Craven

Repubs in the Senate piss and moan about $7.4 Billion to provide healthcare bennies for First Responders and Cleanup Crews at Ground Zero, and at the same time they'll add $700-900 Billion in tax cuts to the deficit and the debt without so much as blinking an eye.

These people have no honor and no soul.

From NYT.

Yo - Democrats

Get your shit together.  Everybody seems to be itchin' for a fight.  Lotsa talk about filibusters on the Tax Cut package heading thru Congress, and lots of talk about Obama dealing away practically everything in order to get "concessions" from the Repubs that they  wanted all along anyway.  So of course, the question is: how will the Dems fold this time?

Here's another question: are you really ready for an all-out partisan war?

In that light, I think I may be able to see for the first time, that Obama is doing the things he's doing in an attempt to avoid that war.  He could be saying that while he really does want to get things done according to the progressive agenda of his campaign, he still has to figure out how to keep his branch of the government going.  If he picks a fight every time out, then maybe everything grinds to a halt and not even the less-than-fully-satisfying things  he's been able to push thru would have any chance at all.  Maybe.

Maybe also: appeasement only encourages the adversary.

And in the meantime, there seems to be a bad disconnect between Washington politics and the problems way too many Americans are facing every day.  The joint may not be on fire yet, but it's too close for anybody's comfort.

I'm still waiting.

Kitten On The Keys

When I was a kid, we had an old Edison phonograph, and this was one of the records.

I seem to recall there was at least 1 Rachmaninoff piece, and a Caruso as well.

A Certain Justice

A for-profit startup "College" - based on Free Market principles, with the expressed intention to teach a kind of Ayn Randian Objectivism - has failed due to...wait for it...an inability to access Federal Student Loan money.  There were other reasons as well, but still.  The irony - it burns!

I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time, but really, this whole Privatizing Education thing has to stop.  It's just another way to siphon tax dollars into corporate pockets.

Read about it here.

The New Tax Deal

I don't know the details, and so I'm trying to judge slowly.  But from what I've seen so far, the thing just kinda smells.  It may well be that by extending the Rich Guy Benefits, Obama thinks he's set the stage for a winning argument in the 2012 campaign.  I don't see it.  There's been lots of political strategy that I've missed before, but I just don't get this one at all.  Maybe we'll see something worth watching when it comes up in the Senate.  Dunno.

Just try to remember that Republicans are NOT going to say nice things about you, Mr Obama.  No matter what you do. And even if you've put something together that trades the Billionaire's Bonus for lots of great progressive things down the road, not a lot of your base is gonna feel less betrayed any time soon.  The chess master thing, for most people, is way too subtle.  You may have staked out the perfect positions; you may have all the leverage you think you need to make better deals with a grumpy Congress; you may have the best possible approach to governing a divided nation.  But here's the thing:  Dumb Fux News is gonna hammer you with their bumper sticker rhetoric anyway. Nuthin' new about that of course, but the problem is that you keep refusing to give your supporters any real points to fight back with.

That lady in the town hall meeting - the one who said she was exhausted trying to defend you - she had it exactly right.  She may have gotten her second wind, but after a while, most people who stand up for you, and who know they have to stand up against the bullies; they just get beat down.  And when their perception is that you give in time after time after time; when it seems you NEVER come away with a clear cut win - well then, why am I beatin' my head against this wall?

It doesn't look like I can go back to voting Republican any time soon, but you'll have to work awfully hard to get me to vote for you again.

Security Theater

 WIth all the negative sentiment toward The Gummint that's been building up over the last 30 years, it's a little surprising we haven't seen more home-grown attacks like the bombing in Oklahoma City, especially considering the relentless rhetorical assault on W, and now Obama.

So I wonder about the intended affects of all this Security Theater.  The apparent aim is to prevent attacks from the outside, but since government almost never tells us the real reasons for what they do, is it not possible that a big part of what DHS is doing is aimed at keeping US citizens quiet as well?

When will we see the first strike against Wall St?  or Bank of America?  or whatever?

Will most of us condemn the attackers as domestic terrorists?  Or will we see the rise of the new American anti-hero? - the kind of people who were robbing banks in the 1930s' who were hunted down (and mostly shot down like dogs) by the Feds; but were lionized by a big bunch of people who saw the actions of the outlaws more in terms of simple payback against a system that had become corrupt and oppressive.

How bad do things hafta get before Blowin' Shit Up becomes a reasonable response?

Take a look at this by Bruce Schneier.

Playing Against Type

Mickey Mantle was probably one of the great tragic figures in The American Hall Of Heroes.  A supremely gifted specimen who always seemed willing and able to put himself thru 9 kinds of hell trying to live up to the overinflated expectations of his public persona, while at the same time hell-bent on self-destruction in his private life.

