famous family in 1968. (She’s a 57 year old widow.)  Her husband , Rajiv Ghandi, was the 7th  prime minister of India serving from 1984-1989.  He was assassinated in 1991.  She spent a number of years in solitude before anger over the extremely slow investigation into her husband’s death and a number of her husband’s followers convinced her to enter into a public and political life. Sonia was born in Italy and she met her husband while studying at Cambridge.  She is a naturalized Indian citizen.  She was offered the Prime Minister position at his death, but refused that too.  She was key in seeing that Economist Dr. Manmohan Singh took the post.

Oddly enough, one of the real concerns about the bill is that some male politicians may actually put their wives or daughters up for election to rule through them.   Ghandi stood up to one such opponent who had pulled a similar trick to rule from prison.  There also seem to be some class questions.

They already do—as Mrs Gandhi hinted at when facing down one of the bill’s main opponents, a former chief minister of northern Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, who, after being sent to prison, installed his wife to rule the state on his behalf. “Your wife has been chief minister. You have seven daughters. What’s their view on the bill?” Mrs Gandhi asked him.

Unconvinced, Mr Yadav, whose party was among the hooligans in parliament, withdrew its support from the government. So did another north-Indian, low-caste party, Samajwadi. Both parties say the reservation should be dedicated to low-caste women. They also fear it will benefit educated, high-caste women, who are more likely to stand for Congress or the BJP. If, as expected, a third opponent of the bill, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the pro-dalit ruler of northern Uttar Pradesh state, also forsakes the government, it would be reduced to a majority of two in the Lok Sabha. In the worst case, it might even fail to get the necessary support for the budget announced on February 26th, and fall.

Gandhi continually places near the top in Forbes most power women list as well as Time’s list of 100 most influential people.  Sonia Gandhi believes that Indian women have a good future in politics in their own right (from today’s The Hindu).

Her words should inspire every woman interested in public office.

“I think we all have to think to be generous,” she said. “Women empowerment is after all a dream, a vision.”

India's ruling Congress party supporters celebrate outside party leader Sonia Gandhi's house after the Women's Reservation Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament, in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, March 9, 2010. India's upper house of parliament voted overwhelmingly Tuesday for a historic bill that would reserve one-third of legislative seats for women, despite a boycott by socialist lawmakers. The bill now goes to the lower house, where it is likely to pass. (AP Photo) Pic

This could be a very important move in helping Indian women overcome some depressing statistics.  Some of these are covered by Times On Line.

But progress has been slow on improving rights and living standards for ordinary women in a country where traditional attitudes prevail in most of the countryside, and among the urban poor.

The World Economic Forum ranked India 114th out of 134 countries in a 2009 report on global gender disparities, with India posting low scores on female life expectancy, health and education.

The UN ranked India 134th out of 182 countries last year for female literacy, the proportion of women in its Cabinet – 10 per cent – and its gender development index, which measures disparity between living standards for men and women.

Almost all of the countries ranked lower by the UN were in sub-Saharan Africa.

Quotas for women in parliament have already been introduced in several other Asian countries, including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, as well as in Africa.

Filed under: Women's Rights Tagged: Sonia Ghandi, Women's History Month

Categories: Our Friends

Coffee Summits, not Coffee Parties

The Confluence - Sat, 03/13/2010 - 2:09pm

By now you’ve probably heard about the Coffee Party.

The Coffee Party: Drink more caffeine to be half as angry and twice as ineffectual as the Tea Party.

The Coffee Party bills itself as a spontaneous grassroots alternative to the tea party, one not tied to any hyper-partisan or corporate agenda. In actuality, it behaves more like an unofficial extension of the Obama permanent campaign. The only call to actual “action” seems to be for the Waiting-on-the-World-to-Change Generation to lament over lattes, sharing their exasperation at how the unwashed masses have been astroturfed to obstruct poor President Obama from carrying out his noble vision of bipartisan, pluralist kumbayah.

From CNN:

Meet these members of the Coffee Party Movement, an organically grown, freshly brewed push that’s marking its official kickoff Saturday. Across the country, even around the globe, they and other Americans in at least several hundred communities are expected to gather in coffeehouses to raise their mugs of java to something new.

