The Wilds

This is Bubba Bubba wieghs a little over two tons
Bubba likes people

Bubba likes people to pet him

Bubba is going to Calgary to be a stud

Go Bubba.

American Justice

So Madoff is to be sentenced soon and the government is asking for 150 years while the defense is asking for only 12. For a 71 year old I don't think that there is much different.

What interested me the most is that wifey had $80 million taken leaving her only $2.5 million. Poor baby.

It is beginning to look like Madoff succeed in keeping the family out of prison and with enough wealth to live well for the rest of their lives.

Now here is a family that I would think would merit prolonged detention. Certainly, they have caused a great deal of harm to our country. There appears to be no way that they can be tried and found guilty. Therefore, given Obama's position on prolonged detention, these should be the first people held (I'm talking the wife and kids at least). Surly, these people who in all probability did more harm to this country in general than any terrorist we now have in custody deserve prolonged detention, if anybody does. I mean lets face it if they could get back in the financial area couldn't they do that much harm again? Therefore..................

Just Back Away

So dragging myself out of bed and getting ready to go off to Dillon Lake (That's Ohio, not Colorado) to make an appearance at an official picnic. Then later off to The Wilds for a sunset safari. Married to the little woman for a year tomorrow, and they said it would never last. Thank you thank you, I'll be here all week, try the veal.

I drive by the exit to The Wilds every day and haven' t been there for about ten years. I don't know what when something that great is right next door, I don't visit it on a regular basis. Oh well making up for that today. Maybe more later on.

I gave her some books (traditionally a paper gift for the first anniversary) and a sunflower bouquet, I'm golden.

Looking at the disaster that has become the Obama government and watching those who get money to comment on those things (unlike me who screams and throws feces for free). I guess that I became so scared of what four more years of the kind of government we'd had eight years of that I thought it was necessary to vote for Obama.

Well I guess the joke is on me (and everybody who hoped for any kind of a moderately liberal or progressive change). The republicans would have to run Satan him (or her) self for me to vote in the next presidential election.

Wallabies

Now this is interesting there has to be a way to use this for my own nefarious ends. If only they weren't half way around the world.

Sanford

I have a very serious question. Is it a requirement of Republican office holders that they have extramarital affairs?

Secondly, why was it necessary for the governor of South Carolina to outsource this piece of service work to a foreigner. I am sure that there are many qualified Americans more than willing to give the job.

Nixon -- Graham

Neato, stuff about Billy Graham ( "religious" [really does need quotes] leader never took a position that could be considered principled) and Richard Nixon (president, doesn't look half bad now that we've had Bush II ) talking on the telephone to one another.

Nixon, who really didn't go to war with that many more countries than any other post war president, shows what he thinks of (some?) Jews and Graham just kind of goes along for the ride. Of course that really isn't that unusual for Graham.

I've thought for quite awhile that Graham, who simply refused to take any position (as far as I can tell) on integration/desegregation which was without a doubt the one major moral issue before this country during the 50s and early 60s and yet he is still considered by the media and our leaders as a .........well religious leader is a sad and pathetic excuse for one. And I'm not talking here about Vietnam and if he should or shouldn't have opposed that war.

Of course, that is what passes for a religious leader in this country still (let's see who gave the prayers for our current Nixon?). Can't get the money if you rock the boat. Comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted, I'm sure it says somewhere in the White American Protestant Bible available at your White American Protestant Christian Bookstore beside the proof that Obama is not a citizen a more proof that socialized medicine will destroy us all.

Tabloids

Why do I become so enamored of these kind of tabloid stories? I loved the Octo Mom, and April's Mom. Although I've got to say that the April's Mom story ended a little to soon for my tastes. Can't get enough of freaks, I guess.

What I like about the S.C. Gov. story is that the A.P. is reporting it as solved as of this morning. Although, as of 8:15 no one in the media have as yet spoken directly to the gov.

Ah well, perhaps we can have a kidnapping of a perky blond to keep my mind off the economy. One can only hope.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. It just gets better and better. I love this kind of story. A weird political "leader" on top of the weirdness. How much fun is this. Bread and circuses keeps me going.