Here's a quick peek at that inner conflict.
4 years after retiring, the Yankees still want something more from him...

and he rebels.

That Orwellian Thing

As we tiptoe thru these next coupla years; along the edge of the economic abyss, and across the minefields of racial tensions, community disintegration and a good half-dozen other shitty things that're happening that we don't even recognize yet; we need to be looking for the tell-tail signs of those shitty things.

Here's the really big and obvious one: Glenn Beck.  When he puts on his little dog-n-pony shows about the coming of concentration camps, etc, he's not warning you so you can take steps to prevent The Gummint from doing these things.  He's warning you so that when the government does these things, you can be on the "right side" when it happens.  That way, only The Bad Ones will suffer, and all Good Americans will prosper because of it.

Ya heard it here first.

Minority Rule

Regarding the Tax Cut Bill passed by the House (extending the cuts for everybody on the first $250k in annual income): The Senate voted in favor of proceeding to the debate yesterday by a margin of 53-36.

You might think this means the majority of the representatives of US citizens have voted in favor of the proposition that we need to get back to a reasonable position on the question of taxation; and that we need the people who're enjoying the greatest benefits of the economy to pony up and to pay a bit more for those benefits (and btw, when I say "majority of the representatives", it means a total of both houses equaling 287 in favor and 224 against - that's 56% In Favor); and ya might think it means we've settled that little piece of business, and now we can move on to the next item on the agenda.  Well, think again.

In Congress Land, it doesn't really matter how the votes line up.  It only matters what kind of special deals you can make.  It matters that you can maneuver and manipulate the process.  It only matters that you can completely sell out to the interests of Big Money, and still have Dumb Fux News puffing up your image as being "on the side of the little guy".

Here's today's Political Snark:
I need y'all to grow some opposable thumbs and climb down outa the Stupid Tree.

Saturday Nite Music

News to me: Gene Parsons (no relation to Gram) was a drummer for The Byrds in the seventies. When I first saw this on YouTube, I assumed whoever posted it just made a mistake - oops - I love it when I discover something weird like this. Anyway, here's Gene Parsons covering a Gram Parsons tune with a band both men were closely associated with at about the same time. BTW: this tune is further evidence that White Soul may actually exist after all.

Saturday Nite Music

I don't even remember hearing he'd died (Aug 09). Willy DeVille was one of the great eccentrics of pop culture.



HEAVEN STOOD STILL
Album: La Chat Blue (1979)
(Written by Mink DeVille)
Mink DeVille

As a tear fades away
and the dawn dries a lover's eyes
No more tears, they're all gone
Just believe it will always be

My heart in your hand
knows that all this belongs to me
and like the child here I stand
while your heart sings inside of me

One dream of my life
One night in eternity
The wind whispered soft to me
And heaven stood still

One sigh of the dawn
Sweet instant of memory
One celestial rhapsody
And heaven stood still

The Awesomeness Of Louis CK

A bit curmudgeonly, but still some rather astute observations.

Getting What We Pay For(?)

As a devout capitalist and a proud adherent to most of Ayn Rand's preachings, I just can't see how anybody can make an honest assessment of the US healthcare system and still contend we're getting a solid return on our investment.

Measuring a system's effectiveness solely on Life Expectancy is kinda tricky, but really, if we reduce the goal to simple terms; and we say the main point of the exercise is to keep us alive and kickin'; well then I think it's pretty obvious we're gettin' snookered.

If your task was to make healthcare work for your company, and you brought this graph in to the meeting thinking it would support your argument that "we have the best healthcare money can buy", you'd be bounced out of that company so fast your feet wouldn't touch the ground.

So why do we continue just to put up with this shit?

(with a hat tip to Nick)

Fighting Creationist Bullshit

DADT Repeal

So the DADT studies are out - Mike Mullen says he's ready to shit-can DADT;  Bob Gates says the Pentagon should get rid of DADT themselves because that'll be better than when the courts order them to take it down - and somehow, we're all still walkin' around wondering why nothing is changing.

And some pundits are saying that this must surely be one of those bi-partisan moments, or at least just this one time the Repubs and "conservatives" get real and go along with it.  Uh, no, kids - look, let's go over it again.  We're talking about John McCain and Joe WIlson and Jim Demint - they're NOT CONSERVATIVES.  They're radicals and they aren't interested in doing anything that doesn't hurt Obama.  It doesn't matter what the policy question is.  It doesn't matter what the majority of public opinion says.  Nothing matters to these guys except doing political damage to Obama.  They'll oppose the repeal of DADT (prob'ly pushing for a trade on something totally unrelated) and when they're absolutely sure that the thing will pass without their support, they'll let it thru.  And then they'll let Dumb Fux News spin it for them so they can use it as a campaign issue in every election cycle forever after.

In the end, I'm still sittin' here with my arms folded, waiting to see if Obama actually has the balls to stand by his word.