They’re professionals, musicians and housewives. They’re frustrated liberal activists, disheartened conservatives and political newborns. They’re young and old, rich and poor, black, white and all shades of other.

Born on Facebook just six weeks ago, the group boasts more than 110,000 fans, as of Friday morning. The Coffee Party is billed by many as an answer to the Tea Party (more than 1,000 fewer fans), a year-old protest movement that’s steeped in fiscal conservatism and boiling-hot, anti-tax rhetoric.

This new group calls for civility, objects to obstructionism and demands that politicians be held accountable to the people who put them in office.

The New York Times ran an earlier fluff piece about the Coffee Party last week:

Eileen Cabiling, who founded the Los Angeles chapter, said she had campaigned for President Obama, but paid little attention to politics until the Tea Party convention and Mr. Obama’s State of the Union speech, where he rebuked Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike for their inability to move on legislation.

“I had withdrawn in campaign fatigue,” Ms. Cabiling said. “I was like, what happened?”

[...]

“This is about recognizing that the government represents us,” Ms. Cabiling said, “so we need to step to the plate and start having a voice and start acting like bosses.”

This sounds like 2008 all over again. In other words, they are the ones they have been brewing for.

Recognizing that “the government is us” is instructive, but somehow Ms. Cabiling’s comments remind me less of returning government to We-the-People and more of the creative classs self-indulgence that leads to declarations such as “Out with Bubbas, Up with Creatives.”

What seems to drive today’s progressives is where they perceive themselves in relation to the Bubbas. In Obama, the creative class saw an opportunity to be the bosses–many declaring in 2008 that for the first time they felt engaged in the political process. Once Obama won the election, their motivation was gone. They were now the bosses they had waited for, or so they thought. Politics became boring again, onto the next reality show. Obama’s lack of leadership and his continuation of Bush policies were not enough to get his supporters out of their “campaign fatigue.” It took the tea party’s opposition to Obama to get the Obama partisans to realize that they were not quite as in control of the situation as they thought they were. Now they want to “wake up and stand up” just enough to regain their perception of themselves as bosses. Demanding for accountability of our elected officials seems to be an afterthought.

Even if it is not a propaganda arm or a gimmick, the coffee party is a response to the Tea Party, and therein lies the problem.

In terms of where we as liberals need to be focusing our response, the Tea Party is neither here nor there.

Jumper Cables = Critical Thinking

The Tea Party isn’t the one who claimed to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare in 2003…

…then campaigned for a public option and against a mandate in 2008…

…only to assume the American presidency and reverse his already half-baked recipe into the ultimate shit sandwich–a mandate without a public option.

It wasn’t the Tea Party protests that brought the public option down, either. The public option has remained popular, if vaguely defined, among voters.

The Tea Party is beside the point.

Bill Clinton nailed it not too long ago when he was campaigning for Martha Coakley in Massachusetts:

You need to take that tea party label back. (Applause and cheers) The tea party–(Applause continues)–you know all this tea party protest, the whole idea behind it is that government is inherently corrupt and bad and confused, right–and, the Boston Tea Party was a revolt against government. That is not true–the Boston Tea Party was a revolt against abuse of power–taxation without representation, taking the autonomy away from the Massachusetts Bay Company and the local governments. You had a very vigorous government at the time of the Boston Tea Party. The people believed in it, they participated in it, and they thought the purpose of the government was to advance the common good. –Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton has a knack for getting to the heart of the matter. (Ironically, Martha Coakley lost because she was unable to fight the abuse of power within her own party.)

Neither the Tea Party nor the Coffee Party are responding to the root issue. The Tea Party is a vehicle for absorbing catch-all populist anger into the GOP brand. The coffee response to the tea party is likewise a vehicle for preserving the Obama brand. Neither “party” has a larger purpose other than keeping each side involved in an imaginary contest where each tribe wants to be the boss of the other tribe. When you take away the superficial rhetoric about the role of government on both sides, what remains are taunts that either you’re a socialist or you’re a teabagger. These faux movements exploit real voter backlash at Washington and serve to keep the electorate divided and busy bashing each other at the rank-and-file level rather than collectively pushing back on the oligarchy.

What is missing right now is a mobilized response not to each other but to abuse of power, specifically a response in the form of advocacy for the working/middle class. I’m often reminded of FDR’s economic bill of rights:

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security.