Iran

Now this is interesting and a different perspective, leave it to Counterpunch.

Well, as my old first Sargent said: "Believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear." I am sure that all sorts of folks want these Iranians to be oppressed as a group. On the other hand I had heard that Ahmadinejad was a populist even though he is a reactionary jerk (think George Wallace). So I suspect that here in the west we really know nothing about what really happened in the election, yet.

Sunday Animals

Delicate breakables?

Got nuthin to do.

Computer cat asleep on the job.

I'd Like Me Some Insurance, Please

I think that I can saftely speak for all our elected "representatives" and give everyone a hardy fuck you. And for those of you who thought that maybe Obama and his people will lobby as hard for government health insurance as they did to give money to bank owners (both foreign and domestic) and to continuing our colonial wars: "Bawhahahahahahah, Oh God that was funny."

I Get Tired

And so it goes. Fuck those criminals, even if they may not be guilty. It is important to put people in prison to show the rest of the hoi poli that they ain't shit in the grand scheme of things.

I am at the point where I agree with Whiskey Fire. I am sick and tired of watching Obama sell us all down the river, and yes he did OK on Iran, but WTF, that isn't enough by a long shot. Krugman seems to have something of a handle on the general attitude of our rulers on the firing of Froomkin. They were and are wrong and they are not ever going to admit it. They also have the power to totally control most (if not all) of the institutions that run this country. So any mistakes (a weak word for what they've done up to this point) will not directly affect them, to the extent that they will be kicked out of power. That kind of mistake will have to be so gargantuan that the entire system of world governance would collapse, and short of the results of ignoring global warming, I don't see that happening. (OK, I do see it happening, because I think that we will continue to refuse to do anything serious about global warming, which is the same as ignoring it. So, we end up with results that will be worse than the fall of the Roman Empire, if that can be imagined. Think the end of the dinosaurs.)

I thought long ago that certain things were becoming so institutionalized (I was watching the drug treatment programs get a hold in the criminal justice system) that we would never be able to kick them out. I see this with the control by the neocons over our institutions now.

I wonder how Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky manage to go on day after day intelligently criticising our system while being marginalized themselves?

Oh yeah, I suspect that the only reason Krugman hasn't been fired is that he is a Noble winner.

Drum Circle

So, I went to a drum circle today. I've never been to one before. No one told me it was participatory before I got there. Since, I have to lease whatever rhythm I happen to be able to show at any given moment, this was not the easiest couple of hours. And yes I was a dirty hippy back in the day, but I really only consumed music (and drugs), no I fully participated in the sex part thank you very much.

It (the drum circle today, not the sec back in the day) happened at a little new age kind of place called Asbury Chapel, a kind (at this time) new age place. Only middle aged and older white folks, plus one kid who was about two and who refused to drum at all (very strange).

Read 'em If Ya Got 'em

So we're starting a new book with www.dailylit.com : short stories for the summer. We will see how it goes, since I appear unable to do anything anyone tells me to do. How did I pass law school? Damned ifI know.

WOW

When I am depressingly right, I am apparently immediately depressingly right. And ok, maybe the photo is a little dramatic. No I don't think it is.

The News Just Gets Better and Better

Well, so I guess now we get to bail out European banks with no oversight either. Eventually these hundred billions of dollars start to add up, don't ya know? By the way anybody want to bet on how far the public option in the health insurance bill and card check get and what kind of pressure this administration will put on congress to get either of them passed?

Well fuck it, I am tired of losing while being right.

Ok I want to publicly apologize to anyone who cares for my vote in the last election. I really didn't think that he'd be this bad. I didn't think he'd be great, I just didn't think he'd be awful.

Writing

So I'm in this writers group (can't you tell) and we are having a writer's conference here in October. There will be a writing contest and there will be prizes given out. Last year (our first) we had ten entries. This year there are going to be eight prizes. It appears as though we have now got a special olympics writing contest: Show up and get a prize.

OOOPS: They cut out half the prizes sonow there will be only four. no longer no writer left behind.

Letterman Again

As Tbogg said apparently making fun of the crazed snowbilly family from up North, is now beyond the pale. How can making fun of an eighteen year old who got knocked up by her (now) ex-boyfriend and then became a public spokes person for abstinence be beyond the pale?

