And Now...

...Mr Diety himself - Brian Dalton, at Imagine No Religion in Canada last year.

It cuts early at the end, but it's just Dalton doing some plugs for the Mr Deity series.

God-Given Rights(?)

The First Step

From the premier episode of The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin's latest attempt to remind us of the true greatness of what (and who) we once were; and to get us to think about how we can be great again.



As usual tho', reading the comments is depressing.

Today's Bumper Sticker

via Democratic Underground

Romney Loves America The Way A Tick Loves A Dog

A Real Comparison(?)

Sometimes I have a kind of Love/Hate relationship with myself.  Especially when I do shit like this.  It feels like I'm goin' along with the crap I absolutely loathe about our current state of "debate".

That said, how am I supposed to resist an opportunity like this?

Let's see if we can spot some tiny hint as to the difference in the work ethic of our major party candidates this time around.

Vacation 2012

Spending some time back home in Colorado.  I'm never not amazed at how spectacular the weather can be here.  Just the fact that it can be a roasty toasty 90˚ during the day, but if you sit in the shade, it's not bad at all (the wonders of low humidity).  But the best part is that when the sun goes down, it cools off.  Practically no such thing as 85˚ and muggy at 11 o'clock at night.

So anyway - I'm being kinda lazy, so the prospects of getting any serious blogging done for the next several days are pretty slim.

Today's Quote

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference -- and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish -- where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source -- where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials -- and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

    -- John F Kennedy, address to the Ministerial Association of Greater Houston, September 12, 1960, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom 

ACA Starts To Pay Off

Don't let the Repubs know, but Obamacare is starting to come thru in a way that's gonna piss off "conservatives" somethin' powerful.

A friend in Charlottesville is a small business owner; single, 2 not-quite-grown-and-gone kids.  She's almost always somewhere between OK and Ah Crap, with the occasional tight-roping along the edge of Holy Fuck.  The way an awful lot of people have had to live for  a good 20 years or more.

Today, she showed me this little slice from her insurance carrier, informing her that they've cut her a rebate check because they didn't quite meet the new 80/20 Rule.  Under ACA, insurers have to maintain a Medical Loss Ratio of 80%:20%.  Simply put, of all the dollars in premiums they collect, they get to keep 20% of it for Admin and Salaries and Bonuses and Shareholder bennies (profit), etc - but they have to pay out at least 80% of that money to Healthcare Providers (docs, nurses, hospitals, etc) in the form of Medical Care Claims.  If they don't come up to that 80%, they have to divvy up the leftover money and pay it back to their subscribers.  So my friend is getting a check for about 80 bucks.  She won't be vacationing in St Bart's or putting in a pool, but it's better than it was and that's good for now.

I wonder if any of my "conservative" friends have gotten the same thing - and if they have, I wonder if I'll ever hear about it.

Here We Go Again(?)

“The Republicans say they don’t want to raise taxes on the middle class, and I don’t want to raise taxes on the middle class, so we should all agree to extend the tax cut for the middle class. Let’s agree to do what we agree on,” he said in the East Room of the White House, flanked by people who would benefit from the extension. “Let’s not hold the vast majority of the Americans and the entire economy hostage while we debate the merits of another tax cut for the wealthy.”

Read more at Politico.


C'mon, "conservatives" - you sat there all night; you had a nice dinner; you downed some decent wine; you had a whole squad of cocktails; you listened to the band, and you even got up and danced a little - but now the check's here and somehow it's Obama's fault that you have to settle up?

Repubs love pissin' and moanin' about somebody getting a free ride; so how come they refuse to pay for their own shit?  Buncha fuckin' pussies.

From Outa Da Past

Some of my earliest memories of music are pegged to my mom's collection of Leroy Anderson's records.  This one's a fave - along with The Syncopated Clock and Trumpeter's Lullaby from the same album (I think).  She'd put this on and plop me down in the dining room - and then go do what moms did around the house on a random weekday in the middle 50s.

Here There And Everywhere

Repubs never seem to understand that information has become really really portable.  Actually, it seems they've confused the portability of facts with the pretense that reality is fungible; but then again, the difficulty of "conservatives" even to recognize facts as facts is getting to be a very old story.  So maybe, because they understand that facts are pretty much immutable, they have to work as hard as they do to convince people otherwise.

Anyway, here's a pretty good one (kinda dated, but this silliness apparently must be repeated and revisited because, well - see the paragraph above).

via Addicting Info:

In 2009, Michael Steele, then chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC,) called President Barack Obama’s plan to overhaul health care “socialism,” at a National Press Club event.

Mr. Steele obviously was not aware of the fact that his very own party- the GOP helped Iraqi lawmakers to draft and pass their constitution with a single-payer guaranteed healthcare system for all Iraqis, in 2005.

Moyers

Ol' Bill gets a bad case of the "Centrisms" once in a while, but he can stand on my back anytime he wants to repeat this one.

(hat tip = The Agonist)

Vote Suppression

People with power use their power.  Sometimes to get more; sometimes to keep what they have; sometimes just to make sure we all know who has it.

From Balloon Juice, here's a pretty good rundown:

(from the Pennsylvania voter ID law)

All photo IDs must contain an expiration date that is current, unless noted otherwise. Acceptable IDs include:
• Photo IDs issued by the U.S. Federal Government or the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania:
•Pennsylvania driver’s license or non-driver’s license photo ID (IDs are valid for voting purposes 12 months past expiration date)
•Valid U.S. passport
•U.S. military ID - active duty and retired military (a military or veteran’s ID must designate an expiration date or designate that the expiration date is indefinite). Military dependents’ ID must contain an expiration date
•Employee photo ID issued by Federal, PA, County or Municipal government
•Photo ID cards from an accredited Pennsylvania public or private institution of higher learning
•Photo ID cards issued by a Pennsylvania care facility, including long-term care facilities, assisted living residences or personal care homes

All the "liberal" complaining about this really doesn't look like a standard conspiracy theory.  This looks a lot like Repubs (who hold governorships and who control state houses in OH, PA and FL) are cooking up ways to tamp down on some pretty significant voter demographics that are known to lean towards voting for Democrats.  I know that's a bunch of equivocation, but while there's practically no similar efforts in places where Dems hold power, and the fact that these laws are almost exclusively being jammed thru in battleground states, AND that there's practically no evidence of anything even close to the level of Voter Fraud these restrictions are aimed at preventing, we still have to make sure we're not just stampeding over the cliff, saying all Repubs are power-mad assholes who want a lockstep totalitarian dictatorship.  The thought has crossed my mind - in fact it's crossed my mind often enough to have worn several easily followed trails into it.  I'm just not ready to point and yell, "J'acccuse", that's all.

One thing I really don't like about this is that the Press Poodles seem not to be looking closely at it at all. As if glossing over it or ignoring it helps their Horse Race approach by working to make Obama's lead look narrower than it is.  One tho't on that: because it's too one-sided, reporting on it would make 'em look biased, so until they can come up with something the Dems are doing that they think can "balance it out", they'll continue looking past it.

Today's Pix

What About The Women?

If abortion is illegal, what should happen to a woman who breaks that law by having an illegal abortion?