I’m also reminded of this clip from Meet the Press:

SEC’Y CLINTON: Well, I absolutely would look forward to having coffee. I’ve never met her.

[...]

But, you know, I’m ready to have a cup of coffee. Maybe I can make a case on some of the issues that we disagree on.

MR. GREGORY: So maybe there’s a summit meeting here.

Tea and Coffee parties are echo chambers.

What we really need are more coffee summits, so to speak, where competing ideas are put forward as to how we can turn FDR’s economic bill of rights into a reality.

Filed under: General Tagged: Coffee Party, Economic Bill of Rights, FDR, Tea Party

Categories: Our Friends

Sports: NHL, NASCAR To Punish Carl Edwards For Hit On Bruins' Marc Savard

The Onion - Sat, 03/13/2010 - 10:44am

BOSTON—NASCAR and the National Hockey League announced Wednesday they would punish Sprint Cup driver Carl Edwards for hitting Boston center Marc Savard with his No. 99 Ford Fusion stock car late in the third period...

Categories: Our Friends

Lazy Saturday Morning News and Views

The Confluence - Sat, 03/13/2010 - 10:12am

An Obot Brain on Koolaid

Good Morning Conflucians!

I noticed that we had an early morning visit from the latest “expert” on what PUMA was. Apparently Oliver had a little temper tantrum when he saw Dakinikat’s link to his obscure blog last night.

Oliver, on March 13, 2010 at 4:56 am Said:
If you actually read what I wrote you would see that I didn’t call Hamsher a PUMA. I said she ran a PUMA-style operation, aka “I’m not getting my own way, so screw everything.”

As if he would know anything about it. First our idea was hijacked by various other people we had never met, and now other people we have never met (Frankly, I’ve only vaguely heard of Oliver and have never read his blog before) are telling us what our idea was all about. Gee thanks so very much.

Well, here’s my judgment of you, Oliver, based on reading one post at your blog. You aren’t anything resembling liberal or “left” as long as you support the obscene joke of a “health care reform” bill that the White House and Congress are trying to push down our throats. People like you pushed Obama down our throats last year. Now we’re stuck with him, but we don’t have to like the torture, rendition, spying, misogyny, or the anti-abortion, anti-freedom policies of this monstrous oligarchical administration that you apparently support.

To put it bluntly, go fuck yourself, Oliver. We support “FDR-style” operations at The Confluence, and your beloved Obama administration isn’t an FDR-style operation by a long shot. For your information, PUMA was about the 2008 primary process, which ended long ago. We have moved on, but Obots like Oliver are still insulted because we supported a different candidate for the Democratic nomination and didn’t appreciate having that candidate’s votes tampered with.

In other news, Pope Benedict’s sexual abuse cover-up operation is getting some attention in the mainstream press. The New York Times has a story up: Church Abuse Scandal in Germany Edges Closer to Pope:

A widening child sexual abuse inquiry in Europe has landed at the doorstep of Pope Benedict XVI, as a senior church official acknowledged Friday that a German archdiocese made “serious mistakes” in handling an abuse case while the pope served as its archbishop.

Times Topics: Roman Catholic Church | Pope Benedict XVIThe archdiocese said that a priest accused of molesting boys was given therapy in 1980 and later allowed to resume pastoral duties, before committing further abuses and being prosecuted. Pope Benedict, who at the time headed the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, approved the priest’s transfer for therapy. A subordinate took full responsibility for allowing the priest to later resume pastoral work, the archdiocese said in a statement.

People inside and outside of the Church are beginning to believe that the Pope would have had to know about what was happening in Germany. Irish Central is even asking if the Pope might have to step down.

Hillary Clinton in the News

From BBC News: Clinton rebukes Israel over East Jerusalem homes

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has sharply rebuked Israel over its recent decision to build new settlements in East Jerusalem.

She told Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone that the move was “deeply negative” for US-Israeli relations.

The BBC’s Washington correspondent, Kim Ghattas, says it was a rare and sharp rebuke from Washington.

Israel’s announcement overshadowed a visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden aimed at restarting peace talks.

Since then the Palestinians have indicated they will not return to the negotiating table unless the Israeli decision is revoked.