This eighteen year old is an adult and has decided to make herself a public figure. Her family decided to make her a public figure last year and did so. So she is fair game. Hell you think that she doesn't make money being a public figure, and telling kids "Don't fuck, see what happened to me." (Don't give me bullshit that Letterman was talking about the younger one. That is a high school debating position taken by the right wing for political gain and power, not a real statement of belief.)

But, beyond that the (for the most part) luke warm support of Letterman by many on the left is just kind of sad. "Well, he was offensive, but I kind of sort of will say that while we as a group should take the high road, I guess I think that he should be able to say what he wants. Sort of."

Fred Clark's essays on the Proctor and Gamble Satanism rumors makes a lot of very good points. I think he misses one, which is that most of it is about power. I think that the false outrage of the right on so many things is very close to these kind of simply not to be believed rumors (urban legends?) spread mostly by the right. If we can close that day care center, if we can make Proctor and Gamble explain and go to our religious leaders for clearance then we've shown our power.

It's the same with these outrages. If we can make Duncan Donuts and Rachel Ray withdraw that ad, if we can make Letterman cower and apologize then we have shown our power. It is not just that they need to show their power, but it translates into real power at some point. You get major media players and politicians withdrawing and explaining what they said and essentially crawling to the right for absolution of something that really, in a rational world, should not be a problem rightwingers have more leverage the next time.

They do not use up their power with these fake outrages they actually make themselves stronger. If we let these things continue on with no serious push back I think we are screwed. And by serious push back I do not include explaining first: "Well, it was a tasteless joke, but I still defend to, well not the death, but you know kind of until it becomes uncomfortable, his right to say it." They win, we lose.

Do you think that anyone who has a real platform will dare make another joke about Palin for a long time? I think not. Set game match. For today.

Sunday Again

Rudely Awakened

At last an action shot.

The back forty.

House Keeping

I've added a blog and removed a blog on the right. The addition is the ACLU torture blog which subsumes the torture memos I had up.

What Did You Expect

Wouldn't Want to actually help the people who they represent, now would they?

New York Times

Is it possible that I've been mislead by the New York Times?

Outrage

So why does the right gin up faux outrage over a joke or a scarf? Because they can force a change in the outward actions of someone who is not at the moment in their control and get a response. They are validated. Therefore, they do it because they can do it and because it shows everybody that they have that kind of power.

"We can make your life a living hell an we will for no or for damn little reason if we want to." Actually, normally the reasons are fake or they are just there to show the rest of us that they can and they will if you or you choose to cross them. Or as I say with the Duncan Donuts Rachel Ray thing just to show you what they can do.

The Letterman thing was obviously a joke about an adult who got knocked up and now holds herself out as an abstinence spokes person. Why is she not a reasonable target of sarcasm? Answer she is, but the right cannot allow it so they must attack.

The other part of that is that they are given the space on the news and teevee to bloviate. Then there seems to be somebody who claims to be progressive always saying well perhaps our person was a little out of line, the joke sexist, that Frost kid shouldn't have been put out there by his parents.

Then the right goes on attacking someone else. Hell maybe I do live in the end times.

Ok, We Are Just Stupid

Wow exiled to Bermuda and Palau. The journey really sucked though. $200 million to Palau to take a few of these innocent guys. Are we assholes or what? (Hint, the answer isn't what.)

Fucked Again

Well this is certainly helpful (for the wealthiest and for the insurance industry). I wasn't particularly hopeful about a public plan at any rate, but I suspect that this puts the kibosh on it.

I am old enough to remember when Johnson was pushing Medicare and Medicaid through and the screaming and wailing of the doctors and their representatives fighting against it. "Oh Noes, socialized medicine."

Now they suck on that tit like a month old baby. Well let's look at it from their point of view. "We get the medical care we need fuck you."

All Terror Time USA

Wow now I guess he showed us/them/whoever. Do you think that this will quiet critics of the government report on right wing violence? hahahahaha

Terrorists Win

So the terrorists have won. Think that there will be a lot of sadness expressed by either the media or politicians (other than the DFHs, of course)?

I certainly understand the decision by Tiller's family, but it still saddens and frustrates me. Women's options just got a whole lot smaller in this county. Boy what does that say about this country when the murder of one doctor can have that kind of effect.

A Ticking Time Bomb

So the murderer of Dr. Tiller says that more murders are planned. It's time to start torturing him immediately. I mean all the public media and most christians and republicans must be calling for his torture. Right?

Spy

So these guys are kind of neat. Spied for Cuba for thirty years. Wonder how they got caught?

Animals

Loki and Sonny watching Ming eat. Loki praying that she doesn't eat it all.

Ming and Loki resting after a hard day.

Tux and Halley resting after a hard day of running the house.

We've had a hard time with Loki and his stomach recently. Actually, he's not been well since we got him at about six weeks old. His stomach has been a problem for some time.

It got so bad that we took him to the vet the vet recommended pepsid and anti gas pills and we started to give them to him in coupious quanties. It would help him for a couple of hours and then he'd start to pant really hard again. The vet said that St. Bernards just had delicate stomachs. I thought that was odd since the St. we had when Iwas a kid didn't have a delicate stomach and my brother had had five and he'd never mentioned that any of them had delicate stomachs either.

At any rate the vet had no desire to do any tests and seemed absolutely positive about the diagnosis and what we needed to do for Loki.

Well we did it for a good while. Then the last week of May Loki threw up five out of seven days. And he threw up a lot. The last time he threw up was on Friday and I lost my mind. I ranted that there was something more here than just a delicate stomach and we were taking him into the vet to have tests run (something, as I said, that the vet seemed unwilling to do).

So the little woman, got on line and went to http://www.justanswer.com/ and typed in Loki's symptoms and other information and about four hours later we had a response.

The suggestions were for blood work, to treat the possibility of a weird kind of intestinal worm and to treat for Irritable Bowel Disease. Well we had a vet's appointment on the 9th so we decided to start treating him for the IBD, something we could do and we knew wouldn't hurt him. No dry food, yogurt with every meal, and make him walk after each meal. Withing two days there was a major change. No heavy breathing, sleeping through out the night, and no throw up.

Good lord, why do you wonder wasn't our vet able to suggest that this might be a problem and to suggest a simply change in diet to treat him?

Yet Another Post on Health Insurance

Actual unretouched photo of health insurance CEOs at work.

Sara Anderson had a comment on the Fucked Again post of a couple of days ago. She said, and I think I'm being fair, (you can look at her comment on that post): That requiring all people to buy insurance would require people who are young and healthy and probably don't now need health insurance to purchase it and therefore make the risk pool larger and since the new people would use the insurance less, the individual cost s/would go down for all. She caused me to think about what I'd written.

To paraphrase myself: I don't agree with what I see as her point. People buy all sorts of insurance (home insurance, life insurance, etc.) without being required to do so. I have family members who have made good livings selling insurance for a long time.

People do not buy health insurance because it is so expensive. When I quit working at legal aid, my wife (du jour) and I continued to pay for insurance even though we were both healthy and relatively young. Even under COBRA the price kept going up and up. Once we were off it sky rocketed. We had no health problems (other than allergies) and were both under forty.

I think the obscene profits and the insurance bureaucracy will simply be continued and institutionalized under mandatory plans forcing people who have little to spend it now on insurance, so the big boys get richer. And the rest of us will continue to be denied or physicians will have to have staffs to simply fight with the insurance industry to get the money out of them

The short answer is that I do not trust the insurance industry to not take the mandatory money and simply use it to increase their profits rather than lower the rates for everyone. I also do not expect service to be any better absent massive government oversight, which will in the long run simply not happen.

More Health Insurance Stuff

Krugman makes some very interesting points concerning how far to trust insurance companies. About THIS far. No really, however far that is on your computer and no farther. They will lie and cheat. Requiring everyone to buy health insurance may give the insurance companies a lot more money from people who will (for the time being) not use the insurance and therefore one could, in a just world, expect the industry to lower costs across the board, but I doubt it (a lot).

However, given the industry's history unless the government forces the industry to lower its' profit margin, they'll just take the money and run with it. Managing these companies profits would be well neigh impossible politically and probably completely impossible practically.