Christian Science Monitor: Hillary Clinton at UN: ‘Women’s progress is human progress’

In a speech Friday at the UN in New York, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton identified equality for the world’s women and girls as the central challenge that will determine the peace and progress of the 21st century.

She underscored the links between economic development, ending poverty, improving health, safeguarding the environment, and the continued enhancement of the status of women. “Women’s progress is human progress, and human progress is women’s progress,” she said.

Those words were clearly meant to echo Secretary Clinton’s own words 15 years ago when, as the US first lady, she told the World Conference on Women in Beijing: “Women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights.”

Clinton’s speech not only marked the anniversary of her 1995 Beijing speech, but also wrapped up events for International Women’s Day, which took place March 8. Those events included meetings of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women.

Clinton says U.N. needs more women in top jobs

/ALeqM5jgG2VAedB0dFHmGwwdgGTQJVm_vQ”>Subjugation of women threatens US security: Clinton

Clinton Urges Women to Continue Building on Advancements

Thank you for standing up for women, Madame Secretary.

Interesting News and Views from the Blogosphere

Stateofdisbelief alerted me to this report at Alternet: The Most Powerful Destructive Corporate Business Club Most Americans Have Never Heard of

In total, the Economic Elite are made up of about 0.5% of the US population. At the center of this group is the Business Roundtable, an organization representing Fortune 500 CEOs that is also interlocked with several lead elite organizations. Most Americans have never heard of the Business Roundtable. However, in my analysis, it is the most influential and powerful Economic Elite organization….

Here is a partial list of some of their lead members:

——-Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman Sachs
——-James Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
——-James P. Gorman, Morgan Stanley
——-Vikram S. Pandit, Citigroup, Inc.
——-Brian T. Moynihan, Bank of America
——-Brendan McDonagh, HSBC
——-Robert W. Selander, MasterCard Incorporated
——-Kenneth I. Chenault, American Express Company
——-Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation
——-Glenn A. Britt, Time Warner Cable Inc.
——-Philippe Dauman, Viacom, Inc.
——-Jeffrey R. Immelt, General Electric Company
——-Brian L. Roberts, Comcast Corporation
——-Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft Corporation
——-John T. Chambers, Cisco Systems, Inc.
——-Randall L. Stephenson, AT&T Inc.
——-Ivan G. Seidenberg, Verizon Communications
——-David G. DeWalt, McAfee, Inc.
——-Steven R. Loranger, ITT Corporation
——-Paul T. Hanrahan, AES Corporation, The
——-Riley P. Bechtel, Bechtel Group, Inc.
——-W. James McNerney , Boeing Company, The
——-Rex W. Tillerson, Exxon Mobil Corporation
——-Marvin E. Odum, Shell Oil Company
——-John S. Watson, Chevron Corporation
——-James J. Mulva, ConocoPhillips
——-John B. Hess, Hess Corporation
——-James E. Rogers Duke Energy Corporation
——-J. Larry Nichols, Devon Energy Corporation
——-Ronald A. Williams, Aetna Inc.
——-David Cordani, CIGNA
——-Jeffrey B. Kindler , Pfizer Inc.
——-Angela F. Braly, WellPoint, Inc.
——-John C. Lechleiter, Eli Lilly and Company
——-Edward B. Rust, Jr., State Farm
——-Andrew N. Liveris, Dow Chemical
——-James W. Owens, Caterpillar Inc.
——-Ellen J. Kullman, DuPont
——-Edward E. Whitacre Jr., General Motors Company
——-Michael T. Duke, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

You can read the entire report here: The Economic Elite vs. the People of the United State of America.

It has now become evident to a critical mass that the Republican and Democratic parties, along with all three branches of our government, have been bought off by a well-organized Economic Elite who are tactically destroying our way of life. The harsh truth is that 99% of the US population no longer has political representation. The US economy, government and tax system is now blatantly rigged against us.

Current statistical societal indicators clearly demonstrate that a strategic attack has been launched and an analysis of current governmental policies prove that conditions for 99% of Americans will continue to deteriorate. The Economic Elite have engineered a financial coup and have brought war to our doorstep. . . and make no mistake, they have launched a war to eliminate the US middle class.