Crook's and Liars point out that it doesn't work that way in Massachusetts. The costs to the individual are still astronomical.

Deep Thought

I suspect that by allowing existing gay marriages to stand that the California Supreme Court has not taken all the wind out of the sails of gay marriage advocates, but has caused a little shortening (if you'll forgive a rather protracted and labored metaphor).

We'll see.

Fucked Again

Health Insurance is to be required, like automobile insurance? Apparently with a subsidy for "poor people" who can't afford it otherwise. Whatever that means. Actually, what it really means is that the subsidy will really be for the insurance companies.

What it means also, is that the working poor will and those in the lower middle class will be required to forgo something else and will still get some sort of bare minimum coverage. People who have what is considered, in our very own third world insurance county of Ohio, good coverage have to fight with their company to get their medical procedures covered will still have to fight. They will be offered policies that provide bare minimum coverage. In the meantime the companies will make out like bandits. A license to steal to coin a phrase.

This is of course being proposed by those who have the best insurance coverage in America, without having to pay for it. And being opposed by those in essentially the same position.

Our rulers know best

now don't you worry your pretty little head about it.

Execution

My god, I did not even realize that this was happening yesterday. I saw nothing, nor did I get any email warnings.

So now they knock the guy out before they give him a lethal injection. I've always wondered why we don't just give they guy an over dose of heroin, it seems to work well on junkies. Or the stuff given, by vets, to animals, except a larger dose? If that is, if we have decided that we do not want the condemned to suffer, and we seem to have. Why all the studies by so called medical people to find the proper amounts to be injected.

Hell I could go out and for $100.00 get all the necessary fixings, although the condemned would probably flop around quite a bit, but he wouldn't feel it. On the other hand it would probably be uncomfortable for the witnesses.

Well Now

This is about as bizarre a take on the suicide at Guantanamo as one can imagine. Although, given where it was published I can only assume that it is probably an acceptable way for the right to excuse what we are doing in our various gulags around the world.

Man are these people cold.

Dirty Fucking Hippies

So I got this email from a friend who works for a college and wonders why students can't live on the money they get from the school, especially when the money is about five times the amount of tuition.

It caused me to think back to my college days in the late 60s and early 70s of the last century. Let's see I got a Pell grant, I worked about fifteen hours a week at a job on campus subsidized by the government and I received money from the GI Bill (such as it was at that time). It was less in actual money than my father received for his WWII work[?], but more than the people who served after me got in real money. My girl friend (with whom I lived, nudge nudge wink wink) got everything I got, but instead of GI money she got Social Security money for her dead father. Incidentally, I think that it is about time I linked to General Smedley, as I haven't done that for awhile.

So we spent the Pell money on books and tuition (and we always had a little left over), the SS and GI money on food and rent and etc. (and we always had a little left over). The student work money (and the little left over), we spent on dope (and booze) and records and concerts. My god what at time we had.

But, you know, these kids now a days are so wasteful, and their music, it's just noise.

Aren't We Just Brave As All Get Out (although breave is also good)

Well isn't this just precious? Aren't we just brave and wonderful? Isn't it just great that a majority of us think torture is well just swell? And you know, no matter what the experts say and those whose real job is to get information, well gee that Chaney guy has been so right so many times before, well I guess we should just believe him on this too.

Terrorist Assassination

You know that what happened to Dr. Tiller was the logical conclusion of the right wing hate rhetoric concerning abortions. If this guy murdered thousands then it really is OK to assassinate him, isn't it?

It seems to me that the left and women's right groups need to take this kind of thing into account. We do not need to just take the high road, we need to arm, quite frankly. Does that sound unreasonable? Really, all law comes from the end of a gun as our friend the Chairman said (that is not justice, but law). I think that we really do need to be prepared to shoot back.

A further thought, they (the right wing hate/anti-abortion groups) to a group cry great crocodile tears and whine about how just terrible this killing is, but do you think that their hate filled rhetoric will change one iota? I would strongly advise not holding your breath.

Also, if you do not think that there is a pretty direct link between the rhetoric and the assassination, you are a sad and pathetic excuse for a thinking object.