Sadly, there are still delusional, Koolaid-soaked bloggers like Oliver Willis who still believe they have some ability to influence our corrupt, bought-out government. Good luck to them.

At Truthdig, Reese Erlich explains why white people who fly planes into buildings or shoot people at the Pentagon are not “terrorists,” but people of Middle-Eastern extraction who shoot people are “terrorists.”

Also at Truthdig, Ruth Markus has a nice piece on the “Chief Whiner,” John Roberts.

At FDL, Scarecrow thinks Rachel Maddow might be starting to “get a clue” about who really killed the public option

At Raw Story, news of Glenn Beck’s pronouncement on Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA: The song is “anti-American” and “propaganda” that people must “wake up” from. Oh really? I’d rather wake up to it, I think.

What are you reading this lazy Saturday morning?

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Filed under: General

Categories: Our Friends

Racial Slur Development Not Keeping Pace With Mixed-Race Births, Nation's Bigots Report

The Onion - Sat, 03/13/2010 - 9:00am

WASHINGTON—"The time has come for our ugly, intolerant rhetoric to step into the 21st century. Our disgusting, dehumanizing slurs simply must reflect the terrifying new global society we now live in," said American Racists and Bigots Council chairman Tom Branson.

Categories: Our Friends

Obama’s Folly

The Confluence - Fri, 03/12/2010 - 7:40pm

Have we figured out how many deadlines have now passed on the HCRA yet?   We now have a canceled trip to Southeast Asia and the re-emergence of Michael Moore as Health Care advocate instead of true Koolaid believer.   Evidently, he got tired of waiting for his pony.  The Congressional Black Caucus is still patiently waiting for the jobs and economic development unicorn because we’re all caught in the HCRA vortex of political hell and POTUS doesn’t call them any more.  They spoke in unison today to the tune of What Have you done for me Lately?   POTUS sent them the answer via the fat white boy with the USA hockey shirt singing the tune of Thanks for the Memories.  I guess he’ll call them when he needs them  cuz Ya gotta have Friends!  or is that Ya gotta have Faith?

Evidently, no one is talking to Stupak now from the Speaker’s or the whip’s offices but they’re trying to peel away some of the less obstinate fetus fetishists.  All I’ve heard on NPR on the drive to work is that the Catholic Bishops still aren’t happy about the language in the senate bill and are on the phone to congress. I guess god must’ve put them on hold and the pope is too busy dealing with the pimps at the vatican.

Nancy’s completely pulled the public option off the table even though Dick Durbin says he’d Whip It up as much as possible should it go back where it belongs.  FDL has the latest whip count and  like John Boehner–who is showing up on every TV screen in America–FDL says the votes aren’t there. Boehner’s got that lean hungry look these days.  I’m sure he’s got his wife out measuring for new curtains for that bigger office come December and hopes this fiasco is the Song that Never Ends.

This has to be the weirdest political drama going on outside of the latest episode of Survivor or a rerun of Jersey Shore.  I’m waiting for Dr. Drew to show up to do an intervention.  And they thought Hillary screwed up a national health care policy?  These guys are professional fuck ups!  It appears to be the ONE thing they do well!

Clusterfuck is an understatement.

The Progressives Neo-regressives are now saying that any one that isn’t in line with the current version of Health Insurance Hell just isn’t a real liberal. (Thanks Matt Y)  One of the deluded Obots even called Jane Hamsher a PUMA because she wants the public option and won’t roll over and play dead liberal dawg.

Oliver, buy a clue, I know Jane Hamsher, I know Puma, Jane Hamsher is NO PUMA. (Under his definition, Michael Moore is a PUMA now.)

Then, there’s the parliamentarian call that says POTUS must sign the senate version and every one has to trust the senate to change it after it becomes law.  Faux News repeatedly has the count and public support at the lower bounds of the head counts for both prompting Howell Raines to wonder if any one knows about journalism these days in a WAPO op ed. I just saw the latest ad from the Health Insurance Industry which says that despite record earnings and bonuses they own only 4% of the problem.

I’d say something about clowns and health care clown cars but I know I’d be in trouble around here big time for doing so.  I’m looking for a better metaphor. Got one?

You can help me try to sort this out over a Pinot Grigio or change the subject. Believe me, some one needs to change the policy agenda to jobs and real financial reform before we all need to invest in seed banks and shot gun shells.

Filed under: Health, Health Care Reform, healthcare Tagged: prozac cocktail friday

Categories: Our Friends

Bandai Recalls Lady Gaga

The Onion - Fri, 03/12/2010 - 2:32pm

News In Photos

Categories: Our Friends

Sports: 'She's Probably A Money-Hungry Liar,' Extremely Nervous Steelers Fans Report

The Onion - Fri, 03/12/2010 - 2:00pm

PITTSBURGH—In the wake of sexual assault allegations made against Ben Roethlisberger by a Georgia college student, nervous Steelers fans across the nation speculated that the supposed victim was most likely a conniving harpy...

Categories: Our Friends

In Focus: Bishop Sick Of Local Church Scene

The Onion - Fri, 03/12/2010 - 1:31pm

SACRAMENTO, CA—Bishop Robert K. Boland of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento announced Monday that, although he remains a devoted servant of God and the Catholic Church, he has become tired of the same old church scene.

Categories: Our Friends

Authorities Investigating Suicide Determine Victim Really Went For It

The Onion - Fri, 03/12/2010 - 10:02am

HAVERFORD, PA—Officials investigating the tragic suicide of local man Thomas Ingraham told reporters Tuesday they have determined that the...

Categories: Our Friends

Women Aviators of World War II Honored by Congress

Alegre's Corner Latest - Thu, 03/11/2010 - 9:32pm

During World War II the women of the Women's Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) flew everything but combat missions, repaired planes, trained other pilots, ferried planes to their male counterparts who would fly them into battle, took great risk and even died for their country in the fight for freedom.  They logged over 60 million miles in 78 different kinds of aircraft in the skies above the United States.  They served without expectation of honor or recognition.  They were never considered a part of the military and after the war they weren't even granted military benefits.  

Thirty-eight of these 1,002 courageous women made the ultimate sacrifice and when they died, their families had to pay to have their body returned home to them.   It wasn't until 1977 that the mighty WASPs were granted full veterans' status.

It's estimated that 300 WASPs are still alive and yesterday nearly two thirds of them attended a Congressional ceremony to honor their service, where they were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal - the nation's highest civilian honor.  These women are a part of The Greatest Generation and they paved the way for thousands of women who have gone on to do great things.  It's only fitting that they receive the recognition they so richly deserve.

Hats off to the women of Congress who helped make yesterday's momentous event possible:  Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; Senator Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland; Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Florida; and Representative Susan Davis, D-California.

Categories: Our Friends

Pink Grenades

PUMA PAC - Thu, 03/11/2010 - 9:54am

Even though she claims she’s not going to say, “Cheer up!” the Big Pink does cheer us up this morning:

“We’re strapping on our Pink grenades every morning and getting into the fight. If we get depressed amid the lunacy, we’ll say “so what?” We’re in the middle of a fight not at the end of one. The time for hammock swings and Pink lemonade is not yet here.

We might not like it but we realize that the Tea Party people for now are allies. So we will not disparage them as “teabaggers”. Politics makes strange bedfellows and these are strange times. We have learned that we do need two parties in opposition to each other, and other parties to live and die in order to keep those two parties in check and to let the major opposition parties know our votes cannot be taken for granted.

We might not like it but we realize that there are two choices: live or die. We’re not going to die and go away. We’ll live to fight another day.

We might not like it but we realize we are not alone in our opposition now and will not be alone in attaining our goals later. Our partners will change but we are not alone any more.

We might not like it but we realize that we were correct all along about Obama and his thug machine and his situation comedy demographics coalition. The ones who should be in deep depression and shame are Obama supporters who allowed themselves to be duped by the Dimocratic establishment and elect a stooge.

As the clinicians say, “depression is anger turned inwards“. By that definition Obama supporters should be suicidally depressed. Good riddance.”

Thanks for the pep talk Big Pink! Have a big pink cupcake! Because the fact is, obama sucks. And everyone knows it. It will just take a few more months until the mainstream media starts treating him like the joke he is. Just like they did to Bush.

Categories: Our Friends

(3/10) VIDEO of Global Health Hearing Bill Clinton & Bill Gates

Alegre's Corner Latest - Wed, 03/10/2010 - 4:27pm

hearing earlier today. this video is 2 hours long and great info for those who are into worldwide infections and prevention

80% of ppl who die of H20 borne disease are under 5
http://ow.ly/1gAFu

Categories: Our Friends

No Matter Who Wins

PUMA PAC - Wed, 03/10/2010 - 11:24am

We lose.

From miq this morning:

“Next fall we’re gonna have and election and right now it looks like the Republicans will gain seats in Congress, and maybe even get control of one or both houses. But no matter who wins, we lose. The same thing in November of 2012. – If either the Democrats or Republicans win, we’re screwed.

Sooner or later Obama will be out of office, but will whoever the Democrats nominate to replace him be any less corrupt?”

Roseanne’s not feeling much sunnier:

“I have no hope and no faith left at all for this country and the people in it. It’s not going to get better, but worse, and I blame the Democrats for all of it. They are sold out played out corrupt nothing lovers dancing around a golden calf, as Republican Sociopaths line their pockets with our hard earned money, and the Romney family, who have worked harder than any other family, save the Bush’s to destroy the fabric of the great society licks its chops for 2012. A bloodbath is coming. Republicans will clean up in the elections, and then they will clean up the rest of the money too and stuff it in their pants. They will cut everything, and have a return to the Confederacy that they have dreamed of since Roosevelt left office.”

Holy smokes. I guess there’s another way of looking at these cupcakes. The mood of the country is dour and grim. People really are losing hope and beginning to feel genuinely, clinically depressed. How are you? Do you agree with Miq and/or Roseanne? What, if anything, is giving you hope?

(h/t Puma Eyes)

Categories: Our Friends

Pass the popcorn!

PUMA PAC - Tue, 03/09/2010 - 4:51pm

This from Drudge is just too damn funny. (h/t sistermoon)

SENATE WARNS EMPLOYEES TO AVOID THE DRUDGE REPORT
Tue Mar 09 2010 08:53:37 ET

Just as the healthcare drama in the capitol reaches a grand finale, congressional officials are warning employees to avoid the DRUDGE REPORT!

The Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works issued an urgent email late Monday claiming the DRUDGE REPORT is ‘responsible for the many viruses popping up throughout the Senate.’

The committee ordered hill staff: ‘Try to avoid’ the DRUDGE REPORT ‘for now’.

On Monday DRUDGE served over 29 million pages with NOT ONE email complaint received about ‘pop ups’, or the site serving ‘viruses’.

The site was seen 149,967 times since March 1st from users at senate.gov and 244,347 times at house.gov. [10,825 visits from the White House, eop.gov]

Developing… ”

BWAHAHAHAHA!

Riverdaughter had a good piece up about Erik Massa earlier today, and Bostonboomer has another. From Riverdaughter:

“Eric Massa is an extrovert.  He looks like he’s a bit of a loose cannon as well.  I kinda like that about him.  And his stories of life aboard ship are going to resonate well with a lot of working class guys who took a similar route in life.  Maybe Massa can shake things up a bit while he has some face time with the public.  What does he have to lose at this point in time?  His leadership has apparently made an international incident out of something that took place at a wedding reception when he behaved like dunken sailor and got carried away.  He regrets his behavior as unbecoming of a congressman, as well he should.  But if Massa were the standard for politicians, then Cheney should have been thrown out of office for telling a Senator to go fuck himself, Newt Gingrich would never be taken seriously again for getting blowjobs in his car from a staffer, and Jim Bunning would be publicly reprimanded for giving reporters the finger last week.  Let’s not pretend that Washington is a place where every day is a cotillion.  There are a lot worse sins than Massa’s and harrassment cases a lot more straightforward and unambiguous.”

and from Boston Boomer:

“Why are the powers that be so afraid of what newly retired New York Representative Eric Massa has to say about the treatment he has gotten from Rahm Emanuel? If Massa’s complaints are really so “ridiculous,” as the President’s press secretary Robert Gibbs said on Good Morning America today, why isn’t the White House simply ignoring him?”

Massa is going on Glenn Beck’s show in a few minutes. I will be watching live and blogging it. You can too, by posting your thoughts in comments.

Sing, Massa Sing!

Oh yeah, I forgot to remind you to have a cupcake today! Love those Sailor Boys!

Categories: Our Friends